What s new in ProactiveWatch 2.1! 1. ProactiveWatch 2.1 brings tighter integration with the RemoteCommand (FreeMyIT) system, providing new Task Manager -like features available from Manage Computers, including Real-Time Performance Graphs, Processes, Users and Services lists, giving you visibility into, and the ability to interact with, services and processes on any remote system that has the RemoteCommand agent installed and running. To access the new features, you will need to make sure you have the latest Explorer, (v2.1.1029 or above), updated ProactiveWatch agents, and updated RemoteCommand Agents (1.0.0058 or later). Updates for the Explorer and ProactiveWatch agents are available from the Manage Portal, or from Download from within the Explorer (shown to the right). Of course, you can use Settings->Manage Updates to update existing agents at client sites. Check the version and perform an update of the RemoteCommand agent(s) by logging into the RemoteCommand system from the RemoteCommand tab. Click the Robots link at the top left to display the list of robots, select the systems to be updated, and click Update Selected to have those systems automatically update to the latest version. To access these new features, select the row of the desired system, right-click and choose Manage Computers. You will see new tabs for Performance, Processes, Users and Services as detailed below. V091214 2009 ProactiveWatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 1
a. Real-time Performance Graph. Select the Performance tab to display graphs of CPU and Memory for the selected system. Also displayed is the Task Manager-like information for Handles, Threads and Processes, Memory, Session and Input/Output information. This information is updated in realtime every 15 seconds. b. Process List The Processes tab lists the currently running processes, along CPU and Memory Usage, updated every 15 seconds. You may sort by clicking the column headings. Select a process, and click End Process to terminate that process or application. c. Users The Users tab displays the current users on the system for multi-user systems. This will be blank for single user machines. Select a User/Session and click Reset User Session should you need to clear or reset a terminal server session. V091214 2009 ProactiveWatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2
d. Services The Services Tab is similar to Services.msc; it displays the Service Name of the services on the remote system along with the Status, and Startup Type. Click a column heading to sort. Select a service to Start, Stop or Restart that service on the remote system. V091214 2009 ProactiveWatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 3
2. Override Monitor Template There are two main uses for the use of Override Monitor Template. One is when you need to change a limited number of settings for just a single machine and the remaining monitoring settings in the standard template are fine. For instance, on a legacy/slower system you might want to increase just the CPU % threshold and would prefer not to create a new template. Another use is for setting specific variables in templates like Exchange Enhanced or the new [Round-Trip] Mail Monitor, without having to create a new template (which was a necessary step prior to this new feature). To use the Override feature, select the system from the main grid, and choose Edit->Properties (F2) to bring up the Properties dialog box as shown to the right. Select the Overide checkbox, and choose Edit to bring up the selected Monitoring Template settings, make and save your changes. You may perform Overrides for Base Templates and Add-On Templates. A system that has Overrides applied will be shown with a Red dot in Monitoring Templates, Assign Tab, as shown in the system to the right. V091214 2009 ProactiveWatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 4
3. New Round-Trip Email Monitor There is a new enhanced monitoring template, Mail Monitor, that allows you to perform round-trip email monitoring of your client s hosted (or non-exchange) email systems! (This version will not work if SSL is required.) Clone the Mail Monitor template, or assign it to a system and use the aforementioned Override feature, in order to configure the variables for the system. At a minimum, you will need to create a designated email address and specify: - Email_From and Email_To addresses - the SMTP information (which does not need to be the same server) - and enable at least one of IMAP, POP or MAPI and configure the related variables The default schedule is to send and then retrieve the test email every 5 minutes, 24x7x365. (Change the schedule by clicking into the Schedule field.) The process is that ProactiveWatch will send the test email as configured, then login via the enabled Check_ methods to retrieve the test email. It will delete all emails in the test mailbox after each check, so this must be a mailbox designated only for ProactiveWatch s use. Use Settings->Manage Columns to add the Email column to the right side in the Selected panel if you wish to have a visible indicator of alarms from this monitor. To test that this is working, [temporarily] enable ALARM_ON_SUCCESS. V091214 2009 ProactiveWatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 5
4. Work Alarms screen new shortcut links To speed working with alarms, there is a link that will allow you to instantly create a ticket in Autotask (similar to using the Notification Rule to send an email to open a ticket.) There are two short-cut links. The first will bring up the Manage Computer panel, which will allow you to view real-time performance, start/stop services and kill processes. The second shortcut link will bring up the RemoteCommand panel for the system. 5. SNMP Bandwidth Monitoring ProactiveWatch can perform bandwidth monitoring of network devices (like switches and routers) via SNMP Gets. Two improvements to SNMP Network Device Bandwidth monitoring are: a. Reports will now include kbps (as well as the previous % utilization metrics). b. Line Speed values may specified for individual interfaces for more meaningful % reporting and alarm thresholds. ProactiveWatch performs SNMP walks to determine the serial ports on the devices being monitored, and also queries the device for the line speed which is used to calculate the bandwidth utilization percentages for reporting and threshold alerting. Often the device returns the maximum capable speed of the port which does not match the actual line speed. For example, the port may be capable of 100 Mbps, but in actuality it is connected to a 1.5 Mbps data line. ProactiveWatch cannot know that it is 1.5 Mbps, so all calculations are performed using 100 Mbps. This new feature allows you to supply the actual line speeds to be used in the monitoring and reporting calculations. To supply the line speed for the ports being monitored, you will either clone the Network Device template (from Settings- >Monitoring Templates), or use the Override feature described above, then enter the actual line speeds as shown: V091214 2009 ProactiveWatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 6
Step 1: From Edit Template, click any one of the Configure buttons associated with Column Bandwidth Usage (they all go to the same place.) Step 2: In the Configure SNMP panel, enter the interface numbers and the corresponding Line Speed ProactiveWatch should use for its calculations: If you are not sure what the interface numbers are for a device, you can use View Metrics to see the Serial interfaces that ProactiveWatch detected. (Note: There are two reasons that View Metrics could be blank. (1) The Network Device was just installed. Check again in an hour. (2) The SNMP Community string or IP address was specified incorrectly. V091214 2009 ProactiveWatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 7
6. Patching is enabled by default for new agent installations So that you are able to perform Patch Management functions without further configuration, the Windows Update Enhanced template and associated monitoring scripts are installed and activated on the new installs of the ProactiveWatch agent. This will not apply any patches so this is completely safe. This will simply allow your ProactiveWatch system to collect information on available patches so that you can perform patch management if and when you choose. If you would like to disable the collection of patch information, choose Settings->Monitoring Templates, Assign tab, and de-select the Windows Update Enhanced template for the appropriate systems. V091214 2009 ProactiveWatch, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 8