Verax NMS is a highly scalable, integrated IT service assurance solution for cross-silos management & monitoring of networks, data centers, applications and clouds. ======================== = VMWARE QUICK START = ======================== Minimal RAM requirement for a VMware virtual machine running Verax NMS is 4GB. 1. Run downloaded VMware image in VMware player or compatible VMware product. 2. Login to the Linux CentOS operating system from it console. Use the following credentials: Login: root Password: nms 3. Check the IP address obtained from DHCP by issuing the ifconfig command. This IP address will be required to login to NMS or AC console from your web browser. 4. Open a web browser and enter one of the following URL in address bar: For NMS - http://hostname:9400/nms For AC - http://hostname:9200/ac Note that hostname is IP address of your machine obtained from DHCP (see step 3). e.g. http://192.168.215.130:9200/ac 5. A login page is displayed. Enter the following credentials to login in to NMS or AC: Username: admin Password: pass All *system passwords* (including Linux root, Oracle database, etc.) are "nms". Highlights of release 1.8.0 (23-Dec-2011) ========================================== This release contains significant improvements in processing object status. It also contains new application plugins as well as numerous minor fixes and enhancements. New Features (as compared to prior 1.7.3 release): * Oracle 11g support. Express edition comes with bundled Oracle 11g Express with 11GB of database space available for Verax NMS. * New plugins: Microsoft Exchange, Exchange, Active Directory, Java application, JBoss, IPMI, Broadsoft Network Server, Broadsoft Application Server, Broadsoft EMS, Acme Pack, Infrontend Storage. * Unified and more efficient processing of object statuses including changes in processing logic (sliding window management and event management). * Improved status presentation in GUI (status on counter charts, "Monitor" tab improved, presenting status for new managed objects). * Added status calculation to counters and applications. * Modified status for sensors by including critical and warning thresholds. Moved aspect status calculation to the backend process. * Full service monitoring due to incorporating processing of aspect statuses and aspect related events and alarms. * Separated options for generation events and alarms from monitors (options: no alerting, only events, events and alarms). * Configurable aspect status propagation rules (added a rule to allow modeling of redundant infrastructures, e.g. server farms or HA environments). * Optimized sensor and counter collector for more efficient memory and database space use. * Optimized handling of managed objects:optimized object transfer between backend and frontend, optimized database queries. * Enabled adding sensors and counters to aspect (allows creating services based on monitors, e.g. user experience for web applications based on HTTP sensor). * Redesigned "My Infrastructure" view to show summary information on the first tab. * New "Dashboards" menu containing user-defined dashboards (each dashboard can contain pre-defined or user-configured dashlets). * Introduced background statistics module to calculate status breakdowns by device types, applications, aspects, etc. and preparing data for top 10 reports. These statistics are used by new dashboards. * Added generic event processor rule to Event Processor (to cover most of the event processing requirements, to speed up configuration process and to process events more efficiently). * Event Processor GUI split into 2 more specific views: basic event configuration (based on generic rule) and advanced configuration (based on old event processing rules mechanism). * Out of the box event processing configuration for SNMPv2-MIB generic traps. * Fix for parsing OIDs of SNMP v1 generic traps. * Support for submitting incidents to external systems (e.g. Verax Trouble Ticketing). Allows raising and clearing incidents. Based on pluggable modules to easy integration with external systems from vendors other than Verax. * Added specific SQL Query sensor and counter to databases which derive some settings from application. Moved JDBC from application level to device level. IMPORTANT NOTE: Some monitor types were removed what may require manual intervention to restore application monitoring if legacy monitors were in use. * New feature "Acquire a single sample" retrieving current response value for a sensor or a counter. * Beta version support for the German language in the user interface. * Improved online help (layout redesigned, added section on preparing application to monitoring, Event configuration view, sensor and counter probing methods described in more detail, new section on Dashboards, and more). * Option to skip certificate validation in the HTTPS sensor. * Operations of removal devices, events and alarms improved for performance. * Option to cancel time-consuming operations of removal of devices, events and alarms. * Ability to configure number of retries and session timeout for SNMP. * Introduced Dozer fix to speed up mapping of objects on the server side. * Introduced BlazeDS fix to destroy expired messaging objects (JMS) to prevent memory leaks on long lasting client sessions. * Added progress bars to multi-edit operations to trace progress and prevent unexpected timeouts. * Improved mechanism of reloading counter collector configuration on frequent changes. * Changed alarm clearing method in Baseline Monitor to decrease number of alarms. * Optimized SQL queries in Data Aggregator to be executed as prepared statements to improve performance. * Other numerous minor fixes and enhancements. Highlights of release 1.7.3 (21-Sep-2011) ========================================== This release contains significant performance improvements in two areas: Data Aggregator daemon and NMS GUI (esp. in events and alarms views). It also contains new device & application plugins as well as numerous minor fixes and enhancements. New Features (as compared to prior 1.7.2 release): * New network management plugins: Emerson HPS UPS, AcmePacket SBC, Juniper BRAS, Juniper Firewall and Juniper Router * .NET Framework management plugin * User-configurable number of aggregation levels * Improved task scheduling in the Data Aggregator * Optimized memory and database usage in the Data Aggregator * New native library for ICMP PING sensor on Windows (increased performance, accurate response time calculations) * Fixed SNMP MIB files parsing in SNMP Trap listener (sometimes it would fail depending on loaded MIBs order) * Changed Java memory settings for all NMS processes (-Xmx and -Xms options) in order to improve system performance * Enhanced notification templates for better look and readability * Fix in multiple clearing events generated by Baseline Monitor * Fix in VMware monitors * Total number of events and alarms counted upon user-request in the GUI (significant database load reduction) * Fix in worker management on non-latin Windows versions (e.g. Chinese, Japanese) * Improved online help (added section on collecting SNMP traps and syslog events, other minor improvements) Highlights of release 1.7.2 (17-Aug-2011) ========================================== This release contains more than 100 minor enhancements and fixes as well as significant performance improvements. New Features (as compared to prior 1.7.1 release) * New IMAP and DHCP sensors * PostgreSQL management plugin * Support for 64-bit interface traffic counters * Event processing enhancements: improved access to VariableBindings by Event processing rules * Deletion of counter/sensor data moved to background in order to speed up counter/sensor deletion * Optimized data aggregation performance * Fix in licensing management (default licenses for express edition occasionally would not work) * Re-enabled the VMware support Highlights of release 1.7.1 (16-Jul-2011) ========================================== * First version available in the download & install form New Features (as compared to prior 1.6.1 release) * Improved Windows installer with bundled Oracle Express database * Internet based upgrades (Windows version) * Pre-defined network reports * Enhanced tray monitor (compatible with Windows 2008 server)