1.43. Release Notes 0.97

1.43.1. Important changes in this release

  • Starting with this version, NetSpyGlass requires jdk 1.7.
  • Communication channel between the UI backend and Monitor has been converted to protobuf-based RPC library.
  • beginning with this version, all SNMP communication with devices is performed only by the monitor. UI backend does not talk to the devices anymore and does not run SNMP. Network discovery is also done by the monitor.
  • NetSpyGlass can be configured to run with multiple remote monitors. Central server (the UI backend) aggregates data they collect from devices and sends configuration updates to them. See “Installation and Configuration Guide” for more details on how to run the system in this mode.
  • Remote monitor processes collect useful performance metrics which get stored as monitoring variables in NetSpyGlass. These variables appear in the Graphing Workbench under variable category “Monitor” and include process uptime (in sec), process memory metrics and CPU utilization of the machine where the monitor is running. The same set of variables is collected for the machine running NetSpyGlass server. These variables can be graphed or used to build Nagios alerts.

1.43.2. New features and improvements in UI

  • The UI has been redesigned to make it possible to use browser “Back” and “Forward” buttons to navigate between pages.
  • Added drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the UI. When in the map panel, this menu allows user to “unpin” devices, “pin” devices and regenerate map layout automatically. Unpinned devices float on the screen and get arranged using force algorithm running in the browser. User can move devices around, once dragged and dropped, device becomes “pinned”, that is, fixed into position. Clicking “Pin devices” sends current coordinates of all devices to the backend and “pins” them all to positions at once. Automatic layout calculation is performed in the backend and uses slightly different algorithm. Clicking “auto layout” erases current device coordinates and recalculates layout from scratch.
  • Implemented ability to sort by columns of the table that shows monitoring data for interfaces and hardware componennts in the Device Details panel
  • Implemented ability to search by interface description in the device details panel.
  • Implemented a popup graph that opens when user clicks link labels in maps. The popup shows graph of the variable currently selected in the map legend. User can open multiple popup graphs simultaneously and move them inside of the browser window.

1.43.3. New features and improvements in the Monitor

  • Upon restart, the program loads data from the database into its internal buffers. This version improves this process to eliminate data gap that used to appear in time series. In the older versions, this gap could be as long as 2 or 3 polling intervals.

1.43.4. Notable Bugs fixed in this release

  • a bug in the network discovery code caused SQL exception with error message “serialization failure” under specific circumstances when database transaction took longer than expected to commit

1.43.5. Known issues in this release

  • popup graph that opens when user clicks link labels in maps works only for physical devices. This graph does not work yet for the links that terminate on objects that represent nested views.
  • popup graphs opened by licking link labels in maps disappear when user navigates away from the map or opens Graphing Workbench. We plan to solve this problem by adding “Inspector” panel to make it possible to “dock” these graphs permanently in the future.
  • Ability to sort by columns in Graphing Workbench has not been implemented yet