The release of the latest version of ManageEngine IT360 happened last week - the 9050 version release. It was a milestone release with several new features! I shall discuss the top 3 features from this release...

• IT360 has optimized its web console enabling mobile access using iPad
• Diagnostics
• Maps

Accessing IT360 from an iPad

A good number of vendors are starting to support access of their network management software from tablets / iPads. One of the ways is based on modifying / optmizing the already available web-based consoles. The two important challenges here are:

a. determine which parts of the network management application would be accessed by the network admin / Manager, while on the move or while on a vacation; not every aspect / part of the conventional web based network management tool would be required; what level of granular information would be required; the ease of navigation, etc.

b. how to deliver the information / functionality with the form factors of mobile devices

These were some of the considerations that went in and finally ManageEngine IT360 decided to support accssing the IT360 web console from an iPad with the following features / functionality.

• Alarms
• Infrastructure Snapshots
• Business Services
• Capability to Search device

More features would be added in the upcoming releases of IT360 for iPad!

The Alarms View

The Infrastructure View

The Business Service View

Diagnostics in IT360

The Diagnostic Tool in IT360 helps you identify a problem, provide valuable information about the problem and also suggest a solution. Diagnosis happens in two modes:

1. Services mode and,
2. Log parsing

The problems are defined in three states:

1. Error [represented by a circle in Red]
2. Warning [represented by a circle in Orange]
3. Discard [represented by a circle in Grey]

When a problem is of a high severity, it is shown in Error state [red]; when a problem is of a lesser severity, it is shown in Warning state [Orange]. When a corrective action is taken, manually or automatically, the Error / Warning state moves [automatically or manually] to a Discard state [Grey]. There are situations when corrective actions happens automatically from within the system, without any manual intervention. For such Errors / Warnings, the state changes to Discard during the next polling. There are situations when a manual corrective action is required. Under such conditions, you need to manually change the Error / Warning state events to Discard [after taking the corrective action].

For more information on this, please refer to the online help document here.

Topology Maps [View]

ManageEngine IT360 supports the concept of Maps as a means to view data in a graphical format. The Maps View is used to represent network devices and servers. It is used to represent a limited number, say, a critical set of network devices and servers. Being a logical entity, you can group a certain set of network devices and servers of your choice under a Map View and also associate links between them. You use Maps View when you want to view, say, a small number of network devices and servers that are otherwise spread across the globe or across different locations. You may also create a sub map view within a map and display the same as a shortcut icon in a Map View.

Background images [global maps, etc..] can be used for the Map View using the available default images or, you may import your own background image.

You may also create any number of Maps [and sub maps]. Any sub map is shown as a shortcut icon in a Map View.

For more information on Maps, please refer to the online help document here.

For a demo

iPad demo: http://t-it360demo.manageengine.com/

Product demo: http://www.manageengine.com/it360/request-demo.html

K.Lakshmi Shankar

I have been discussing a lot about Integrated IT Management, provided to organizations by IT360, and how it solves the visibility issue that most of IT directors and CIOs have faced in past. We are going one step further by providing real-time IT visibility on your iPad; as the concept of BYOD is making in-roads and Apple is trying its best to enter into enterprise market with iPad. We realize that our customers shouldn’t be exempted from being part of this technology shift to tablets.

Using the first edition of the iPad extension, customers can view the following:

·         Alarms

·         Infrastructure snapshots

·         Status of their business-critical services

As mentioned earlier this begins our new journey in to the tablet world. We will be adding more and more features into the iPad extension in every release from here on. You can use your iPad to view a live demo on how the new product extension works by clicking here.

Apart from this we have also rolled out topology maps with this edition. IT360 customers can now configure their network devices and servers based on the location. Here is a dashboard view displaying what the topology maps look like today. We have plans to make it more real-time and dynamic in our future releases. These maps are designed using the HTML5 technology to support iOS devices too.

                                   

With businesses asking more from IT, IT can barely afford to be down for a few minutes, leave alone a longer downtime situation. A few environmental issues are inevitable due to the IT setup of particular organization.

We have introduced another new feature in IT360 called Diagnostics. With this feature we are trying to make the product more self-reliable and independent. Now instead of going through those long and purely technical log files to find the root problem, IT360 conducts a diagnosis of the log files and points to the issue on the dashboard. You can expect a reduced MTTR with this feature.

With respect to MSPs/ Service Providers, we have brought in a feature to help with multi-level rebranding which is also known as Partner Management. With this our MSP customers can enhance the trust and relationships among their partners, now MSP partners can promote their brand without thinking about losing customers.

Apart from all these, we have made several other enhancements to the product; details of which can be gathered from our release notes here.

You can download the latest edition here and try the latest features in your environment. Click here to download

Have any doubts? E-mail us to it360-eval [at]manageengine [dot] com

Cheers,

Suvish

Related Links:

ManageEngine IT360 latest edition download: http://bit.ly/K48myz

Latest edition desktop demo: http://bit.ly/iN47Rj

Latest edition iPad demo: http://www.manageengine.com/it360/it360-ipad.html

Service pack: http://bit.ly/K2ojEv

In my previous blog on the subject, I discussed the productivity and Usability Experience aspects in ManageEngine IT360 and how it is designed to adapt to real life scenarios. In continuation, I shall discuss a few more points in this blog.

Suppose you want to add several devices of a particular vendor / model; with IT360 you can use the Device Template feature to add / categorize the devices in one go. You do not have to add each device of a given vendor-model manually. In addition, you also have the option to create your own device templates! The devices group can be classified as firewalls, switches, routers, etc.. And, for the time being, if you do not know where to categorize a given device, it would, by default, fall under the Unknown category! You may later move these into one of the defined categories.

Now, having categorized the devices broadly into routers, switches, etc., you may want to do a logical grouping of these devices from across various categories. How do you do it? Make use of the Infrastructure View option. In addition, you may also use the Business Service Groups option. Please refer to this post - Business Service Groups in ManageEngine IT360, that I posted a few months ago.

During the course of your day to day operations, you may want to provide additional fields. ManageEngine IT360 gives you that option. You may add any number of fields in Text or Numeric or Date formats and associate them to a select list of devices and interfaces.

Take the case of scheduled maintenance. When a device is taken for a routine maintenance, any monitoring software should not raise alerts for the device during the next polling. ManageEngine IT360 is designed to provide a Downtime Scheduler. See the screenshot below:


You can create a downtime scheduler and provide the start and end time and have the option to execute it only once, daily or on a weekly basis! You may include the devices based on Infrastructure categories [routers, switches, UPS, etc.] or based on Business Views or you may simply select the devices of your choice. The same applies to URL monitors and servers and applications. Above all, having created this scheduler, you may disable / enable the same at will!

There are many more that I can quote but I suggest you visit us at

http://www.manageengine.com/it360

http://www.manageengine.com/it360/help/index.html

All these seem quite obvious - that a well designed software by default meets these implementation stage and operational level requirements!! So, why all this story here?

Well, this is an opportunity for us to showcase IT360 capabilities and for you to challenge them!!

I would like to reproduce this from my previous blog...

Customer focused that ManageEngine is; we understand your operational routines too!! And, Simplicity is the word. In this context, I would like to quote Stephen Mann of Forrester "...the three key words for Infrastructure and Operations professionals in 2012 would be: simplicity, simplicity, and simplicity". This was evident during the ManageEngine User Conference that was held at Dubai during the first week of Mar 2012. [See the complete blog from Stephen Mann here]. ManageEngine IT360 means just that. ManageEngine IT360 is once again 2012 ready!! [For my earlier post on 2012 Trends in Network Infrastructure Management, refer to this blog].

Your comments are welcome! You may also write to us at: lshankar@manageengine.com and it360-eval@manageengine.com

Regards,

K.Lakshmi Shankar

Hi All,

It’s been a while since I have penned my thoughts on technology here. Sometimes we find ourselves surrounded by vastly experienced and very busy personalities; and the experience is such that you feel to share it to peers, right?

Most of you might be aware of the ManageEngine user-conference which was held a few weeks back in Melbourne and Sydney (and we keep doing that around the globeJ). Such user conferences help our team to meet and interact with people who are using our products. It’s fun. Watch this section for more information about the next conference.

I was lucky enough to be part of our user-conference in Melbourne and Sydney and even luckier to speak about Integrated IT Management. I have been blogging a lot about this technology along with my colleagues so, today I will try to share my experience of interaction with decision makers and how they found value in such integration.

The most interesting part of the conference was there were several IT Managers, Directors of IT and CIOs. These are people who are the influencers and precisely understand what they need. They also have the biggest responsibility to run the business which is hugely dependent on IT; a lot to learn ;). After the presentation I got chance to speak to many of them.

Listed below are a few of the critical problems/ requirements which I gathered from my interaction with them. These are in order of frequency of usage during the interactions.

1. Visibility into IT (This phrase was in everybody’s conversation!)
2. Proactive monitoring
3. Reliability and Scalability
4. Customization
5. Automation
6. Interdependency mapping
7. Managing multiple vendors and product licenses
8. Budget

• Specific Job(s) Monitoring : This feature intends to allow the user to monitor specific job(s) which are more important to them, by choosing the option “Add Job(s) to Monitor" . The user can configure the alerts based on the status of job, number of threads used by job, etc. Job log can also be viewed for any job.





• Monitoring of messages that need reply :  Do you feel you are bombarded with a lot of messages in your AS400 server? You don’t have to be bothered anymore. We will now leave it to your choice. You can stop data collection by disabling messages. However, you can opt for “Messages that need reply” which will be displayed by default.   User can also configure alarms depending upon the content of the message.

• Specific Subsystem(s) Monitoring : You can configure the alerts based on the status, number of jobs running in the subsystem. This feature will also allow the users to monitor specific subsystem(s) which are more important to them, by choosing the option “Add Subsystem(s) to Monitor".





We have tried to customize the various available options for you to have better control over the monitoring, specifically data collection. 





The user can disable/enable data collection for particular module like job/messages/spool as per your requirement.  Nevertheless any parameter (jobs, spool, subsystem,etc) which are in critical or warning status across all the AS400 monitors will be monitored and displayed by default in the web client.

If you have been using ManageEngine Applications Manager to monitor your AS400 servers, we invite you to share your thoughts on the above mentioned enhancements. Also feel free to suggest any other enhancements which you feel is necessary, by taking part in this survey .

If you haven’t tried Applications Manager yet, we invite you to do so. You can get an insight into our AS400 monitoring capabilities here .

Looking forward to your valuable comments and suggestions.
     

We recently released version 10.3 of Applications Manager. Here I take you through the gist of what had gone into this release.

Support for monitoring VMware vFabric RabbitMQ

Applications Manager has included, VMware vFabric RabbitMQ, an enterprise messaging middleware from the vFabric family, to its list of supported monitors.

With support for monitoring vFabric RabbitMQ server, an ideal and increasingly popular messaging solution for cloud computing, we will now be able to ensure your RabbitMQ system is sending and receiving messages without any problems. It will aid you in tracking the performance of components like queues, messages, channels, connections and exchanges.

Now, with the support for monitoring vFabric tc Server and vFabric RabbitMQ, we are providing our customers have a common tool to monitor the SpringSource based applications.

Ability to use LDAP Server for User authentication  

User administration in Applications Manager has become easier. You can now import users from Active Directory using Active Directory (AD) authentication module. Users imported from the Active Directory can log in to Applications Manager using their Active Directory credentials.

Support for embedding different world map views

World Map Business View in Applications Manager now enables network administrators to have a visual representation of their distributed network across the globe. It provides them a geographical view of their business services.

Additional enhancements in this release include, the option to customize logo in reports, web client GUI enhancements and support for monitoring SSLv3 enabled websites in URL monitoring.

Here is a screenshot tour of our latest features. You can also check out the new version, by upgrading to the latest version of Applications Manager.

Try it out and post your comments on the new version.

Hi,

One of the important considerations in purchasing a network management software is whether you can perform routine tasks with ease. Say, you know that a given network management software from a vendor works to your expectations in terms of features, functionality, reports, alerting mechanisms, and so on. You would now like to look at it from a different angle - Usability Experience and productivity. One aspect of Usability Experience and productivity is the ability of the management software to perform configuration tasks with ease. The configuration feature should support different real life situations; starting from the time you begin to use the software to completing the configuration tasks.

This apart, during the course of using the software, you may want to change certain parameters for a single device, a group of devices or do a bulk configuration. The network management tool must be able to do these.

The Server Administrators and Network Administrators must see the network management software as a part of day-to-day operations.

ManageEngine IT360 is exactly capable of this. At any point of time - when you have just started using IT360 or when you are a power user of the tool - IT360 is capable of performing configuration tasks on a per device basis or a group of devices or do a bulk configuration. These are available across all features / functionality of the tool.

When you want to add a network device to IT360, you may do so by just giving the IP Address or the machine name [of course along with the Netmask and device credential details]. When you want to discover devices in bulk, you may do so by giving the IP Range or using CIDR. Well, if you have all the device information in a csv file, you may simply import the same into IT360. Thus, you can discover individual devices on a need basis or discover them all at a time!

Take the case of device templates. IT360 supports some 600+ templates. You may apply a template to devices which belong to a given category. Same applies to Interface templates. So, templates in IT360 make your life easier!

Credentials - Device credentials are required by IT360 to gain remote access to the devices. It would be monotonous if the credentials were to be added manually for every device. IT360 supports pre-configuration of credentials which can then be used or applied to many devices. This saves a lot of manual effort!

Take the case of the Quick Configuration Wizard. See the screenshot below and see the tasks you can perform!




And, it gives you the flexibility to perform configuration tasks on a single device to all devices in a given category and so on...



And see this; you may apply this configuration based on date / day / time [where applicable]!



This is just an example to demonstrate the robustness of IT360. I shall cover a few more in my next blog.

Customer focused that ManageEngine is; we understand your operational routines too!! And, Simplicity is the word. In this context, I would like to quote Stephen Mann of Forrester "...the three key words for Infrastructure and Operations professionals in 2012 would be: simplicity, simplicity, and simplicity". This was evident during the ManageEngine User Conference that was held at Dubai during the first week of Mar 2012. [See the complete blog from Stephen Mann here]. ManageEngine IT360 means just that. ManageEngine IT360 is once again 2012 ready!! [For my earlier post on 2012 Trends in Network Infrastructure Management, refer to this blog].

Write to us if you have questions: it360-eval@manageengine.com and lshankar@manageengine.com

www.manageengine.com/it360

Live demo: Here

K.Lakshmi Shankar

If you have worked with business-critical IT services, you already know how powerful Java Enterprise Applications can be. Java technology is widely used as the middleware on which the business logic of multi-tier infrastructures resides.

Enterprises have a variety of application components running on standard Java application servers like Oracle WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, Glassfish, Apache Tomcat and JBoss, to name a few. Its clear that Java Application performance management has never been more difficult or more crucial; what with Java Apps running some of the most critical business application workloads.

All Java applications, whether client-server or web-based, run on the Java Virtual Machine. A single run-away thread in the JVM could use up substantial CPU resources, slowing down performance. A deadlock between two major threads can bring services to a grinding halt! How do you identify the thread that caused the potential deadlock without killing the session? JVM monitoring can provide key insights into application performance issues- issues could have a significant impact on the business services that the application supports.

Think its time to monitor and troubleshoot your business applications? Want up-to-date alerts and reports on performance and availability?

Watch this 5-minute video to know how Applications Manager offers ideal solutions for managing your Java platform, thread statistics, memory allocation, run-time optimization and garbage collection time. And what's more, you can also automate corrective actions.

Still skeptical ? Try our Java Application Performance Monitoring Tool and see for yourself. Happy monitoring !

Hello all,

 

We have been talking about real-time IT and its importance in business for quite a while now. One of the most important aspects of real-time IT is continuous monitoring which definitely is not an easy task as it involves sitting in front of a computer round-the-clock to monitor your IT infrastructure.

By integrating operations and service management under one console, with ManageEngine IT360 we successfully eliminated IT silos which previously existed in our customers’ environments. Moving ahead with the advancement in technology, which has become mobile, cooler and faster with every passing year, we are introducing a whole new interface for IT360 that is completely optimized for an Apple iPad. This development in IT360 comes with the intention to keep our customers updated with the latest technology that IT360 has to offer and make their lives less office-dependent.

 

Version 9050, which is due to be released by the end of March this year, will enable customers to use their iPads to monitor IT infrastructure using IT360. We have uploaded a live demo of IT360 for the iPad on our Website. Do go through the live demo using your iPad as we have disabled the desktop access for this particular link. We have also placed few screenshots on the Web page to give you a glance of what the product looks like and how it functions on an iPad. For the first version we have enabled features like Infrastructure Views, Alarms and Business Services. We will be adding rest of the features in subsequent releases.

 

Some questions that you could have after reading about this latest development from ManageEngine IT360 are as follows:

1.     IT360 already has a Web UI. How is the UI for an iPad different from the existing Web interface?

Yes, IT360 has a Web UI but it has been designed to work perfectly on a desktop or a laptop. However, with the iPad and other tablets it was essential to create an interface which matched perfectly with the form factor of an iPad to give the user a smooth experience.

2.     Which edition of IT360 does an iPad currently support?

We have developed and tested the professional edition of IT360 for the iPad. We shall be extending support for the Enterprise and MSP editions for the iPad very soon. Subsequent releases will also see other features, which are currently available in desktop version, added to the UI for the iPad.

3.      Will this new advancement eventually have all the features of desktop?

No, this extension is only meant for professionals who are mostly on-the-go and have very little time to sit at one place in front of a computer to view the status of critical IT infrastructure. All the configurations and permission access will always be only available in the desktop application. Moreover the current interface will only have read-only access.

Cheers,

Suvish

Related Links:

IT360 for iPad demo: http://ow.ly/9f6Eq

Press Release:http://ow.ly/9f6Ck

 

To meet the growing complexity of their infrastructures, organizations today use numerous monitoring tools to track the health of their business environments. These monitoring tools generate alerts of statistics, errors, notifications or any other information that may be crucial to the enterprise. How does the operations team of any organization keep track of alerts from so many different tools generated on different systems?

We have received a fair number of queries from users whose enterprises use IBM Tivoli as their main Network Management System (NMS) console. They would like a direct method to display critical Applications Manager alerts in Tivoli's console. This blog should help you incorporate Applications Manager's alerts into IBM Tivoli.

How does it work?

IBM Tivoli's probe for Microsoft Windows Event Log monitors event log files on any specified Windows machines.When third-part monitoring tools like Applications Manager generate Windows Event Logs in case of a critical alarm, the probe will pick up the alarms from the event logs and display it in the Events Console. You can use the IBM Tivoli Probe for Windows Event Logs already installed in any windows machine or install the probe in the Applications Manager machine.

Applications Manager provides flexibility in fault management by triggering actions. One such action type is executing a program on the occurrence of an alarm. You can use "Execute program" action to execute a batch file to generate an alert to be escalated to Tivoli's Console. When an alert is generated it adds an event to the Windows Event log which is in turn picked up and displayed by Tivoli's console.

How do you set it up in ManageEngine's Applications Manager?

            Step 1: Create a batch file with the command given below :

eventcreate /S <hostname> /U <username> /P <password> /t <SUCCESS / ERROR / WARNING / INFORMATION> /id <id> /SO AppManager /L <Application / Security / System> /D "some description here"

                   You can download a sample batch file here. 

Step 2: Click on the Actions tab to display a drop-down list.

Step 3: Click on Execute Program from the drop-down list.

Step 4: Enter Display name and select the script location.

Step 5: In the 'Program To Execute' field, enter the name of the batch file that you created. You can use replaceable tags to enter the required alarm configuration parameters.

            CreateWindowsEvent.bat "app-xp2 $MONITORNAME Response Time is $RCAMESSAGE"

Note:

Replaceable tags are supported in the 'Program to Execute' field. You can use the tags mentioned in the help card on the Execute Program page within double quotes to handle any spaces present inside tag value.To know more about replaceable tags, click here.

Step 6: Enter the path where the script is placed in the "Directory to execute Program" field.

Step 7: When the Program action is executed, an event of the type is created.

This event action thus created should be associated for each of the monitors that you wish to add. Now you can view alerts from Applications Manager in Tivoli's centralized alarms console. This "one-stop shop" should significantly simplify any operations team's work of monitoring critical alarms.

We will be updating this space with screenshots of IBM Tivoli. In the meantime, if you have screenshots, you are welcome to share them with us.