Paessler AG has updated its network oversight software to make it easier for enterprise and service provider administrators to keep an eye on tens of thousands of device.
The company said this week that version 9.0 of PRTG Network Monitor now supports displaying more than one instance of the software on a single console. Until now a single instance of PRTG on a core server could handle about 20,000 sensors. For large enterprises or managed service providers needing to watch more, another instance of PRTG would have to run on a separate server with the administrator having to log into each separately to see each control screen.
The latest version supports what the company calls an Enterprise Console for monitoring multiple installations.
Its one reason why Ken Sanofsky, North American general manager for the software company says version 9 is “taking network monitoring to the next generation.”
Primarily he means that the new edition now supports scanning for devices with the IPv6 addresses, a protocol which organizations are slowly coverting to.
While the adoption of IPv6 is still in its early stages, “we want to make sure when our customers make that migration their monitoring tool can go with them.”
Other changes include a new Web-based interface with a tree view that can be customized. The interface also lets administrators drag and drop sensors from one device to another on a network map, as well as to clone sensors.
A new wizard makes it easier to manually add sensors. The number of included sensors in the software has also gone up to 115. Among the additions is a “round-trip QoS” (quality of service) sensor, aimed at organizations with voice-over-IP service or who use a lot of video bandwidth. The previous sensor only offered one-way QoS.
The new version also integrates with Microsoft Active Directory.
Unlike a number of other companies that make network monitoring software, who charge separately for certain features, the commercial edition of PRTG has an “all-in-one” price limited only by the number of sensors. Maintenance, though, is extra.