InterMapper 5.1

InterMapper 5.1 is a software providing users live network monitoring, mapping, which alerts identify potential problems before your end-users notice a thing. Its traffic analysis capabilities provide 24 x 7 intelligence on overall network operations, including bandwidth usage, network traffic, and performance degradation.

Network maps provide at-a-glance visibility of device status and real-time network traffic analysis. Color-coded icons show which network devices are overloaded, underperforming, or down. Animated traffic "ants" make heavy network traffic patterns obvious and provide one-click access to underlying NetFlow data.

With InterMapper, network managers get complete visibility of their network, no matter how small and centralized or large and distributed. Live maps give a visual, real-time view of traffic flows through and between network elements and links. Status Windows and Strip Charts provide easy access to critical network data (traffic, errors, utilization and outage information) simplifying problem diagnosis and device maintenance.

InterMapper shows you potential network problems often before users and customers suffer downtime or poor performance. SNMP and ping probes discover and query elements across your distributed network whether it spans several rooms, a building, an office park, or distributed locations. Synthetic transactions test critical applications and alert you to email, web, or directory server problems. The fully integrated InterMapper Flows module analyzes network traffic and tells you who is generating network traffic during specific time periods and where they are located. You gain highly detailed network traffic analyses that reveal bandwidth hogs.

Major Features:

1. Live Network Monitoring and Mapping. Network maps provide at-a-glance views of device status and real-time traffic flow.
   • color-coding shows elements that are slow or having problems
   • intuitive animation depicts traffic flows
   • maps show interconnections between elements
   • network elements appear in physical or geographic locations
   • status badges indicate severity level (down, alarm, warning, critical)
   • multiple views highlight device details, interconnections, and staff assignments
   • map "slideshow" rotates at user-defined interval
   • maps are continually saved (every minute or so) to prevent data loss
2. Detailed NetFlow Analysis with InterMapper Flows. InterMapper Flows, a NetFlow analyzer, is integrated with InterMapper maps giving you an overview of all network devices and connections and one-click access to detailed network traffic information. You'll quickly locate bandwidth hogs and note network traffic trends.
3. Integration with Google Earth. InterMapper can export information to Google Earth, so that icons that have geographic coordinates will appear in the correct location.
   • Set an icon's latitude and longitude manually
   • Import a file that contains latitudes and longitudes to set many devices at once.
   • InterMapper infers latitude and longitude from any map that has benchmarks.
4. Probe Groups. Probe Groups further streamline InterMapper network maps by reducing the number of icons that are displayed.
   • A Probe Group allows you to include multiple probes targeting the same IP address in a single icon.
   • A Probe Group shows the worst status among the probes in the group.
   • A member probe of a group can have its own alarms.
   • If a group's Control Probe goes down, notifications for the other probes in the group are suppressed.
   • A Probe Group counts as a single device against your license count.
5. Easy Data Charting (Strip Charts). Strip Charts graph network performance for elements and connections.
   • network data includes percent utilization, error counts, packet and byte counts, etc.
   • router and server data includes link, temperature, CPU/memory utilization, etc.
   • charts present day, week, month, and year intervals
   • graphs generated by clicking on mapped element or connection
6. Detailed, Real-Time Network Reports (Status Windows). Status Windows quickly display data collected from the network.
   • Interface Status Windows detail transmit and receive statistics for that interface, utilization rates, and the device's name, link type, description, status, and IP and MAC address
   • Device Status Windows display DNS name and IP address, uptime, availability, packet loss statistics (if relevant) round trip time, and many other device-specific data values
   • Status windows appear when you click and hold the mouse button on a mapped element or connection and disappear when the mouse is released
   • windows “tear off” for persistent viewing
7. User/Password Authentication. InterMapper Authentication Server (IM AuthServer) protects InterMapper access.
   • logins checked against a company-wide directory (Active Directory, LDAP, Open Directory, Radius, IAS and others)
   • directory lookups supplement the names in InterMapper's built-in user/password database to simplify the creation of accounts at organizations with dozens or hundreds of technicians
8. Data Export/Import. Take advantage of outside data sources (device information, latitude/longitude data) to describe and position network devices. Share InterMapper data with other network monitoring tools and network management solutions.
   • import customer information as you acquire new customers
   • simple import process reads tab-delimited, CSV, or XML files containing customer information (IP address, name, equipment type, and latitude and longitude.)
   • export data in CSV format.
   • export a list of maps and their associated status and/or a list of device interfaces.
9. Sub-Map Detail. Smaller geographies and more detailed portions of your network are viewed by “drilling down” (clicking on) from top-level network maps.
   • icons on top-level map can show state of most serious condition on a sub-map
   • sub-maps can be hosted on a remote InterMapper server
   • access controlled by username and password or IP address restrictions
   • submaps work across direct IP connections and VPNs and through firewalls (through a user-selected port) to allow viewing via browser without exposing network details to the broader Internet
10. Highly Scalable. InterMapper distributes polling via servers that are placed at strategic locations on your network. Sub-maps are hosted at remote locations and data is accessed from a central location to scale easily from single-building LANs to multi-national WANs.
    • most monitoring traffic remains local to site to reduce network traffic
    • access can be granted/denied to branch office staff
    • central office staff can access submaps directly or by drilling down on top-level maps
    • remote InterMapper servers may be configured from central location
    • remote data is firewall protected, user-selected firewall port provides secure data access with SSL encryption
11. Flexible Alerting. One or more network managers can be notified of network problems via threshold based alerts.
    • alerting methods include sounds, email messages, pages, text messages to cell phones via SMS, SNMP traps to selected receivers, WinPopup messages, and syslog notification
    • optional alert supression for devices "behind" a failed router or switch
    • notification schedules (time of day, weekend only) can vary by individual
    • time delay options minimize “nuisance” alarms
    • escalation options help track unresolved issues (page when server goes down, second page if it remains down for two minutes, third page if it remains down longer, etc.)
    • command-line notifications provoke action in response to failure
12. Individual and Group Accounts. Accounts allow or restrict access to network maps and data.
    • User and Group accounts supported
    • Read/write, Read-only, or no access is set on a map by map basis
    • Administrators have full access to maps, configuration settings and options
    • Use LDAP, Active Directory, Radius, IAS, Open Directory, Kerberos to authenticate users
13. Polling Behavior Control. Data collection options tailor InterMapper to your management requirements.
    • polling interval defaults to every 30 seconds
    • "outages" triggered by desktops that have been shut off or laptops that have been disconnected can be ignored
    • devices can be automatically reprobed every 12 hours
14. Data Gathering for Hundreds of Network Elements. InterMapper employs a variety of highly reliable methods for discovering and reporting on your networked equipment.
    • Any device with an IP address can be pinged
    • Traffic on Routers and switches can be monitored using versions SNMPv1, SNMPv2c, or SNMPv3
    • Nearly 100 built-in probes can test the health and performance of various kinds of servers, routers, switches, UPSs, environmental monitors and other networked equipment.
    • Synthetic transactions test mail, web, and directory servers from over 50 vendors
    • Windows NT services are monitored directly
    • Host resource probe monitors CPU and disk activity as well as free space on drives.
    • LDAP and LDAP-SSL probes support an optional password when binding, allow you to specify an alternate search field, and can trigger an alarm if an insufficient number of records are returned
    • Custom probes can be created to test TCP or SNMP-speaking devices
    • Command line probes test devices using a program or script. Pre-written Nagios™ and Big Brother™ plug-ins/scripts can be used as command line probes.
15. Rapid Time to Value
    • Install InterMapper and begin viewing your network in hours – not days, weeks, or months.

Enhancements:

• Probe Groups: Probe Groups allows you to include multiple probes targeting the same IP address in a single icon on a map. The Probe Group shows the status of the worst status among the probes in the group. A Probe Group counts as a single device against your license count.
• SMS Notifiers: SMS notifiers allow you to send SMS notifications directly to a cell phone using a cellular (GSM or CDMA) modem, rather than relying on TAP or email gateways.
• Google Earth Integration: InterMapper can export information to Google Earth via HTTP.
• InterMapper Database: We continue to enhance and test the InterMapper Database. Please see the InterMapper Database Changes in 5.1 tech note for a detailed description of the new features and enhancements.

Requirements:

• InterMapper network monitoring software runs on:
• • Windows 2000*/XP/2003/Vista/Windows Server 2008 (IPv6 support requires Windows Vista SP1 or Windows Server 2008)
  • MacOS X 10.4 and newer
  • Solaris SPARC and x86*
  • Linux distributions, including Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian and others
  • FreeBSD*
  • *InterMapper Flows does not run on Windows 2000, Solaris versions earlier than 10, or FreeBSD versions earlier than 7.
• InterMapper RemoteAccess runs on:
• • Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/Windows Server 2008
  • MacOS X 10.4 and newer
  • UNIX
  • Linux distributions, including Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian and others
• Java 1.5 is required. In general, any computer capable of running MacOS X 10.4, or a 1 GHz Pentium or faster Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008 or Unix computer with 512 MBytes of RAM will support InterMapper RemoteAccess.