Thursday, December 20, 2012

Service Pack 1 for Xian Network Manager 2012 is now available!


So we just managed to have Service Pack 1 ready before the holidays! SP1 is a not just a service pack. Of course we fixed some issues but we also added some new features that we are sure you will like. Below an overview of the most interesting things that we have added.


Name resolution of ports and IP Addresses
If you use Xian NM 2012 for Netflow monitoring you will be happy to know that now the alerts and counters in Operations Manager will show you names of your public IP addresses and application names of the ports. Like that you can have a better control on who is using the network.

Configuration Monitoring
A typical problem. Users suddenly start complaining about network problems, but nobody knows about any configuration changes. Xian NM 2012 now monitors the configurations changes on Cisco Switches and will alert you in OpsMgr when something changed.

Noise Monitoring
Within Netflow monitoring we have added the option to be alerted when a new port/application becomes active. It might be something you don't want on your network. You have time to take action and stop the application or approve it to not be further alerted. A great way keep an eye on applications running on your network and to have some extra security.

Full Dashboard support
Operations Manager 2012 has a great dashboard tool and now you have the option to build great Xian NM dashboards. A great way to keep an eye on your critical network connections, applications running on the network, visited websites, top downloads etc!

You can now download it from our website and see it for yourself on your own environment. Also you can request access to our handsonlab and play with the new features.

click here to see the official Press Release

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Some questions we received about Wings HD

We got some questions about Wings HD. Let us try to answer them here:

How does it work?
Well, Xian Wings HD has two components. First is the Wings HD client that you install on your iPad through the App Store. This is free and easy. Next you download the Xian Wings Server from our website and install it in your SCOM environment, making sure it can connect to the SCOM SDK (2012 or 2007). Also make sure there is an open external port that the Wings HD client can use to communicate with the Wings Server. You don't need much memory for the server. Max 400 MB of free memory is sufficient.

How much does it cost?
At this moment each device that you connect to the Wings Server costs 300 USD and it does not matter if it is a Wings HD (iPad) client or regular Wings (iPhone, WP or Android). For a quote contact our sales team. http://www.jalasoft.com/contact/wingsquote

Is it secure?
Yes, communication goes over HTTPS, although if you feel comfortable and it is for internal use you also use HTTP. Beside that, the server acts as a proxy between Internet and your SCOM SDK, so no body will ever be able to connect from outside to your SDK.

Can I test it without installing the server?
Yes you can. The easiest is to request the credentials of our Wings Server on our website. http://www.jalasoft.com/xian/wings/wingsservertrial Next you install Wings HD on your iPad and use the credentials that were sent to you.

Monday, December 10, 2012

Xian Wings HD is now Available!

Many of you probable know already Xian Wings. It is that simple and easy to use tool for your smart phone, to control System Center Operations Manager from any place, any time. See states, alerts, graphs etc.

Well, now we have something new! Xian Wings HD! A Wings version specially made for iPad. It takes advantage of the hardware features of the iPad like the screen size, the memory and the speed to give you the best and I must say the coolest mobile Operations Manager Dashboard you can imagine. Wings HD is so intuitive and fast that you will quickly forget the classic Operations Manager Console or even the webconsole, if you ever dared to use that one anyway.

Some of the features of Wings HD:
  • Create your won dashboards in a few seconds
  • Add alert, status, performance graphs
  • Quickly jump from a widget to a full screen view
  • Sent quickly an email when look at an alert or a graph
  • Look at the actual performance data with just a click on the graph
  • a special context sensitive object screen that adjusts to object you clicked on
  • Execute tasks
  • Put objects in maintenance mode
So how does it work?
  1. Well it is easy. Just install the Xian Server in your Operations Manager Environment and make sure it has an open port to a publicly available IP address. Make sure you enable the Operations Manager users you want to give access through Wings HD.
  2. Next you go to the Apple App Store and download and install Xian Wings HD.
  3. Now you log in with the operations manager credentials and you are ready to go!
If you got curious check out the video below.....

 
For more information check http://www.jalasoft.com/wings
For the full press release click here
 


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Why You Need Xian Network Manager 2012 for Network Monitoring with Operations Manager 2012


One of the questions we receive a lot is: “ Why do we need Xian Network Manager to do network monitoring if Operations Manager 2012 has it out of the box?”
Well we understand that it is very tempting to just rely on Operations Manager 2012 for network monitoring, and we think it is quite usefull if you have small network and you don’t really mind not knowing what is going on. However if you have a bigger network you should really think about the following points.
  • If you have more than twenty network devices and you do need to some customizations, overrides might get difficult to control.
  • If you want to have full control on how your topology diagrams are built, you can rely on the robust Topology Discovery of Xian NM together with the drawing technology of Savision Live Maps (www.savision.com)
  • Do you want to know who is using the network, which applications, which websites are visited? Then you need the traffic analysis features of Xian Network Manager 2012. Take a look at the screenshot below. Can you get this information with OpsMgr 2012

 
  • Xian NM 2012 has an easy user interface that will save you a lot of time when setting up monitoring policies. Changing a simple threshold of one interface, can be done in a few seconds in Xian NM, While the same might take you several minutes in OpsMgr.

www.jalasoft.com/networkmanager