CEO's Blog

Friday, February 27 2009

Beta 2 of PRTG Network Monitor 7.1 is available

Today we have uploaded Beta 2 of PRTG Network Monitor V7.1. Since V 7.0.9 more than 700 changes (new features, improvements, bugfixes) have been built into the code. Most of these changes are based on user feedback and on user requests so this new version of PRTG again covers more needs of network administrators than any previous version.

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Friday, February 27 2009

New Features in PRTG 7.1 (Part 2): "Toplists"

During the beta test of PRTG Network Monitor 7.1 I am posting a number of blog articles about new features in the new version.

Packet Sniffing and NetFlow sensors can not only measure the total bandwidth usage, they can also break down the traffic by IP address, port, protocol, and other parameters. The results are shown in so-called "toplists". This way PRTG is able to tell which IP address, connection or protocol uses the most bandwidth. PRTG looks at all network packets (or streams) and collects the bandwidth information for all IPs, ports and protocols. At the end of the toplist period PRTG stores only the top entries of each in its database.

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Wednesday, February 25 2009

The Best Browser for PRTG 7 (Part 2): The February 2009 Browser Shoot-Out

Yesterday's announcement of the public beta of Apple's Safari 4 browser gave us reason to re-evaluate the currently available browsers from a "PRTG Network Monitor"-perspective.

PRTG uses a lot of AJAX and Javascript functions for its innovative web interface. This fact makes the choice of browser a crucial one for a swift user experience. Back in September we already performed such a shoot-out with the browsers available at that time. Now Safari 4 Beta, Firefox 3.1 Beta and Chrome 2 Beta have entered the arena.

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Friday, February 20 2009

New Features in PRTG 7.1 (Part 1): The "Sensor Factory"

During the beta test of PRTG Network Monitor 7.1 I will post a number of blog articles about new features in the new version.

One of the coolest new features in V7.1 is the "Sensor Factory". It allows to combine measurements from two or more sensors into one new sensor.

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Wednesday, February 18 2009

How do I backup all data and configuration of my PRTG installation?

A new knowledge base article explains how to back up the data of PRTG Network Monitor.

Most important are the folder "Monitoring Database" and the file "PRTG Configuration.dat", the other files and folders can be left out of your backup-process. Please see the new knowledgebase article How do I backup all data and configuration of my PRTG installation? for a documentation of the various other files and folders - and then choose the data that you want to back up.

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Wednesday, February 18 2009

How to Move an Installation of PRTG 7 to Another Computer

Today we have added a new article to the knowledgebase which explains how to move an installation of PRTG Network Monitor V7 onto another computer.

The steps are:

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Friday, February 13 2009

Monitoring the Available Bandwidth (Part 2)

Back in August I have already posted an article which explains how complicated it is to measure the bandwidth that is actually available for you.

One of the problems I mentioned was that if you want to exactly measure the available bandwidth you would have to saturate your data line and then measure the achieved bandwidth. But if you saturate your data line you are actually prohibiting all other traffic. Not a good idea for everyday life.

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Friday, February 13 2009

Checking Monitoring Results of PRTG Network Monitor from Windows Mobile Phones

The prtg7addons project on Google Code, which hosts various add-ons for PRTG Network Monitor (see this blog entry for details), has a new subproject: NotifierCE runs on Windows CE powered mobile phones and can display the status of sensors from a PRTG installation.

The notifier requires a mobile device using Windows Mobile and the.NET Compact Framework 3.5. The installer can be downloaded from the prtg7addons download page. Please see the Wiki page for NotifierCE for a detailed documenation.

Thanks to the author Gerard Feijth for sharing his excellent tool!

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Friday, February 13 2009

Introducing an Open Source Platform for Addons for PRTG Network Monitor

To support the exchange of ideas and knowledge between the users of PRTG Network Monitor - including our own labs and developers - we have created an open source platform on Google's projects hosting platform Google Code.

The prtg7addons project on Google Code will host various add-on tools for PRTG Network Monitor and their source code - created by Paessler and PRTG users.

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Tuesday, February 10 2009

Five Free and Quick Ways to Create Beautiful Network Maps Online

In order to make the results of your network monitoring available in your Intranet or for customers we recommend using the "Maps" feature of PRTG Network Monitor in conjunction with a map of your network. Visualized results make it much easier for your users to understand the situation of your network.

Here are a samples for (rather simple) network maps including live monitoring data (created with PRTG 7):

But how do you create a map of your network? There are paid-for options, e.g. Microsoft Visio, and other programs that you must install locally on your computer. But in many cases using one of the following free online options may serve you well for a quick map!

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