Adrem Netcrunch - What's New?

Added ability to add custom device without SNMP filtering

Added automatic action name management

Added reports to MS SQL 2005 policy

Demo atlas errors fixed

Map layout performance issues fixed

Bug fixed in processing email actions

Processing notifications improved

Fixed issues influencing overall stability

Includes critical bug fixes in NT Event Log Monitor

Fixed licensing issues

Other minor bugs fixed

New colors and icons is the first thing you'll notice, but there is a lot more under the hood. NetCrunch 5 comes with new monitoring extensions, built-in monitoring policies, improved user interface, and redesigned alerting and reporting.

Added support for browsing large event log data set

Added functionality to combine the same Syslog and SNMP trap events into one event with information how many times those events have been received.

Optimized access to event database

Option to set number of last incoming events kept in Alert Notification window

Option to select Widows share used for remote connection to Windows platform

Ability to export trends from multiple nodes at once

Optimized drawing of maps

Updated Web Access

Enhanced physical segments support

Enhanced support for Nortel devices

Service monitoring problem fixed

Exchange performance counters monitoring problem fixed

Network Monitoring

New WinTools utility for browsing Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) information and creating own queries

Enhanced bandwidth monitoring – now the program automatically selects nodes that should be monitored for bandwidth and creates appropriate performance views.

Redesigned Windows performance monitor
- It is now much faster and transfers less data
- Extended error information – shows all errors
- New columns added were: Last Error, Performance Data Size, Performance Data Read Time (ms)

Trending / Reporting

New – Performance Trend Exporter – allows users to export performance trend data to external SQL databases. Most popular databases are supported such as:
- MS SQL Server 2000/2005
- MS Access 2000 or higher
- Oracle 9i/10g
- MySQL 5.x
- Interbase 7.x
- ODBC Data Sources
* MySQL 5.0.18 via MySQL ODBC 3.51 Driver
* PostgreSQL 8.0 via PostgreSQL ANSI Driver
* MaxDB (SAP DB) 7.6 via MySQL MaxDB 7.06 driver

Remote Access

Remote access session logging – network supervisors can now determine what users connected remotely to NetCrunch, at what time, from what address, and what actions they performed.

Event Management

New Monitoring Events
- Heartbeat Event – NetCrunch can now periodically generate a heartbeat event indicating the NetCrunch status. For instance, users can receive an SMS each hour confirming that the program is up and running.
- Node State Event – event is generated when a particular node is not in a certain state at a certain time

Compatibility and Maintenance

The Node Notes option – users can add their own notes to each node. Each note consists of date, category and text. Additionally program allows users to open notes window and filter all notes of selected map or all nodes.

User Interface Extensions
- Now users can instantly determine which maps a given node belongs to and quickly browse to these maps (including logical and physical network maps)
- IP networks folders now can be fully customized and managed
- Physical Mapping Wizard – helps users configure the physical mapping procedure
- Ability to customize segment and port names on physical maps
- Alert preview window was extended to include a counter history chart (if an event relates to a given performance counter)
- Extended map summary information
- Users can now access toolbar buttons even when they are hidden (like task bar toolbars)
- All status windows now are "on top" to avoid opening too many status windows (the Close All option was added)

Network Discovery and Visualization

Extended physical networks maps and wizard. Users can now add unmanageable devices and manually edit the map layout

Ability to set network mask for the node – as a result, networks are no longer limited to the RFC class masks.