ACTIVEXPERTS NETWORK MONITOR 5.3 RELEASE NOTES

INTRODUCTION

ActiveXperts Network Monitor 5.3 is the newest version of the ActiveXperts Network Monitor product. The mission of the product is to maximize the reliability of your production servers and applications through the automatic detection and correction of problems and issues. The product runs as a service on the Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 platform. The ActiveXperts Network Monitor 5.3 configuration database is compatible with all previous versions of the product.

WHAT'S NEW IN ACTIVEXPERTS NETWORK MONITOR 5.3

- New Monitor Functions -

• CPU Usage function: Monitor CPU usage on Windows NT4 and higher platforms.
• Directory Size function: you can now monitor directory sizes on servers, for instance: Home Directory of users. Get notified when directories get too large;
• File Size function: you can now monitor file sizes on servers, like directory sizes;
• IMAP4 function: In previous versions, ActiveXperts provided SMTP- and POP3 function to monitor your mail servers. Now, an IMAP4 based function is introduced;
• LDAP function: you can now send an LDAP query to a server and analyze the response;
• MS Terminal Server function: Monitor the availability of MS Terminal Servers, based on the RDP ("Remote Desktop Protocol") protocol;
• NNTP News Server function: Monitor intranet and internet news servers, and be sure discussion forums are online;
• SNMP function: Use the widespread accepted SNMP ("Simple Network Management Protocol") protocol to query Windows, UNIX and LINUX platforms. The result of the function is based on the result of the SNMP query reponse.

- Logging -

• Logging of notification - In v.5.3, all notifications are logged into the Log files and reported in the Activity View. Each notification log entry shows whether a notification was sent successful or not. This way, an administrators can check if an operator was notified about an incident or not;

- Notifications -

• Improved SMS support: SMS and Pager support was very basic in the previous versions. Now, there's support for SMSC (Short Message Service Centers) providers. ActiveXperts Network Monitor supports TAP/XIO providers, as well as UCP providers. So, you just need a nomal Hayes compatible modem to send out an SMS message. For those who prefer direct connected GSM to send out SMS messages, ActiveXperts introduced SMS support through mobiles phones;
• 'Notification' and 'Action' configuration items all have a 'Test' button in the Manager application. This way, you can test if your SMTP settings are correct, your SMSC provider is working well, and so on.

- Reports -

• Up- and downtime accuracy: Up- and downtimes are now more accurate (percentages now have two decimals), providing more accurate SLA reports;

- Miscellaneous -

• Service Control Tool - It's now possible to stop and start the ActiveXperts Network Monitor Service from the Manager application, by clicking the 'Service' button on the toolbar, or by selecting the 'Service' item from the 'Tools' menu;
• Samples included - The majority of the Monitor functions have a working sample included. Each sample can be loaded from its respective configuration dialog. The sample makes clear how to use the Monitor function;
• 'Not Monitored' and 'Uncertain' status - In previous versions of Network Monitor, all rules that could not be indicated as 'Success' or 'Error' were indicated as 'Unknown'. In v.5.3, 'Unknown' does not exist anymore, and two new status results are introduced: 'Not Monitored' and 'Uncertain'; 'Not Monitored' means: not monitored (yet). 'Uncertain' means: result can not be determined for some reason;
• The 'Activity Log' is now called: 'Activity View', because 'Activity Log' was very often confused with the regular Log files;
• Password encryption: In previous versions of Network Monitor, some password were stored unencrypted in the Network Monitor configuration file. Now, all passwords are stored encrypted.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed: Monitor interval was limited to 999 seconds; only seconds were accepted as unit of time. For instance, it was not possible to monitor every 24 hours. In v.5.3, you can now choose the unit of time: seconds, minutes, hours or days;
• Fixed: Number of dependencies were limited to 47 rules; now this is unlimited;
• Fixed: VBScript functions now show the exact line number when there's a syntax error in the script;

INSTALLATION AND UPGRADE

- Installation -

To learn more about installing the product for the first time, please read our manual.

- Upgrade -

Upgrading from a previous version should be done in the following way:

• Make a backup of the current configuration - although not really necessary, it's a good practise to do so;
• Uninstall all 'ActiveXperts Network Monitor Manager' application on the PCs that have the Manager application installed. Use the 'Add/Remove Programs' applet in the Control Panel to start the Uninstall
• Uninstall the 'ActiveXperts Network Monitor' software on the monitoring server. Use the 'Add/Remove Programs' applet in the Control Panel to start the Uninstall;
• Install the 'ActiveXperts Network Monitor' software on the monitoring server;
• Install the 'ActiveXperts Network Monitor Manager' application on the PCs of the operators.