WhatsUp Gold Features

Comprehensive Network Monitoring

Network monitoring for small and mid-sized businesses doesn't have to be complex or expensive.

WhatsUp Gold Standard Edition provides an extensive yet inexpensive out-of the box single site network infrastructure monitoring solution for small and mid-sized businesses (SMB). With powerful, network discovery, mapping, SNMP monitoring, alerting, notification and reporting capabilities, WhatsUp Gold provides 360° visibility, actionable intelligence and complete control. Intuitive Windows and web-enabled workspace views and dashboards provide drill-down access into alerts and issues, giving you a clear picture of your whole network in real-time.

Network Management Complexity Simplified

Network infrastructures are among the most critical elements in business strategy today and in some cases they are the business strategy. Many SMBs find themselves in the situation where their network is becoming an inhibitor to continued business growth due to unplanned or ad hoc infrastructure build outs. SMB network administrators need visibility into their current network topology and how their network is performing, and they need to understand how to enable structured growth of the network in concert with the business.

WhatsUp Gold:

• Discovers and maps all your network devices and systems automatically
• Notifies you proactively as problems occur on your network
• Presents both instantaneous and historical reporting
• Provides reliable anytime, anywhere network management

WhatsUp Gold Real-Time Management and Reporting

Previously, performance data collected and stored by WhatsUp Gold provided historic trend information useful for post-event analysis or to support future planning. In addition to the historical data, network management professionals require instantaneous visibility into device usage data in real-time for predictive management of critical infrastructure. Designed to satisfy the single site network monitoring needs of the most critical customers of all, small and mid-sized businesses.

To accommodate this requirement, WhatsUp Gold v12.3 introduces a number of new features that enable real-time monitoring of data and add configurable reports to allow up-to-the-second intelligence about and visibility into monitored systems or devices.

WhatsUp Gold represents a cost-effective, easy-to-use solution that can grow with you as your business grows.

Split Second Graphs provide instantaneous access to critical performance data in real time.

360° Visibility

WhatsUp Gold provides 360° visibility to your network, allowing you to see all applications and network devices at a glance. With dynamic discovery and mapping, WhatsUp Gold builds a hierarchical network map for an easy-to-understand view of your network. Instantaneous alerting keeps you informed, with up-to-the-second status on every enabled monitor. Split Second Graphs provide real-time status updates whenever you move your cursor over enabled fields.

Actionable Intelligence

WhatsUp Gold delivers more than just information - it gives you actionable intelligence you can use to make informed decisions to improve the health and stability of your network. The intuitive management interface provides simple navigation and rapid access to the information you need, where and when you need it.

Configurable instant notifications keep you informed of network status and alerts, while comprehensive, out-of-the-box reporting provides critical data.

Complete Control

WhatsUp Gold lets you take control of your network and application infrastructure to drive business results. Proactive and predictive monitoring of devices, systems, applications, and services helps you resolve problems before users encounter them. And you can be confident that your network management solution is fully secure. With SSL-based Web console access you have a choice of self-signed or trusted certificates from VeriSign, Thawte, and other leading security providers.

Scalable Product Family Architecture

WhatsUp Gold Standard is part of the Ipswitch™ WhatsUp Gold family of network management solutions that also includes WhatsUp Gold Premium and WhatsUp Gold Distributed. The WhatsUp Gold product family grows with you as your network grows in size and complexity. This smooth, transparent migration path supports your needs and delivers the lowest possible total cost of ownership. There’s no need to evaluate, configure, and learn a new product as your network grows. From single-site to multisite networks, WhatsUp Gold provides a consistent user interface, management structure, and reporting capabilities.

Real-time data in Full Reports

13 new real-time reports that can be added to most full reports; you can configure full reports to include a graph that is updated continuously with real-time information. Real-time data can now be paired with historical data to give you a 360o perspective of the combined information.

InstantInfo

Throughout workspaces and full reports, you can now view device usage data in real time by simply hovering the cursor over device links in SSG graphs (e.g. hard drive names or network interfaces) to view real-time data with InstantInfo.

Web Task Manager and Web Performance Monitor

Web-based network tools that extend the functionality of familiar Windows tools to every device you monitor in real time - even for devices that do not run Windows.

What's New in WhatsUp Gold v12?

Version 12.3 extends the WhatsUp Gold product family architecture with new core features and a new NetFlow Monitor plug-in module to increase your visibility into, intelligence about and control over your network infrastructure.

WhatsUp Gold
Real-Time Management and Reporting

Previously, performance data collected and stored by WhatsUp Gold provided historic trend information useful for post-event analysis or to support future planning. In addition to the historical data, network management professionals require instantaneous visibility into device usage data in real-time for predictive management of critical infrastructure.

To accommodate this, WhatsUp Gold v12.3 introduces a number of new features that enable real-time monitoring of data and add configurable reports to allow up-to-the-second intelligence about and visibility into monitored systems or devices.

• [NEW] Split Second Graphs Workspace Reports - Flexible reports allow you to custom configure and add real-time data into any workspace view.
  
• [NEW] Real-time data in Full Reports - 13 new real-time reports that can be added to most full reports; you can configure full reports to include a graph that is updated continuously with real-time information. Real-time data can now be paired with historical data to give you a 360o perspective of the combined information.
• [NEW] InstantInfo - Throughout workspaces and full reports, you can now view device usage data in real time by simply hovering the cursor over device links in SSG graphs (e.g. hard drive names or network interfaces) to view real-time data with InstantInfo.
  
• [NEW] Web Task Manager and Web Performance Monitor - Web-based network tools that extend the functionality of familiar Windows tools to every device you monitor in real time - even for devices that do not run Windows. These new real-time graphing and reporting features allow WhatsUp administrators to engage in predictive management of almost any device or system that is being monitored.

  These new real-time graphing and reporting features allow WhatsUp administrators to engage in predictive management of almost any device or system that is being monitored. Real-time information is provided in an intuitive format and is instantly accessible in management workspace views.

New SNMP Tools and Enhancements

v12.3 introduces a number of new SNMP tools and enhancements to increase the flexibility, capabilities and configurability of SNMP in WhatsUp Gold.

High Capacity SNMP interfaces

As higher speed devices and NICs are being deployed in all types of networks, existing 32-bit counters cannot handle the amount of information being collected and can lose important data by overwriting the previous data sampled.

This is called data wrapping. For example, these faster interface speeds will cause 32-bit counters to wrap so quickly that it can be difficult to poll the counter fast enough to obtain usable data over an extended period of time.

To counteract data wrapping, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) introduced 64-bit high capacity counters in SNMPv2. WhatsUp Gold v12.3 now supports both 32-bit and high capacity 64-bit counters.

With the introduction of 64-bit high capacity counters in WhatsUp Gold, interface data can be sampled without potential for information loss as it would take an interface operating at speeds of 1 Tbs (1000 GBs) approximately 5 years to wrap a 64-bit counter.

NetSNMP and UNIX Performance Monitoring

WhatsUp Gold can now monitor a number of performance parameters on systems running a UNIX OS through the NetSNMP MIB. The NetSNMP MIB is required to be installed and running on UNIX servers to enable monitoring of critical performance areas, such as CPU utilization.

This new feature does not have any special installation requirements and is supported in all editions of WhatsUp v12.3.

Custom Names for SNMP Interfaces

Frequently, default SNMP interface names provided by devices are not intuitive and it can be difficult to determine the specific interface when setting up an interface utilization monitor for performance monitors and active monitors.

With WhatsUp Gold v12.3, administrators now have the ability to rename SNMP device interfaces to reflect corporate or other established naming conventions.

This feature is especially useful as it provides a consistent and intuitive view of interface names for performance reports, split second graphs and most other workspace reports.

SNMP Management Information Base (MIB) Tools

v12.3 introduces a number of powerful web-based SNMP MIB focused tools to increase the effectiveness of SNMP-based monitoring and provide more data for reporting in WhatsUp Gold.

WhatsUp SNMP MIB Walker

The SNMP MIB network tool lets you discover, or explore in detail, the SNMP objects that a device supports and that can be monitored with WhatsUp Gold.

As details about a MIB are displayed in MIB Walker, you can click an object (node) for more detailed information about the SNMP object and to walk further down the list of objects. You can display SNMP object details by simply hovering the cursor over a node.

WhatsUp SNMP MIB Explorer

The SNMP MIB Explorer network tool lets you search for, or explore through, SNMP objects defined in MIB files. The MIB File Explorer has three search/explore options:

• ObjectID (OID)
• MIB Module
• Type or description

A key benefit of this tool is that the detailed MIB information presented can be used to create custom performance monitors and active script performance monitors for devices.

WhatsUp SNMP MIB Manager

The SNMP MIB Manager provides a list of all of the MIB files installed in the WhatsUp Gold MIB directory. Using this tool, you can import new MIB files to the MIB Manager and the MIB Explorer will validate all MIB files as they are imported and flags errors if there is a problem with a file.

This feature provides the WhatsUp user instant visibility into any issues that are identified in an imported MIB file. If the MIB file syntax is correct and all MIB file dependencies are fulfilled, then a check mark is displayed next to the MIB file name and a success message displays in the Status column. If a problem is encountered with a MIB then the particular issue(s) is highlighted.

WhatsUP SNMP API Enhancement

The WhatsUp Gold SNMP COM API has been enhanced to allow WhatsUp users to configure multiple SNMP commands in Active Script Actions, Active Script Monitors, and Active Script Performance Monitors.

Multiple instances of Get, GetNext, and SetFunction can now be configured in scripts to query and evaluate SNMP values for devices to improve the performance of your scripted monitors and actions.