Blog Entry of 2010-Sep- 9 in PRTG 8
New Features in PRTG 8 - Part 5: New Sensor Types
While the beta test of PRTG 8 is running we are posting a series of blog articles about new features!
The release date of PRTG is coming closer! In addition to many new features already mentioned in earlier posts, the new version comes with a lot of new sensor types that enable you to monitor even more devices and services. Many of them arose from user requests. Today, we want to give you an overview of these new sensor types.
Dedicated Linux and Mac OS Sensors
PRTG can now monitor Linux and UNIX environments with seven new sensor types via Secure Shell (SSH), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), or Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM). You can even monitor Mac OS systems! The following sensor types were added:
- SNMP / SSH Linux Load Average: These two sensor types show the average system load within time spans of one, five, and 15 minutes.
- SNMP / SSH Linux Meminfo: These two sensor types show the available memory in total and in percent.
- SNMP / SSH Linux Disk Free: These two sensor types show the free disk space available. It shows the total free disk space (sum), and the free disk space in percent for every mounted partition (volume). Using the SSH sensor type, you can also monitor Mac OS directly.
- WBEM Custom: Supports custom queries via WBEM.
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) Sensors
Microsoft’s WMI protocol is a popular means for monitoring Windows computers and services running on the network. With the new version, we introduce the following new sensor types for this protocol:- WMI Uptime: Monitors the uptime of a Windows system.
- WMI Share: Monitors a shared resource on a Windows system and shows the availability.
- WMI Terminal Services: Monitors a Windows Terminal Services server and shows the number of total, active, and inactive sessions.
- WMI IIS 6.0 SMTP Sent / Received: These two sensor types monitor Microsoft's Internet Information Services regarding the number of sent / received emails for an IIS 6.0 SMTP service (Exchange 2003).
- WMI Microsoft SQL Server 2005 / 2008: These two sensor types monitor Microsoft SQL servers via WMI. Unlike other SQL sensors, these show information about performance of the servers.
SQL Sensors
Besides the two new SQL sensors monitoring performance via WMI, there is another sensor to monitor SQL databases via ActiveX Data Objects (ADO):- ADO SQL: Monitors a database using an ADO connection.
Virtual Servers Sensors
There are new sensor types to monitor more virtual environments:- VMware Host Hardware (WBEM): Monitors hardware information of an ESX/ESXi server via Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM).
- Xen Virtual Machine: Monitors a virtual machine on a XEN server.
- Hyper-V Virtual Storage Device: Monitors a Hyper-V Virtual Storage Device on a Hyper-V server.
Others
There are several other sensors added, among which are:- NTP: Monitors a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server. It returns the response time and the time difference in comparison to the local system time.
- TFTP: Monitors a Trivial FTP server and checks if a certain file is available for download.
- LDAP: Monitors Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory services, for example, Active Directories, OpenLDAP, or other. The sensor tries a “bind” and shows the response time.