webapp to drive/monitor a bunch of system processes

hi... i've got a project (goal) where i'm looking for a webbased app that drives/runs/monitors different linux/system processes. i'm basically looking for different apps that i can look at to get ideas/see their layout/structure. i'm going to have to create a similar app to run some processes that i'm dealing with. i'm currently looking/searchin sourceforge.net/freshmeat/etc.. but i thought i'd fire off the question here as well, in case someone has an app that they're aware of that you can pass on to me.. my overall/ultimate goal is going to be to interface with underlying database/tbls, to drive processes on a distributed network of machines that i'm putting together... so i'm going to need to be able to to monitor/start/stop a number of different apps that i create. i'm also looking to be able to see past history of the apps that have been run using the webapp... but for now, any app that i can find that allows a user to manage/start/stop different processes on a server/network would be useful.. (already looked at nagios!) thanks!!