New in Version 8

PRTG V8 comes with a lot of new features, making comprehensive network monitoring even easier. Changes and new features include:

 

New: Clustering

You can setup up to 5 PRTG instances working together in a cluster, enabling fail-safe monitoring

  • A cluster consists of one primary instance of PRTG ("Master Node") and 1 to 4 secondary servers ("Failover Nodes")
  • Objective 1: Achieve 100% uptime for the monitoring solution. Not even a software update causes downtime for a PRTG cluster.
  • Objective 2: Automatic failover: If the primary node fails or loses connection to the cluster, another node immediately becomes the master server and manages notifications. Thus, notifications are always sent, even if the primary master has no connectivity or has crashed.
  • Objective 3: Multiple points-of-presence monitoring: All nodes monitor all sensors all the time. This means that response times are measured from different locations in the network (LAN/WAN/VPN) and can be compared with each other. Additionally, aggregated up/downtimes can be computed.
  • Reports can be generated "per node" or "for all nodes"
  • And here comes the best part of this new feature—our customer-friendly licensing: All PRTG licenses allow you to create a "Single Failover" installation (two installations of PRTG working together) with just one license key (additional license keys are required for 3 or more nodes).
  • This means that you don't pay extra to use PRTG's new high-availability feature (compare with other vendors!). We expect that most commercial PRTG installations will be "Single-Failover" installations (1 primary node plus 1 failover node).

 

Improved: Web Interface

PRTG's Asynchronous Java Script and XML (AJAX) web interface has been improved and redesigned.

  • We've rearranged the web interface, added new on-mouse-over features and redesigned the overall look and feel to make the web interface even more convenient for your daily work. Literally hundreds of changes and optimizations are waiting to be discovered!
  • Added a "Mini HTML" (HTML GUI) interface for mobile and low bandwidth access designed for and tested with iOS (iPhone/iPad), Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Opera Mini, and even Internet Explorer 5/6/7 (the HTML GUI does not require Ajax/Javascript but has only limited functionality)
  • Support for Google Maps in the web interface (maps that show red/green/etc. flags for down/up/etc. devices). Simply enter a postal address, city name, or geo tag in the "location" field of groups and/or devices to populate the maps with live monitoring data!

 

Improved: Maps Feature

The Maps functions have been extended.

  • PRTG now includes 280 beautifully designed network icons and you can connect map objects with lines that follow their objects when they are moved. With the new editor, PRTG now supports you in creating maps of your whole network structure, even without additional background graphics.

 

New: Native and Agent-Less Linux Monitoring

  • In-depth monitoring of Linux systems using dedicated sensors, without extensive modifications on the clients
  • Uses Secure Shell (SSH), Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), or Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) for monitoring
  • Support for all major Linux distributions and Mac OS X

 

New: Plenty of New Sensor Types

PRTG now offers more than 110 different sensor types. New and improved sensor types include:

 

New: Plenty of New Features

The new and improved features introduced in version 8 include:

  • New chart types: PRTG's charts are now easier to read with the optional new "filled" and "stacked" styles. For traffic sensors the in and out channel can be shown as positive and negative value.
  • Improved email notifications: Notification HTML emails now look great on most email clients.
  • Improved notification summarizing (to avoid email floodings)
  • HTTP notifications now with proxy support
  • Improved connection management for Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
  • Improved Application Programming Interface (API). Many new features have been added to make it easier to create your own custom sensors and scripts.
  • Added a graphical visualization of sensor dependencies

 

Improved: Speed and Stability

Features related to speed an stability include:

  • Reporting is now fully decoupled from web server and user interface, so report generation no longer affects user experience. This allows us to ease the minimum interval limits for reports: reports with 1 minute interval can now be created for up to 40 days instead of one day, 1 hour reports are possible for up to one year now.
  • Monitoring scheduler now distributes monitoring request evenly of time (per device) to avoid load peaks caused by monitoring requests
  • Notifications can now be summarized in various ways, with different settings for each single notifications
  • Performance improvements throughout the entire software

 

Other Technical Changes

Changes in version 8 include:

  • Dropped support for Flash graphs in the web interface
  • Dropped support for Internet Explorer 7 for the Ajax interface (minimum browser requirement for the Ajax interface: IE8, Firefox 3 or 4, or Chrome)
  • Oracle SQL sensor now uses external process for improved stability

 

Licensing Changes

We've extended and simplified our license model:

  • Cluster functionality included in all editions, including freeware
  • One PRTG license key may now be installed on two computers in order to set up a failover cluster
  • Unlimited number of xFlow (NetFlow, sFlow) sensors per PRTG installation (no more add-on licenses) in all editions, including freeware
  • Unlimited number of probes per PRTG installation in all editions, including freeware

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