Ipswitch WhatsUp Gold Broadens Network Management Capabilities with Latest Release

Published 29th October 2009

Newest Additions to product family offer secure management of device configurations and monitoring of wireless infrastructures

Ipswitch, Inc's Network Management division, developer of innovative network management solutions, today announced the worldwide availability of WhatsUp Gold v14.1 and WhatsUp Gold WhatsConfigured v1.0. The new features in v14.1, combined with the new configuration and change management plug-in, enable network professionals to effectively manage both wired and wireless environments and to control device configurations with automated configuration and change management in a single comprehensive solution.

Network management professionals spend significant time establishing and fine-tuning configurations to ensure stable network performance, protect data and secure networks from unauthorised changes. With hundreds of individual devices to manage and maintain, configuration changes to routers and switches are made almost continuously. As a result, network managers are frequently struggling to keep track and control of all these changes.

"Configuration and change management is a critical element in a sound network management strategy. Using automated configuration and change management tools, network managers can eliminate common and manual repetitive tasks associated with maintenance and documentation of network device configurations, as well as being alerted when any configuration changes occur," commented Kevin Gillis, vice president of product management. "As a market that is approaching $3 Billion in annual revenue and growing at a healthy rate, network configuration and change management (NCCM) has become an essential requirement in every organisation's IT playbook. With WhatsUp Gold and WhatsConfigured in place, network managers can not only tackle their performance and fault management challenges, but also ensure traceability and control of network infrastructure changes from a single, integrated platform. No longer will networks run the risk of major connectivity issues or outages due to simple configuration changes."

V14.1 augments WhatsUp Gold's already extensive capabilities with a number of new features and functionality. With the wireless infrastructure monitoring built into WhatsUp Gold Premium, Distributed and MSP Editions, network managers can continuously monitor, measure, be alerted and report on various attributes of the wireless network, including access point utilisation, radio failures and wireless client statistics. They can quickly get the complete picture and support the growth of the user base and solve issues before they hamper the performance and security of the wireless network.

Additionally, network managers are now able to export over 50 full reports and 35+ regular and flow reports with graphs from WhatsUp Gold to PDF format for management level reporting.

Highlights of WhatsUp Gold v14.1 and WhatsConfigured include:

WhatsUp Gold v14.1

- Unified view of both wired and wireless infrastructure through a single management and monitoring interface
- Comprehensive information about user connectivity and access point utilisation
- New active monitor that provides status of access point radios and a pre-configured interface performance monitor
- 6 new wireless reports are provided and accessed through the Wireless Workspaces
- 80+ reports, including graphs, are exportable to Portable Document Format (PDF)

WhatsConfigured v1.0

- Automated backup of device configurations to a secure data repository
- Extensive out-of-the-box device support including; Cisco, Juniper, Brocade and others
- Fully secure device access via SNMP v1-3, SSH1-2 or Telnet
- Alerting and Notifications - fully integrated with Alert Center to provide alerts and notifications when a configuration is changed on a monitored device
- Integrated TFTP server enables download and upload of system images and operating systems
- Reporting - Network managers can compare files automatically and manually and also be alerted when a configuration file is changed on a monitored device

Pricing And Availability

WhatsUp Gold version v14.1 is immediately available, starting at £1,257.49. The WhatsUp Gold WhatsConfigured v1.0 plug-in module pricing starts at £857.62.

Free trials of WhatsUp Gold v14.1 and the new WhatsConfigured plug-in are available at http://www.whatsupgold.com/download

WhatsUp Gold - Know Your Network

IpswitchTM WhatsUp® Gold is a network management software solution with over 100,000 networks reliably managed worldwide. Built on a scalable architecture offering automated network discovery and network mapping, real-time network monitoring (including SNMP monitoring and WMI monitoring), and versatile alerting, notification, and reporting functionality, WhatsUp Gold provides intelligent and easy to use, extensive network management that goes beyond simple device availability and delivers comprehensive troubleshooting.

WhatsUp Gold scales from the small business to the large enterprise, and its functionality can be easily extended with additional plug-in modules: WhatsConfiguredTM for automated configuration and change management; WhatsUp Gold WhatsConnectedTM for Layer 2/Layer 3 discovery, mapping and visualization; WhatsUp Gold Flow Monitor for network performance and utilisation monitoring; and WhatsUp Gold VoIP Monitor for precise measurement of a converged network's ability to provide the quality of service (QoS) necessary for VoIP. To learn more about WhatsUp Gold, download a free trial or to make a purchase visit: http://www.whatsupgold.com/products/download/

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