Release Notes 57

Date of Publication: 14/09/2023

This document deals with the new features, functionalities, improvements and corrections integrated in version 57 of WOCU-Monitoring, responding to the requests and suggestions of our users and the current market needs.

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As in the previous version, much of our efforts have have gone into the evolution of Notifications to Contacts, in particular, it is now possible to configuration of new Notification Commands, to achieve a more precise and adapted definition of notification notification.

Another related development, is the ability to mute or globally disable notifications that the tool emits upon anomalous events. At the click of a button, the user will stop receiving notifications if required.

The new global host search engine is a a very interesting feature, since it makes it easier and faster to location of elements in large infrastructures.

Another milestone of this release is the integration of Gconf with WOCU-Monitoring, as a complementary tool for the management and consultation of configurations and backups of monitored equipment.

But this is not all, we continue polishing aesthetic details and design with the refactoring of various of the frontend, along with the development of new custom monitoring.

Without further ado, we will now go on to detail in depth all the new features that this new version of WOCU-Monitoring brings with it.

1. New global search engine for hosts

The top bar incorporates a Global search engine tolocate a specific Host from among the totality of Realms managed in the application. By selecting or searching for the desired desired item, the user will be directed to the Realm where it is located, to continue with its management and tracking.

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The global search engine allows several search options:

  • Manually entering either the name of the Host of interest or the first characters of the search term.

  • Through the available selector: clicking on the date (V) will displays an initial list with the first ten Hosts. As you down the list, the list will be updated to show new items.

../../_images/57_22_global_search_selector.png

With this new integration, time and effort savings are achieved in the process of searching for assets within complex infrastructures.

2. Integration with the GConf tool

Within the WOCU-Monitoring product suite, it is distributed GConf. It is a complementary tool, useful for the integrated, unified and/or independent of the configurations of the network equipment managed and monitored in the application.

Integration with WOCU-Monitoring has been implemented in this version. This means that it is now possible to query detailed detailed information about configurations and backups of each monitored asset.

Once this additional module is enabled, the user will have access from the GConf section.

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In this space it is possible to know in detail the configuration of the indicated equipment (in raw format) and its downloading for later use in case ofloss, corruption, damage of the original data, etc.

Thanks to the integration capability of WOCU-Monitoring, a unified experience for all network management in largeinfrastructures and complex environments is offered.

3. Optimization of Notifications in WOCU-Monitoring

Configuration of new Notification Commands

The Notification System of WOCU-Monitoring incorporates the new Notification Commands section. From this space it is possible to configure new Commands useful for the definition of Notifications Way associated with Contacts.

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Through the use of commands, the response to critical or relevant events critical or relevant events occurring in the infrastructure.

Each command specifies the way in which notifications are sent and received through a wide range of widely used communication tools or technologies that WOCU-Monitoring integrates and supports, among which are: Cortex, Discord and Slack.

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Global disabling of notifications

Until now, disabling notifications in the application was done individually, which could result in a tedious tedious. In this version, we have worked on the design of a new space for global management of notifications in WOCU-Monitoring.

This means that, from now on, the user can control easily control whether or not to receive notifications originating from a given monitoring realm.

Through the Engine Config section and via the Action: Enable/Disable notifications, the user can control the notifications according to his needs and preferences.

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Notifications via Telegram

We continue to enhance our system of event notifications relevant events, expanding the catalog of communication communication tools or technologies that WOCU-Monitoring integrates and supports.

If in the previous version Discord was enabled, in this sprint we have worked on another communication tool of widespread use, such as Telegram.

This linkage allows users to receive notifications in real time and can interact with them within the same application,which facilitates collaboration and rapid response to any incident.

See the following examples of notifications:

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In short, this is one of many methods of integrating WOCU-Monitoring with other alerting tools by notifications.

4. Hosts export capability in CSV and JSON

Although WOCU-Monitoring offers a multitude of functions for the management of data, metrics, logs, etc., at some point you may require the use of other external tools to process this information. For this purpose, a new option for downloading Hosts in Assets within the Configuration Module.

On this occasion, the widely used CSV and JSON to the export export function, which facilitates the downloading of inventory data in a file to hard hard disk, for later use according to the various needs of the user.

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5. Checking the configuration of Monitoring Packs.

New Check services configuration button has been added to the edit form of Packs, whose function is to check the configuration of the monitoring services that integrate a particular pack. Incorrect use of packs can lead to operational problems and impact on the performance of services.

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By running this check, the tool can analyze the associated service configurations and alert on any discrepancies or existing problems.

The result obtained is displayed in a new informative view, which includes the status of each service, along with the values of macros supplied.

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Ultimately, this action ensures that every pack is correctly configured and ready to perform its monitoring function successfully, which contributes to a stable, secure and efficient operation of WOCU-Monitoring.

6. Different refactorings of the frontend

We continue to refactor and simplify numerous components of WOCU-Monitoring to REACT technology. We have also carried out a homogenization of styles, such as correction of minor variations in appearance. This remodeling will have an impact on a better debugging loading times, better maintainability and performance and responsive visualization.

The sections and components that have been worked on are:

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  • Problems: where the different available filters, following the criteria implemented in other similar views of the application.

7. WOCU-Check Action Update

In addition to the refactoring to REACT, the WOCU-Check has undergone a comprehensive revamp at the design and content.

The Validate Errors and Warnings table used to display problems encountered during the validation and restart.

Therefore, the information is now displayed in a more organized through a tabular format, and more accessible thanks to the incorporation of components such as the search bar or item pagination.

As a sorting criterion, errors are positioned first, followed by warnings. The system will not execute any restarts whenever and when errors exist.

Finally, the error messages have been updated to be much more descriptive.

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8. Identification of Business Processes by Display Name

The new Display Name attribute is included to the Hosts Business Processes so that the end user can identify a specific Business Business Process in a more user-friendly and understandable way, instead of assigning technical terms or unintuitive code.

By making use of this new field, the identification, search and managementof such assets in complex environments is facilitated.

By making use of this new field, it facilitates the identification, search and management of this type of assets in complex environments.

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9. New exclusive service for API consultation

In this version the architecture of WOCU-Monitoring has been modified, from now on the API will be its own instance. This decentralizes console queries are decentralized, ensuring an equitable distribution of requests among different nodes, which will improve the performance of the tool in large environments.

With this new development we seek to improve scalability and efficiency in the processing and management of queries, controlling the excess load and performance of this exclusive use machine.

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10. Debian 11 support

In addition to the new functionalities described, this new version of WOCU-Monitoring brings other changes to its base system.

In terms of operating systems, support for Debian 11 (current stable version). This integration brings with it a number of improvements in stability, broad hardware compatibility and long-term maintainability. In addition, it has entailed a version upgrade from MySQL 5.7 to MySQL 8.

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Although support for Debian 10 is maintained, it is advised to migrate the operating system as soon as possible, as officially the security updates will be discontinued as of June 30, 2022.

On the other hand, RHEL 8 is also supported, and Ubuntu 22 is on way.

As always, other pieces of software have been incorporated and updated”in this new version. They can be found at: Updated Software.

11. New Update section in the Administration Manual

The new Update section added to the WOCU-Monitoring, provides a comprehensive guide on how to keep the tool up to date and take full advantage of its capabilities. It also includes relevant guidelines for updating operating systems.

This resource ensures that administrators are prepared to keep the tool and other supported operating systems, updated and optimized in a constantly evolving environment.

Updates are vital to improve performance, fix bugs and strengthen the security of the tool.

10. Monitoring packs

See our catalogue of Monitoring Packs in the following link.

Nuevo pack Palo-alto-tunnels

The new Palo-alto-tunnels pack, designed to discover all the IPSEC tunnels configured in a Palo Alto brand host, has been added to the catalogue. Once identified, the tunnels to be monitored can be selected.

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A WOCU-Monitoring service shall be created for each selected IPSEC tunnel. This service shall alert when the tunnel status is different from the configured one.

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New pack A10

The new A10 pack is useful for monitoring the A10 brand traffic balancers

The pack includes global services that provide us with health metrics and server performance:

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Additionally, the pack creates services to obtain specific metrics for server, server_group, server_port, virtual_server, etc.

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The pack includes discover scripts so you can conveniently choose which servers, server_ports, service_groups, service_group_members, virtual_servers and virtual_server_ports monitor.

New pack Efficientip

New Efficientip pack designed to monitor servers DHCP and DNS servers of the Efficient-IP brand. This pack includes services to obtain performance metrics of the operating system (CPU, memory, disk, etc.), as well as statistics of DHCP and DNS services:

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New pack Wocu-events-diff

The new Wocu-events-diff pack is added to the catalog for monitor the correct functioning of WOCU-Monitoring, specifically, the insertion in ElasticSearch and MongoDB of the events generatedin the monitoring process.

This monitoring pack will alert when any of the database events are not being inserted. It will also generate metrics and graphs that will allow to track the rate of events per minutes that are are being generated.

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New pack Wocu-services-latency

The new Wocu-services-latency pack has been included, which extends the list of packs intended for the monitoring of the WOCU-Monitoring infrastructure.

In this case it is a matter of verifying that the latencies of services and hosts are maintained at appropriate values. The latency of services and host latency is the time difference between the moment at at which the scheduler schedules a check, and the time at which actually executes that check.

In an environment with a normal load, the latency should be no more than a few seconds, but in an environment with a high load, the values of latency grow. Monitoring these values and alerting when exceed the configured thresholds, is an effective mechanism to detect early detection of possible service degradation.

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Other improvements and fixes

Every new version is full of small changes, fixes and optimisations that should be briefly highlighted. We list the most notable ones in this release:

  • Fixed a bug that affected the pagination operation of tables present in the Notifications Ways section.

  • The export of Reports in CSV format is again operational regardless of the Scope configured.

  • Responsive display in the Services modal to avoid styling issues on certain screen resolutions.

  • Manual selection of non-consecutive entries in the Services Inventory is working normally again.

  • The representation mode (in star format) of the Business_impact variable within the Configuration Module.

  • As of this release, the Audit Module is is enabled by default.

  • The usability of the Discover action is improved by admitting the values registered in the form without having to store them previously, as was previously the case.

  • From this version onwards, each discovery script will be launched taking into account the host’s configured poller (provided it is defined), which will result in higher accuracy and lower resources.

  • Fixed a bug that affected the pagination operation of tables when a search was executed.

  • Improved the design and usability of the main menu of sections that integrate the Configuration Module.

  • The Massive-actions drop-down of the Services Inventory is working properly again, after resolution of an error caused by selecting the default Massive Actions and Disable Active Check.

  • The actions available in the Notifications Ways and Host Notificaction Command, are added to the UI-ACL module for control and restriction of access to certain users or groups thereof.

  • An internal error message is removed in the Other Log Events (Logs) when no data exists.

  • The column Services present in the Inventory of Problems, now includes for each servicemonitoring identifying icons (of manufacturers, technologies, operating systems…) referring to Monitoring Packs to which it belongs.

Updated Software

As always, other pieces of software have been incorporated and updated in this new version of WOCU-Monitoring:

Software

Previous version

Current version

Remarks

react-select

2.4.4

5.7.3

https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-select/v/5.7.3

mysql

5.7

8

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/relnotes/mysql/8.0/en/

Django

3.2.15

3.2.20

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/releases/3.2.20/

About WOCU-Monitoring

WOCU-Monitoring is a monitoring tool that integrates the latest Open Source technologies for monitoring, visualisation, metrics graphing and log management, providing a wide visibility on the status and availability of network elements, servers, databases and workstations (among others) using customised Monitoring Packs.

Con la versión de WOCU-Monitoring denominada Enterprise es posible realizar despliegues de miles de dispositivos IP, en un entorno distribuido, con personalizaciones adaptadas a la infraestructura de cada cliente.