ACTIVEXPERTS NETWORK MONITOR 5.41 RELEASE NOTES

INTRODUCTION

ActiveXperts Network Monitor 5.41 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 5.41 configuration database is compatible with all previous versions of the product.

WHAT'S NEW IN ACTIVEXPERTS NETWORK MONITOR 5.41

- Logging -

• Logging to a database - Network Monitor can now log activities to MS Access, MS SQL and other ADO/OLE DB complaint databases. The product is shipped with a standard MS Access database called Log.mdb so database logging is working out of the box. There is a step-by-step explanation of how to migrate from MS Access logging to MS SQL logging; MDAC 2.5 is required;
• Full logging - In previous versions of Network Monitor, only state changes were logged. With the introduction of database logging in v.5.41, you can configure to log ALL monitoring information;
• Logging temperatures - Instead of only checking temperature values, you can now also log temperatures to a database. You can log to any ADO/OLE DB compliant database, including MS Access and MS SQL Server. Logging temperatures requires a Sensatronics temperature device.

- User Interface -

• Comments field - Each rules now has an extra field called Comments. Use this field to add your own comments to a rule, like a small description, etc. The comments field is not used by the Network Monitor Engine.
• Date and Time - Date and time formats can be customized, instead of using the standard American date and time format. You can select a preferred date and time format. These date and time formats are used in log files, reports, the Network Monitor Manager application, and other components.

- Web Views -

• Web Views were called 'XML Views' in previous versions Network Monitor. 'XML Views' are now called 'Web Views'. The 'Web Views' are read-only views of the network. They can be viewed by an Internet Browser by the use of XSL style sheets. This only requires one port on the firewall (default: port 80) to allow monitoring the network from a remote location. The Web Views can be customized by editing the XSL templates. It's easy to configure the XSL template, for instance to change: sorting, colors, listed items, row- and column sizes, and more. This is a unique feature of Network Monitor, and very often used by the HelpDesk staff.
• Web Views now support Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and other non ISO-8859 formats. Network Monitor generates UTF-8 formatted XML pages instead of ISO-8859-1 pages. UTF-8 enables any character set in the Web Views;
• There are new sample Web Views included.

- Notifications -

• Chinese and Japanese e-mail support - Network Monitor now supports different character sets for e-mail notifications, including ISO-8859-1 (Standard English), big5 (traditional Chinese) and ISO-2202-jp (Japanese);
• Numeric Pager support - Previous versions of Network Monitor already had alpha-numeric SMS support. Now, Network Monitor also supports numeric pager support;
• SNMP support - Network Monitor can now send SNMP traps to SNMP Management platforms.

- Reports -

• XML Reports now support Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and other non ISO-8859 formats. Network Monitor generates UTF-8 XML pages instead of ISO-8859-1 pages. UTF-8 enables any character set in the XML Reports;
• HTML Reports also support Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and other non ISO-8859 formats, just like the XML Reports.

- Miscellaneous -

• Improved NTP accuracy in the NTP check - The NTP seconds field in a date/time string was always displayed as 0 seconds in previous versions; the software now shows the right number of seconds;
• File Existence check - The File Existence check now has the option to consider the result as 'Error' if the file criteria are matched. This is useful when checking log files for certain patterns. If the pattern is matched (for instance: 'Backup Failed') then the check can be considered as 'Error';
• The Disk Space check now accepts shares other than standard administrative shares (C$, D$, etc.). When - for instance - the standard C$ administrative share has been renamed to CDRIVE$, you can enter CDRIVE$ in the Disk Space Setup dialog, and the Network Monitor Engine calculate disk space of the disk referred to by this administrative share;
• Multiple maintenance schedules - You can now define multiple schedules instead of one schedule, globally and for individual rules;
• VBScript debugger - Use the ActiveXperts debugging component to write trace information to a file. This component will make it easier to debug custom VBScript routines;
• ActiveXperts Communication Components integration - Use ActiveComport, ActiveSocket, ActiveEmail or ActiveXperts SMS and Pager Toolkit in VBScript functions without the requirement of separate licenses for these components. For more information about these products, visit www.activexperts.com/products.

BUG FIXES

• Fixed: The MS Exchange function now also works for MS Exchange 2003.
• Fixed: Action Parameters. In version 5.40, a small bug was introduced: all parameters were ignored in 'Action' scripts. This is fixed in v.5.41.

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.