MG-SOFT Net Inspector Fault and Performance Manager

Product history


This page provides information about the major new features introduced in the latest as well as in the past releases of MG-SOFT Net Inspector.

What's New in MG-SOFT Net Inspector 2023, Version 14
Dark color theme offers a modern look-and-feel.
The Net Inspector web-based user interface now features also dark color theme (mode), making use of darker color tones and reducing eyestrain in lower lit environments. It provides an eye-pleasing experience, especially when used in combination with dark UI mode offered by modern web browsers and operating systems. By default, Net Inspector desktop color theme matches the one set in the web browser application (Chrome, Firefox, Safari,...). However, you can manually switch the Net Inspector color theme from light to dark and vice-versa at any time with a single click of a button.
Support for SHA-2 authentication protocols in SNMPv3.
The SNMPv3 User-based Security Model in Net Inspector now supports the modern HMAC-SHA-2 authentication protocols, as specified in RFC 7860. The HMAC-SHA-2 authentication protocols provide a higher level of security than original HMAC-MD5-96 and HMAC-SHA-96 authentication protocols specified in RFC 3414. The newly supported authentication protocols are: HMAC-SHA-2-224, HMAC-SHA-2-256, HMAC-SHA-2-384 and HMAC-SHA-2-512.
Support for AES-192, AES-256 and 3DES privacy protocols in SNMPv3.
In addition to the standard CBC-DES and CFB-AES-128 privacy protocols, the SNMPv3 User-based Security Model in Net Inspector now supports also CFB-AES-192, CFB-AES-256 and CBC-3DES privacy protocols. These encryption protocols offer stronger security, especially when used in combination with the HMAC-SHA-2 authentication protocols.
Support for PHP 8 and PostgreSQL 14.
Net Inspector supports the latest version of PHP (v8.x at the time of publishing) and comes with the most recent version of PostgreSQL database management system (v14.x). The newest PHP and PostgreSQL versions account for many improvements and performance gains in using the software.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced Installation and configuration guide and comprehensive online help documentation with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from MG-SOFT Net Inspector.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented in included applications, and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.

What's New in MG-SOFT Net Inspector 2020, Version 13
Configurable Device Performance pages.
The contents of Device Performance pages can now be further customized to include reports (e.g., graphs or tables) not present on this page by default. One can now add to it any report available in Net Inspector, including those configured in custom polling strategies (if any). User-added reports automatically contain data collected from the given device (if available). One can easily apply the customized device performance page either to all devices of the same type or to all devices in the system. All this allows for a better overview and more direct access of collected data and thus increases versatility and usability of the software.
Configurable quick links for ease of access.
You can now add (dock) desired device performance pages and custom report pages to quick link tabs displayed below the main header tabs in Net Inspector user interface. This makes the docked pages easily accessible from anywhere in the given user view, as it requires only one click of a button to display the respective page. Each user can configure his/her own quick links for each user view that exists in Net Inspector and adding or removing specific pages to/from quick links can be accomplished with a single click of a button.
Custom polling: generating events from an SNMP alarm table.
The custom polling and processing capabilities have been further extended to enable polling alarm tables in remote SNMP devices and automatically generating Net Inspector events and alarms from collected data. This functionality enables also automatic re- synchronization of the complete alarm picture from monitored devices. The accompanying Net Inspector Advanced Configuration Utility has also been extended to allow configuring polling of alarm tables and mapping of device-specific alarm data to Net Inspector alarm data (X.733-compliant).
GUI performance optimizations.
Various improvements and optimizations in user interface performance have been implemented, resulting in increased GUI responsiveness, especially when remote polling engines are deployed. This ensures an improved user experience and higher productivity.
Support for PHP 7.4 and Apache Web server on Windows.
Net Inspector now supports also the latest version of PHP (7.4.x at the time of publishing) and using Apache Web server on Windows. By combining PHP 7.x, Apache and GUI optimizations introduced in V13, a significant performance boost can be experienced when using Net Inspector Web-based user interface. This may result in twice as fast page loading as before.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced Installation and configuration guide and comprehensive online help documentation with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from MG-SOFT Net Inspector.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented in included applications, and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.

What's New in MG-SOFT Net Inspector 2019, Version 12
Importing devices from a CSV file.
Net Inspector now lets you import information about devices from a simple CSV (comma-separated values) text file. Several device properties can be specified in a CSV file, with the simplest form requiring only the name and IP address of devices being present in a CSV file. The import feature lets you start monitoring network devices in a rapid and straight-forward manner. This new method of adding devices to Net Inspector can be used either exclusively or in combination with existing device adding methods, like SNMP-based network discovery, auto-configuration by receiving SNMP Traps and NetFlow/sFlow traffic from network elements, discovering virtualization infrastructure, etc..
Device SNMP listening port can be configured on a per-device basis.
In Net Inspector, the port that monitored devices listen to for SNMP requests has been traditionally specified in the access profile assigned to devices. Now, you can easily configure the port for each device in the respective device properties page. This way, the port setting can be overridden on a per-device basis, without having to configure a multitude of different access profiles.
Improved application performance and stability.
Several optimizations and performance improvements have been implemented in various Net Inspector modules. Additionally, all known issues in previous versions have been fixed and overall stability and reliability of the software has been improved.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced Installation and configuration guide and comprehensive online help documentation with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from MG-SOFT Net Inspector.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented in included applications, and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.

What's New in MG-SOFT Net Inspector 2017, Version 11
New, modern web-based graphical front-end (client).
Net Inspector now incorporates a new, completely web-based graphical front-end employing dynamic web technologies. The new front-end replaces the Java Client available in previous versions of Net Inspector and should help you start using the software effectively in no time, thanks to its intuitive and user-friendly interface with a modern look and feel and with the ease of use of a web browser application (Chrome, Firefox, MS Edge, etc. ). It provides a graphical presentation of user views, maps, dashboards and reports. Presented content offers a complete and quick insight into the status and performance of the monitored network and devices, as well as the capability to quickly drill-down to root causes when problems occur.
Virtualization infrastructure monitoring (VMware vSphere, MS Hyper-V).
Net Inspector can now discover and monitor the organization's virtualization infrastructure, i.e., virtualization servers (VMware ESX/ESXi and vCenter and Microsoft Hyper-V), the associated guest virtual machines (VMs) and the resource usage of virtualization servers and VMs (e.g., CPU and memory usage, network utilization and traffic, server datastore usage, etc.). The virtualization data is collected by using VMware Web Services (VMware vSphere virtualization servers) and WMI (MS virtualization servers). Complete information about virtualization infrastructure is displayed on preconfigured and easy-to-understand virtualization dashboards that provide capabilities to drill-down to reports with detailed history charts and tables.
WMI data collection enables monitoring Windows machines without SNMP.
Net Inspector now supports monitoring Windows servers and workstations with Windows-native WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) technology. Complete device health and performance can be collected through WMI, which eliminates the need to install and configure SNMP agents on Windows machines. This feature is available in the Windows version of Net Inspector only. .
Fully configurable dashboards and reports.
Net Inspector includes a wealth of fault and performance management dashboards and reports including top-N, bottom-N, topology maps, time charts, device problems, active alarms, alarm history and much more. All these reports can be fully configured and customized to meet your preferences and to include desired variables, time frame, data aggregation, etc. .
New Device Problems and Alarm History dashboards.
The new and intuitive Device Problems and Alarm History dashboards enable a perfect overview and effective examination of current and past problems. The Device Problems dashboard provides a summary of current and past problems (alarms) on monitored devices. This report contains an expandable list of all types of alarms that are currently open or have been open within the last 24 hours and the last 30 days time frame. This enables you to asses the health and performance of monitored devices at a glance. The Alarm History dashboard graphically presents the distribution of alarms in a given time frame using a stacked bar chart. The corresponding alarm history list displays a detailed list of all alarms that existed in the given time slot. Alarms in the list can be filtered, searched for, sorted by any property, etc., so one can effectively analyze the history of alarms (including alarm generation, clearing, acknowledging, etc.). .
New context-sensitive online help in HTML format.
Completely new online help documentation in HTML format with numerous images, examples and step-by-step instructions will help you get started using the software quickly and effectively and promptly obtain relevant instructions when needed. The online help includes full-text search facility and is now context- sensitive and therefore quickly accessible from almost any point in the GUI. The bundled Net Inspector Installation and Configuration Guide (PDF) has also undergone a complete update.
Improved history charts with tooltips, quick-zoom, multiple Y-axes, etc.
Bar history charts that display collected metric values and are available throughout the application have been greatly improved and enhanced. These charts now display the actual value of a given metric in a tooltip when hovering over the bar with mouse, offer quick client-side zooming feature, are capable to present multiple and diverse metrics on the same chart, with multiple Y-axes and different units, can be configured to show data aggregated in different ways, etc.
Enhanced NetFlow and sFlow dashboards with drill-down filters.
The NetFlow and sFlow dashboards have been significantly enhanced and extended to provide a big picture view and deep insight into the volume and types of traffic in the monitored network. New filters let you effectively drill-down NetFlow dashboards to a specific view (e.g., to view traffic in terms of packets and bytes of a specific endpoint filtered by a selected application protocol, network protocol, peer endpoint, country, etc.).
The alarm delay option enables ignoring recurring and short-lived alarms.
Net Inspector now lets you configure a delay for generating the device status alarms and all threshold-based alarms in order to avoid reporting unwanted alarms (e.g., recurring alarms that cross the threshold and fall below the rearm value frequently, short-lived "device is down" alarms triggered when a device is rebooted, etc.), or to prevent false positive problem detection. If an alarm is cleared within the user- configured delay interval, the alarm is ignored (not reported at all).
Secure access (HTTPS) to Net Inspector Server.
Connections to Net Inspector web-based user interface are secured by using the HTTPS protocol. If HTTPS is not enabled on the Web server (IIS), Net Inspector installer (Windows version only) offers you the option to quickly configure HTTPS access on the Web server with a self- signed digital certificate. This way, one can immediately start using secure connections that ensure server authentication and payload encryption.
Export to PDF format is now enabled on all pages in Net Inspector desktop.
One can now quickly create a "snapshot" of the current state of dashboards and alarms by exporting the current view in any page of Net Inspector desktop to portable PDF file format for dissemination to interested parties or historic problem documentation or analysis.
Improved presentation of data collected from private SNMP MIB modules.
When presenting custom, user configured SNMP variables collected from monitored devices, Net Inspector now automatically includes a history chart that can contain multiple custom variables and multiple Y-axis and the associated data tables of collected values.
Significantly extended collection of standard MIB files.
Net Inspector now ships with significantly extended collection of 379 standard MIB files, which we extracted from RFC documents, and which contain roughly 28000 OID, textual convention and SNMP notification definitions.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented in included applications, and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.

What's New in MG-SOFT Net Inspector 2014, Version 10
Dynamic visualization of connection status and network traffic.
Net Inspector now dynamically visualizes the network status and traffic by changing the thickness and color of network connection lines, thus depicting the current connection status (up or down) and traffic (data throughput and interface in/out utilization). The width of a connection line automatically increases with increasing connection data throughput (bitrate) and its color gradually changes from black to orange with increasing link utilization. If a link is down, the color of the respective connection line is red. By dynamically visualizing network traffic, Net Inspector now provides intuitive insight into network utilization patterns and lets you quickly identify performance bottlenecks in the monitored network.
Enhanced Consolidated Performance Manager Web-based interface.
Net Inspector Performance Manager’s Web-based interface has been significantly extended and improved in order to enable:
  • Automatic consolidated presentation of the complete managed network, regardless of the number of installed remote polling engines;
  • Enhanced and improved preconfigured periodic reporting with comprehensive integration of NetFlow data;
  • Significantly faster graphical user interface for smoother navigation and improved user experience;
  • Greatly simplified and enhanced configuration of custom report pages that serve as dashboards tailored specifically to user needs;
  • Full drill-down concept in NetFlow report pages allows viewing detailed information about the selected endpoint, application, conversation or protocol in terms of data transferred in a few simple clicks;
  • A new dedicated Services report page containing information about the availability and latency (RTT) of monitored network services;
  • etc.
Device performance tooltips and dashboards.
Simply hover your mouse cursor above the device icon in Net Inspector Client to quickly check the current device performance information (interface, CPU, memory, storage utilization rates, etc.) and active alarms in a convenient pop-up tooltip. Furthermore, you can pin a tooltip to the desired position on the screen to use it as a permanent device performance dashboard. This principle lets you quickly and effectively create dashboards for monitoring the status and performance of most important devices in your network.
Auto-labeled connections and endpoint interfaces.
Connections between SNMP-enabled devices in Net Inspector graphics view now by default display labels providing information about the current network traffic (data throughput and interface in/out utilization rates). Furthermore, both endpoints of a connection line are also auto-labeled, carrying information about the respective endpoint network interface’s name (description), IP address, or both. Connection labels can be edited to contain arbitrary text entered by a user (e.g., useful for adding annotations to connections).
Interface status symbols.
Displayed at connection line endpoints in Net Inspector Client graphics view, interface status symbols graphically indicate the current status (e.g., up, down, disabled, etc.) of the network interfaces used for respective connections between managed devices. This feature enables a better overview of the health of the monitored network and lets you tell at a glance if any connection is down due to interface issues.
Improvements in SNMP data collection.
Several significant improvements in SNMP data collection have been introduced in order to enhance support for standard and private MIB modules and provide even more valuable performance data information to users.
Compatible with latest Java distribution.
Net Inspector Client application and its Web Start mechanism now fully support the latest (Oracle) Java distribution (JRE 1.8+).
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manuals and help files with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from MG-SOFT Net Insepctor.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented in included applications, and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.

What's New in MG-SOFT Net Inspector 2013, Version 9
Support for Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.
Net Inspector 2013 now successfully installs and runs also on Microsoft's latest Windows operating systems - Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.
New device icons in vector-based SVG format.
New, modern symbols for representing different types of managed devices (servers, routers, switches, firewalls, etc.) have been introduced for enhanced application look and feel. In addition, support for icons in vector image format greatly enhances user experience when enlarging and reducing the map views in Net Inspector Client.
Support for monitoring the status of SIP and H.323 VoIP services.
Net Inspector Performance Manager now supports monitoring the availability of VoIP call signaling services (SIP and H.323).
Redesigned Performance Manager Web-based interface (PHP).
Net Inspector Performance Manager Web interface has undergone a significant redesign to ensure increased page loading speed, provide customizable, multi-column device performance page layouts, include information about IP addresses in network interfaces details page, provide direct links from NetFlow reports to individual device performance web pages, etc. All these changes make the Net Inspector Performance Manager Web interface even more versatile, user friendly and convenient to use.
Enhanced mechanisms of distributed network management.
If any of the distributed Net Inspector polling engines looses its connection to the main Net Inspector Server, it continues to poll managed devices and receive SNMP notifications in the detached network segment. All events, alarms and performance data is remotely stored and automatically synchronized when the connection with the main server is re-established so the complete history of the network health and performance is available.
Improved network discovery methods and topology calculation.
The built-in network discovery feature has been further extended and refined to take into account also routing information when calculating and presenting the topology of the discovered network. When a device with two or more assigned IP addresses is discovered, only one device is added to the management system (for routers, the loopback address is automatically selected for management). Furthermore, target submap can be chosen and existing links preserved when adding discovered device to user view.
Connection labels.
A connection line (line connecting 2 managed objects on Net Inspector map) can now have 3 labels. Labels are used, for example, for naming the connection and its endpoint interfaces/addresses. Network discovery operation automatically inserts and displays interfaces' IP addresses as connection labels.
Significantly extended collection of standard MIB files.
Net Inspector now ships with significantly extended collection of 335 standard MIB files, which we extracted from RFC documents, up to the most recent RFC document at the time of publishing, RFC-6780.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manuals and help files with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from MG-SOFT Net Insepctor.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented in included applications, and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.

What's New in MG-SOFT Net Inspector 2012, Version 8
IPv6 support.
In addition to the standard IPv4 transport protocol, Net Inspector now supports also IPv6 transport and can monitor network devices on IPv4 and IPv6 networks.
Predefined set of fault and performance management reports.
Net Inspector now incorporates a large number of predefined fault and performance management reports (e.g., device availability, number of alarms per severity, network interface utilization, CPU usage,…) that are accessible out-of-the-box. The user can select the desired time interval (e.g., day, week, month, quarter, half year, year,…) for any of the predefined reports and the results are displayed in a tabular format either for all managed devices or only for a subset of devices specified by a filter. Reports can be exported to PDF and CSV file formats for external viewing or post-processing.
SNMP notification reception and services monitoring by remote polling engines.
Net Inspector now supports distributed collection of SNMP Trap and Inform notification messages performed by remote Performance Manager polling engines, as well as the distributed monitoring of well-known network services (HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, DNS, SMTP, IMAP, IMAPS, POP3, SSH, Telnet, NNTP, NNTPS, LDAP, LDAPS, IPP, LPD, MsSQL, MySQL, Oracle).
Auto Configuration feature.
When enabled, the new Auto Configuration feature automatically adds new objects to the management system and starts monitoring them when Net Inspector receives SNMP Trap or Inform notification messages or NetFlow packets from unknown sources (IP addresses). This functionality is particularly useful, for example, when attaching new devices to your network.
Import managed devices from an ASCII file.
Information about objects to be managed can now be imported also from a plain ASCII file (e.g., CSV format) that has been previously exported from another application or produced in a text editor.
Extended network discovery feature supporting multiple IP ranges.
The built-in network discovery functionality has been extended to support discovering network devices in multiple user-specified ranges of IP addresses.
Advanced Configuration Utility for extending the performance management data model.
Net Inspector Advanced Configuration Utility application with easy-to-use graphical user interface has been introduced to allow extending the performance management data model and thus enable Net Inspector Performance Manager to monitor custom, user specified SNMP variables on managed devices.
95-th percentile and trend line statistics added to Performance Manager.
Net Inspector Performance Manager now supports the option to display the 95-th percentile line and trend line in performance graphs. These features enable a better understanding of the collected information and let you easily determine trends in network resources utilization.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manuals and help files with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from MG-SOFT Net Inspector.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented in included applications, and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.

What's New in MG-SOFT Net Inspector 2010, Version 7
Performance management module with Web-based graphical user interface.
New Performance Manager module has been developed and integrated into Net Inspector. Performance management data model contains a large number of key performance indicators (KPIs) including response time, packet loss, interfaces status, traffic and errors, CPU, memory and disk utilization, running processes status, memory and CPU utilization, IP SLA VoIP measurements on Cisco devices, built-in top-N reports, configurable report pages and PDF export feature. Performance Manager Web-based presentation layer is seamlessly integrated into Net Inspector Java Client.
Distributed network management.
The software lets you deploy a number of Performance Manager polling engines on remote locations or in different segments of the managed network. This enables load balancing and better performance of the management system. Distributed management also makes the system easily scalable without seriously degrading its performance, so the management system's capacity can seamlessly grow with your network.
High availability.
Net Inspector server (main management server as well as distributed server modules) can be configured to run in fail-over clusters, ensuring high availability.
NetFlow receiver and analyzer module.
Net Inspector now incorporates distributed NetFlow monitoring, providing detailed IP traffic statistics, i.e., the applications that generate the most traffic, endpoints (IP addresses) that receive and generate the most traffic, protocols that are used most, etc. This information is obtained by collecting, analyzing and aggregating NetFlow packets exported by the NetFlow-enabled devices. NetFlow monitoring effectively complements the standard SNMP monitoring and together they offer a valuable insight into the network infrastructure and bandwidth utilization and let you easily identify the cause of congestions, etc.
Network Discovery Wizard.
The new Network Discovery Wizard lets you configure the settings for and start the network discovery operation in a few simple steps. The network discovery operation discovers the devices and topology of your network and automatically adds discovered devices as managed objects to Net Inspector configuration and maps. Therefore, Net Inspector lets you start monitoring your network almost instantly, without any special training.
SOAP interface.
Net Inspector server contains a SOAP interface for exporting Net Inspector configuration data and information on active alarms to third-party applications via an XML-based SOAP protocol.
Added commands for SNMP and polling profiles save/load to/from ASCII file.
Profiles that contain SNMP access parameters and polling parameters can now be imported from and exported to CSV file format for easier sharing between different applications or different Net Inspector installations.
Enhanced documentation.
Updated and enhanced user manuals and help files with numerous hints and usage examples will help you get the most from MG-SOFT Net Inspector.
Besides the above listed features, a number of minor improvements have been implemented in included applications, and all known problems occurring in older versions have been fixed for this release.