ManageEngine Blogs

Come September & its Euromania for ME

sreelesh

ManageEngine Euro Roadshow Sept 8th - October 3rd. Denmark - Sweden - France - Italy - Germany - Portugal - Poland - UK We at ManageEngine are always game for oppurtunities that allow us to meet with the people who care about IT. This time round we thought we'd do something big to spend quality time with our customers, users, partners and any soul who cares about Networks, servers, applications, systems, the works. We would like to welcome you all to our ManageEngine Euro Roadshow conducted with the help of our partners thorughout Europe from the 8th of September to October the third. Check out the dates here: http://manageengine.adventnet.com/euroroadshow/agenda.html Our speakers: http://manageengine.adventnet.com/euroroadshow/speakers.html You can register here: http://manageengine.adventnet.com/euroroadshow/registration.html We very look forward to meeting you!

Europe - ManageEngine's next door this September!

sreelesh

Post the H.323 release, VQManager continues to go places and this time we are accompanying a big ManageEngine team alongside dedicated ManageEngine European partners. Mark Miller's team at VoIPPlannet and TMCnet gave us just the right beginning to our "shout-out-loud" plans on letting the VoIP world know of a truly simplified, complete, cost-effective VoIP monitoring solution ;). Now that VQManager supports most VoIP protocols in the market, we're quickly adding features and improving on performance - expect the next product release very soon! So Europe, we're coming over to meet u in your neighbourhood. We're arranging a Roadshow from Denmark to Sweden, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Poland and the UK on September 8th to October 3rd. Check out the dates here: http://manageengine.adventnet.com/euroroadshow/agenda.html Our speakers: http://manageengine.adventnet.com/euroroadshow/speakers.html You can register here: http://manageengine.adventnet.com/euroroadshow/registration.html We very look forward to meeting you!

ManageEngine Roadshow... closing the gap between IT and you!!

Joseph

Hi Europe, Here IT comes!! ManageEngine is conducting a roadshow in Europe. Be a part of it and connect with other IT experts. Enter a whole new world of networking, share and gain knowledge with leading industry technicians. A plethora of ManageEngine products including NetFlow Analyzer will be discussed. It starts on 08th September and goes on till 03rd October. Starting with Denmark, the ManageEngine Euro Roadshow travels to Sweden, France, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Poland, and United Kingdom. So register now and be a part of it. Lets gear up! For details about the schedule and agenda, visit ManageEngine Roadshow Or http://manageengine.adventnet.com/euroroadshow/index.html Cheerio Joe

Road to better Enterprise IT Perimeter Security leads to - ME Euro Roadshow 2008

Ragavan S

Yes! AdventNet ManageEngine is hosting Roadshow in countries across the European Union. If perimeter security of your enterprise network is your concern, then you must visit ME Euro Roadshow 2008. We are available in your town. Feel free to seek any information about Firewall Analyzer. Join us at the Roadshow in your country, register here Check complete details about the Roadshow, visit the link: http://manageengine.adventnet.com/euroroadshow/

Road to better Enterprise IT Security leads to - ME Euro Roadshow 2008

Ragavan S

Yes! AdventNet ManageEngine is hosting Roadshows in countries across the European Union. If security of your enterprise IT infrastructure is your concern, then you must visit ME Euro Roadshow 2008. We are available in your town. Feel free to seek any information about EventLog Analyzer. Join us at the Roadshow in your country, register here Check complete details about the Roadshow, visit the link: http://manageengine.adventnet.com/euroroadshow/

The Road Ahead...

sylvian

I am not here to speak about the Bill Gates' book...but something more interesting than that.

We had so many requests, rants and even strong criticisms on the road map issue. So here we are coming up with the Road Map for SupportCenter Plus. The schedule given in the road map is tentative and may change based on priorities.

We are in the process of taking some big leaps in terms of product development. We like to know your feed backs, votes, suggestions on the road map…

Want to know what those big leaps are, check out our road map here….

http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/support-center/roadmap.html

FacilitiesDesk @ a glance

nandini

All of us believe that, “Visual screens speaks with better clarity than paragraphs of words…”

Now I would like to present to you the value offered by FacilitiesDesk through a visual presentation….

FD PPT

MS Office SharePoint Monitoring

karthi

Applications Manager now supports MS Office SharePoint server. It can automatically diagnose, notify and correct the performance and availability problems that may occur. Applications Manager provides comprehensive fault management and proactive alert notifications for any impending problems and triggering corrective actions. It also gathers performance data for future planning, analysis and reporting and are supported out-of-the-box. Some of the key performance metrics include:

Office Search Gatherer ( Reason To Back Off, Active Queue Length, Threads In Plugins, Delayed Documents, etc.)
Excel Services Web Frontend (Active Requests, Requests Per Second)
Document Conversions (Incoming EMail Messages Processed, Pending Conversions)
Active Server Pages (Errors/sec, Requests Queued, Requests Rejected, Requests/sec, Current Sessions, etc.)
Share Point Server Servcies ( Service Name, Status, Health, Availability) and much more...

Here are some screenshots of Applications Manager monitoring MS Office SharePoint:

Desktop Central now supports MS Office patches

romanus

Hi Folks Desktop Central now supports the Microsoft Office patches viz Office 2003 and 2007 (Hotfixes and Service Packs) through the latest 60206 hotfix release. This hotfix carries both the enhancements and bug fixes on other modules also. You can download the Hotfix from the below given link http://bonitas.adventnet.com/desktopcentral/14Aug2008/ManageEngine_Desktop_Central_6_0_0_SP-2_7.ppm Build version : 60207, Agent version : 6.2.4 Highlights of the release

Remote Control : Remote control Connection problem for renamed SoM computer issue is fixed.
Help Desk Enhancements : New settings for changing E-Mail domain, and provision to add prefix to Help Desk request subjects
Patch Management : Issues in Vulnerability report is fixed, MS-Office Patching Support added.

Instructions to Apply Service Packs & Hot Fixes

Shut down Desktop Central. (either through Start --> Programs -->ManageEngine Desktop Central 6--> Stop Desktop Central or Right click Desktop Central logo on the Notification area of Task bar and click Shut down Server)
Take a backup of the entire <DesktopCentral_Server> directory (goto cmd and from <DesktopCentral_Server\bin> run the stopDB.bat) ; now zip the contents and keep in a safe place. (for this time)
Execute the UpdateManager.bat file present in the <Desktop Central_Home>/bin directory.
Click "Browse" and select the.ppm file that you have downloaded.
Click "Install" to install the service pack. This may take few minutes depending on the amount of data that needs to be migrated.
Wait until the service pack / hotfix is fully installed.
Click "Close" and then click "Exit" to exit the Update Manager tool.
Start the Desktop Central.

Cheers Romanus

Experiences of SDP 7.5

shan

Hi. I am Shan and I am Development Manager for ServiceDesk Plus. Most of the time I am the guy who is blamed for the delays in shipping even if there are a lot of scope creeps. I found that the main problem was that you (as users) are unaware of what is going on with the development team and what we do.

Here is my journal as we progress

Performance, Performance and Performance:

Our main focus for 7.5 is performance, quality and stability and it is not a overnite job. Creating such an environment and reproducing problem scenarios are getting to be a challenge. Our QA team is working in parallel to make sure we don’t repeat the mistakes we did in some of our servicepacks. Now-a-days QA team is reluctant to compromise on anything, siting that “for any problem, customers are not blaming development, but blaming only us”..

You, our customers are important

In the earlier 7.0 release we could not give the upgrade pack to the existing customers on the same day the release was made and we learnt a good lesson from it. We could understand your frustration and do not want to make that mistake again. We are working on the upgrade pack in parallel and this time will make sure we release both on the same day.

The site based implementation is back breaking

Initially we thought 7.5 should be an easier one with focussed team working on Asset features. The other key features include site based segmentation, request form customization, solutions enhancements, technician availability calendar. With Purchase module enhancements brought in a hotfix itself, we expected a smoother release as planned.

Not surprisingly we underestimated the time for some of the features which is now causing the delay. The multi site support is the main culprit for the time delay. When we took up the functionality, we thought that it could be completed in around 2 months. Myself and the developer were optimistic over the completion of the feature within the time !! We were proved wrong as it had a lot complications during the implementation phase which need to be addressed.

Phew, AssetExplorer is in…finally

The another key thing which kept us waiting is the completion of Asset Explorer 5.0 release which has support for remote desktop, multi site support for Assets and other enhancements. These have to be integrated into SDP 7.5. Now we are almost finished with the release of AE 5.0 and started on integrating with SDP. It could take us a couple of weeks to integrate it into SDP 7.5.

Integrating ServicePack’s

We are also currently integrating all issue fixes from service packs 7001 to 7019 to the 7.5 release. With a hotfix getting released every month, the amount of merge and testing gets higher. Release delay costs us here too !!!

Now we are into integration phase.

We are determined to give a good quality, reliable and a stable 7.5 release.

Further moving ahead, unlike 7.5, we look to go for shorter release cycles (3 - 4 months). Will plan that delay of one feature should not affect the release cycle and the worst case should be, that feature moved out of the release. This release model requires features to be build separately and integrated once completed. This could involve more integration effort, but lesser impact on release. This model was recommended by my higher ups for long time, but… may be time to look into that model.

I will look to update whenever a task (say Asset explorer integration, issues integration,..) on 7.5 got completed.

Block Your Active Directory Security Loopholes

senthilnath

The SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) and other auditing compliance have a great impact on the need of monitoring and auditing of IT environments. Experts says that many attacks gain access through a user account that has one or more incorrect and insecure settings, it makes sense to focus on user account properties during the audit. Here are the key user account properties that need to be audited in windows Active Directory environment.

Quote:

Basic User Account Properties to be AuditedLogonScript ? this is important if the logon script performs any tasks that might establish some security settings, copy key security files, or any other security related task. If the incorrect logon script is being applied, it could leave the computer less secure.Workstations ? this is an important setting if your company uses this setting to restrict user accounts to logon to only a single or few computers. Typically this setting is left for service accounts, not typically used for user accounts used by employees.Last time password was set ? this setting can help determine stale user accounts. If a user has not changed the password within the time frame dictated by the password policy for maximum time that the password is valid, then this might be an indication that the user account is no longer being used. Another important issue to always consider is a malicious administrator who does not have his user account configured to expire the password. In this instance, the administrator will toggle the user account to expire the password, run the report for the audit, then toggle the password not to expire. If the password has not been changed in a year, but the password policy requires that all passwords be changed every 30 days, it is clear the administrator is trying to fool the audit report.Password is required ? in a Windows Active Directory environment, it is not easily possible to configure one user to have a password that expires and another that does not. There are some user accounts that are configured to not require a password by default, which includes the Guest account and IWAM_{computername} account.Password Expires ? when a user account is configured to not have the password expire, the password is not under the same rules as the domain Password Policy. This allows the user to keep the same password for an unlimited time and potentially have a weak password. Of course, this is not desired and standard user accounts (including administrators and other IT staff) should have the password expire. Password Expires Time ? not only can you determine whether the password expires, you can also audit when the password will expire next. The key audit point here is to ensure that all users will have their password expire within the password policy which requires that the password be changed within a set number of days. If the password expiration time is outside this range, it means that there might be an error within the user property or someone has modified the property to make the password expire later than desired. Account is Disabled ? this is an important property to audit for accounts that have been disabled and might need to be deleted. Most companies have a standard policy for when to delete user accounts. This might be 6 months, one year, or longer after the account is disabled. The main reason for such a long time for deletion is that a user account can?t be recreated after it is deleted, it can only be recovered, which is not an easy process. Last Logon Time ? this setting will indicate a key aspect for each user account. It will indicate whether or not users are logging off at night, which is important to ensure that users change their passwords to adhere to Password Policy settings. If a user has not logged in for quite some time, it would be important to investigate whether the user account should be disabled, or why the user has not logged out in the recent past. Advanced User Properties to be Audited There are still other properties that need to be considered when performing an audit on user accounts. Some of these might be on your basic list, were others might be completely omitted. Regardless, you should consider including these in your next audit. Remote Access ? Both dial-up and virtual private network (VPN) access is controlled through Active Directory. The catch with Active Directory is whether the setting is configured for Allow, Deny, or Use Remote Access Policy. If set for the latter, then you will need to also investigate the Remote Access Policies configured on the RAS server or the RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) server. Terminal Service access ? With Terminal Services being such an important aspect of Windows 2000/2003/XP, it is essential to audit whether users can logon using this service. With the Terminal Service access, you need to not only check the user property for this access, but also the user rights. For Windows 2000 the user right that must be audited is ?Logon Locally.? For Windows XP and Server 2003, the user right that allows users to logon with Terminal Services is ?Allow logon through Terminal Services.?

As the vulnerability of IT environment is increasing day by day, a transparent and reliable auditing system is deserved to ensure the security of information. Auditing of all the user properties mentioned above will serve the purpose of Secured IT. Senthil Nath

WiFi Manager speaks French, German & Korean too

ashish

We just released the latest version of WiFi Manager - 5.5. It brings in multilingual support starting with support for French, German and Korean languages. We hope to add support for other languages too. This release also has its share of bug fixes. You can check out the whole list here - http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/wifi-manager/release-feature.html Download link: http://manageengine.adventnet.com/products/wifi-manager/download.html If you are already using WiFi Manager, you can use our service/upgrade pack to upgrade to the latest version. Go ahead, try it out. We would love to hear your thoughts.