NetCrunch 9.2 Released: Over 800 changes and 33 new features
Nominally only a minor release, NetCrunch 9.2 is a major step forward. This article will briefly summarize the most important changes out of over 800 changes and 33 new or improved features. Existing customers will have NetCrunch 9.2 added to the customer portal in the coming days, whereas trial users can jump right in, even if they’ve run previous versions.
Major Changes
NetCrunch Users and Access Management
User accounts and access profiles have been redesigned and now both the console and as well as WebAccess use the same accounts for authentication. The new User & Access Rights Manager window is much easier to use than in previous versions. Additionally, various settings are synchronized with user profiles and between the desktop and web console. The new “NetCrunch Audit” Monitoring Pack allows you to monitor failed NetCrunch login attempts.
Administration Console Login
The Administration Console requires NetCrunch Administration access to be assigned to a user profile. We recommend that you create and use separate accounts for each NetCrunch administrator.
Solaris Monitoring and disk monitoring extension
NetCrunch 9.2 includes new a SSH remote monitoring engine and Monitoring Pack for Solaris systems. Additionally, the monitoring of disks has been extended for all Unix family systems.
Integration Module
NetCrunch 9.2 offers integration with several external service desk and messaging services. This means that when NetCrunch opens an external ticket, it can also automatically close this ticket when the alert is closed. Two way integration also allows for the alert to be automatically closed in NetCrunch after the ticket had been closed in the external system. NetCrunch 9.2 supports the most popular services, but more services be added in future versions.
The Integration Module consists of two parts:
- Integration Profiles which allow you to set a communication channel with the external service
- Integration Actions which are used to trigger messages and ticketing actions.
NetCrunch 9.2 currently supports: freshdesk, HipChat, IFTTT, pagerduty, slack, trello, twitter and zendesk.
Event Details
This new window offers better insight into event parameters and implements many useful features. It also allows you to change various alert parameters, analyze alert frequency and allows administrators to add comments.
Features and Improvements by Category
Monitoring
SNMPv3 improvements
NetCrunch supports using an additional field (context) for SNMPv3 monitoring. It also supports monitoring layer 2 segments on Cisco switches using SNMPv3.
SNMP string value monitoring
NetCrunch supports creating alerts based on string SNMP values:
- Equals to
- Not equals to
- Contains
- Not contains
- Matches regular expression
- Change (any to any)
Monitoring of Solaris systems
NetCrunch 9.2 contains a new SSH engine and 4 new Monitoring Packs for Solaris monitoring.
Better disk space monitoring on all Unix family systems
NetCrunch 9.2 extends disk monitoring capabilities for each Unix family system. This is based on the iostats tool features available on particular systems:
- 14 new disk metrics for BSD
- 4 new disk metrics for Mac OS X
- 28 new disk metrics for Linux
- 32 disk metrics available for Solaris
Interactive Sensor Testing
After configuring a sensor, you can now test its configuration by using the new Test button. Here is an example test of HTTP request sensor:
New Monitoring Packs
- HP ProCurve Switch
- Sophos Antivirus Server
- vCenter Server 6.0
- Cisco ASA VPN Tunnels Statistics
- Cisco Unified Communications Manager
- Java Application Server (SNMP)
- Veeam Backup and Replication Server
- Barracuda Firewall
- Generic Printer
Updated Monitoring Packs
- ESXi datastore monitoring
- Cisco SNMP
Monitoring of WebMessages (sending alerts via REST API)
NetCrunch 9.2 adds another tab to the External Events window. Messages can be sent using REST API and using the HTTP protocol from any application. After receiving a message, you can create an alert for it. This feature works in a similar way to syslog messages and SNMP traps.
Alert Management
Redesigned Event Details window
The new Event Details window offers you better insight into event parameters and implements many useful features which give you more flexibility to fine tune alert settings.
- Change various alert parameters. You can easily disable an alert or change its parameters or alerting actions
- Shows the Monitoring Packs where the event is defined and allows you to adjust it if necessary
- Analyzing alert frequency
- Comments can be added to alerts and the last comment will be visible in the event log
- Display a performance chart calculated in the same way as the threshold is monitored
Integration Actions
The Action window contains a new section with Integration actions. These actions also require an Integration Profile to be defined in order to set up communication with external service.
Console and Data Presentation
New Trend Viewer
The NetCrunch trend viewer has been improved in order to better present various metrics collected by the software.
New features:
- More chart display types: trend, trend + range, stacked, and area. Range charts automatically display min, max and average data.
- Custom series scaling and adjustable units
- The ability to compare counters across multiple nodes by choosing the counter first, then selecting the nodes for which it’s been collected
- Various performance improvements
Improved Performance Views
The Bar chart has been improved and uses the same color schemes as the other chart types. Additionally, a small triangle next to the value shows the latest change direction. Charts support SNMP tick unit conversion to standard time units (seconds, milliseconds). All charts perform animations for better change indication.
When you hold the shift key while hovering over performance line charts, the hint window is synchronized and displayed on all charts as below.
Improved charts in reports
Reports charts also use range charts to show min and max values in a given time range.
Redesigned Monitoring Issue Window
This new window allows for easier reviewing and fixing of all issue categories. You can select all nodes affected by an issue and fix it with one click. The window is now also available in the Web Console.
New Node Notes
This new window delivers better note management. Each note can be easily commented on by NetCrunch users and can have labels and due dates attached. Notes can’t be deleted, but you can archive them with single click.
Smaller UI changes
Ability to disable task auto popup: You can now switch off the auto pop-up feature and only limit the view to blue dots with the number of tasks that require your attention.
New Filtering conditions: You can now create a view for nodes having an IP address assigned or not assigned.
(WebAccess) Node Properties Tab: Node properties are now accessible in WebAccess in read-only mode.
(WebAccess) Auto collapsing Atlas Tree: When no maps are available for the user (due to access rights settings), the Atlas Tree is automatically collapsed.
SNMP MIB search improvement: You can use multiple words when searching MIB objects (i.e. cisco status)
Manage Monitoring Packs folders: You can now manage the folders of your Monitoring Packs:
New Windows
Atlas Configuration Wizard: This new wizard helps you better manage automatic Monitoring Packs. You can disable rules and packs according to your monitoring preferences. Additionally, creating a default notification scheme has been improved. You can to set actions on alert close and decide to get notifications only for critical alerts.
API Key Manager: Allows you to manage API keys for applications that need to send data to NetCrunch using REST API. Currently, it can be used for two-way PagerDuty integration.
New Credentials Manager: Managing monitoring credentials has been moved to a separate window and is much easier to use now.
New Remote Sessions window: This window can be used to see all connected users and to terminate any connection.
Integration Profiles: Define parameters required for each integration channel. This includes parameters required by external service providers such as keys, passwords etc.
GrafCrunch 2.6
The new GrafCrunch version is based on the current stable release of Grafana 2.6. The most important feature for NetCrunch users is that you can now connect to multiple NetCrunch servers and create summary dashboards on a single screen.
New features:
- Ability to connect to multiple NetCrunch Servers
- Putting series from multiple datasources into a single chart
- New and improved time picker
- New powerful and flexible table panel
- More axis units for graphs (Length, Volume, Temperature, Pressure, etc)
- Graph option to hide series with all zeroes from legend and tooltips
- Resize the panel by dragging the lower right corner
Breaking changes
- User access rights can’t be upgraded
- The object access rights tab has been removed from Node, Map and Atlas properties windows. You can manage access rights by using the User & Access Rights Manager window
- The Global notes window is not available. Notes can be accessed from the Node Properties window
Other Changes
- NCCLI — command line utility allows you to reset the admin password on the NetCrunch Server: nccli reset-admin-password
- Stability and Performance Improvements — we constantly improve the stability and scalability of NetCrunch by performing multiple stress tests.
Conclusion
Version 9.2 of our NetCrunch network monitoring suite is a major update, despite only being a small version number change. We have completed over 800 changes and added or improved 33 features.
Existing clients with active maintenance agreements will be able to download NetCrunch 9.2 via the customer portal in the coming days.
Trial users can download NetCrunch 9.2 directly and get a 30-day unlimited node trial license, even if they’ve demoed previous versions. On top of that, our trial license includes access to tech support, as well as free installation assistance via live webinar if you’d like a tech to assist you in setting up a proof-of-concept.