New Panda Systems Management RMM Solution Released

On February 13, 2018, a new version of the Panda Systems Management RMM solution was released for centralized and remote management, control and maintenance of corporate networks, devices and IT infrastructure. Introducing the improvements implemented in the new version.

Summary of Changes

Major improvements in the new version:

• Significant improvements in the device discovery feature that help the administrator better understand which devices are not managed by this solution.
• Improvements in monitoring capabilities. In fact, a new monitor engine has been implemented, new powerful monitors have been added, the operation of existing monitors has been improved, and some graphs for real-time monitoring have been added.
• There are a number of new features for managing network devices. Because we have improved device discovery functions, now we can monitor network devices using policies, and now we can even remotely control such devices.
• The best recommendations for monitoring policies are now available in the COMSTORE (Monitoring Policies) component store. These policies are based on best practices for monitoring the most common platforms and servers (such as Exchange / DNS), well-known hardware manufacturers (such as Dell / HP) and network devices (such as Cisco and SonicWall).
• Naturally, some errors that were identified during the operation of the previous version were corrected.

Requires .NET 4.0 Framework The

new Windows agent in Panda Systems Management is built on the .NET 4.0 Framework, which means that all existing devices must have this version of .NET installed in order to use the new agent. Otherwise, the agent will not be updated, and therefore, all new functions added in the new version of the product, and those that are planned to be added in the future, will not work with the currently installed version of .NET.
By the way, a filter is available in the product that allows you to check which version of .Net is installed on devices. There is also a component available in COMSTORE to upgrade identified devices to the required version of the .NET Framework.

Device discovery

Network Discovery

Significant improvements have been made to the Network Discovery feature, which helps administrators better understand which devices are still not managed by Panda Systems Management.

We have slightly changed the display of network discovery results, which gives administrators a clearer overview of which discovered devices are available on the network. Now the devices are grouped by type, and therefore now you can immediately see all groups of devices at the same time, and when you expand the desired group, devices of a certain type. Moreover, within each group, you can group devices by subnet. We moved the results of network discovery at the site level to a new section called Site -> Audit.

A new type of Network Audit is also available at the account level. This allows one glance to see newly discovered and unmanaged devices in all the sites served.

Additional subnets

Network discovery capabilities have been expanded to add support for additional subnets. Administrators whose networks consist of several V-LANs can now add several subnets at the individual site level to verify them as part of the daily audit process.

Monitoring

New monitoring core

We redesigned the core of our monitoring engine. This has led to the fact that now the monitoring options should work more reliably, efficiently and powerfully. In addition, now we have the opportunity to introduce new popular monitoring options in future versions. Now our agents manage two independent services for the separation of communications and monitoring itself, which allows you to share the workload and increase reliability.

Significant changes have also been made to monitoring on our platform. Now we have real-time communications between agents and the platform. This allows you to use configured monitors much faster, so that administrators can immediately see everything that is happening on the managed devices.

Real-time monitoring status

In addition to ensuring that all devices are functioning correctly, administrators also need to know whether their monitors are working correctly, without having to wait (or create conditions for alerts) to confirm. To make this possible, the monitors used will now inform the platform of their latest values. We will show the current values ​​and graphically the history of these values ​​on the Summary tabs of both the agent and the network device level. Data from the monitoring functions will be stored for a certain period of time, and in future versions we will use this data to display trends over a longer period.



WMI monitor

WMI provides access to a wealth of important information on any Windows system. Currently, administrators use component monitors to check systems for specific WMI information. Our new WMI monitor integrates this functionality in a simple and efficient way, greatly simplifying complex monitoring tasks when monitoring, for example, Hyper-V environments.

Windows Performance Monitor

Many administrators want to see real-time statistics and generate alerts for important performance indicators, such as the hit ratio of the SQL Server cache, the mail queue in Exchange, or the length of the queue of requests to the system disk. The new Windows Performance Monitor allows administrators to set thresholds and monitor any Windows performance counter on the device.

Patch patch monitor

Our recent changes in patch management options have allowed administrators to gain more control and visibility over the process of applying patches. The new patch monitor allows administrators to manage patches in exceptional situations. The monitor will generate an alert if one or more patches cannot be installed, and it can display a notification when patches are successfully installed at the next start. ICMP

Ping Monitoring

, or more commonly referred to as Ping, is a great tool for detecting and analyzing network problems. We have added our own Ping monitor, which will help to detect network problems earlier. The new monitor can easily detect if the device is still online, but it can also warn if there is a network delay or packet loss.



Event Log Monitor The Event Log

is one of the most important sources of information when monitoring Windows systems. The event log monitor in the new version has been significantly improved. First, the agent will now be able to access event logs that were previously unavailable. Secondly, event filtering has been improved. The new functionality also includes the ability to be notified in the absence of events or to be notified if several events are generated in a certain period of time. Alerts from the event log monitor will also receive options for automatically applying certain scenarios.



Disk usage monitor

We made changes to our disk usage monitor so that administrators can more easily implement disk usage monitoring without worrying about false alerts. A new option is available in the monitor to exclude drives whose volume is below a certain value, as well as an option that allows you not to apply the monitor to removable drives.

Security Center Monitor

We have expanded the capabilities of the Security Center monitor so that administrators can better control the alert settings. The monitor now offers controls for categories and exception types. This allows you, for example, to configure alerts so that they are generated in the event of a malfunction in the antivirus, but they are not generated if the firewall is not running.

Component monitor

To please experienced users of the Panda Systems Management solution, some subtle changes have also been implemented. Like regular components, component monitors can now have file attachments. This allows you to use more powerful custom monitors on end devices without first introducing the required files onto them. In addition to this, any component monitor can now send detailed output to the diagnostic alert panel.

User Interface Enhancements

We made a number of small useful improvements to the user interface. We have implemented search in various places to help administrators find alerts and policies more quickly. The device monitor settings page is now grouped by policy, which allows administrators to better see where these or other settings come from. Processor and memory monitors now allow any threshold values, and therefore alerts can only be set when 99% is reached, not 95.

Network monitoring

Upgrading Network Monitoring

We have made enough changes to help administrators better manage network devices. A major change is the ability to manage network devices using a monitoring policy. To implement this, now each network device is directly connected to a network node. The designated network node will run the necessary checks for the device associated with it. The network node will be assigned when a device is added to Panda Systems Management, and it can be changed from the list of devices and the device overview page.

Other devices, such as Windows servers and VMWare ESXi hosts, will also use the designated network node when assigning monitoring parameters. This allows administrators to control which node monitors VMWare hosts. If we talk about devices on which the agent is installed (for example, Windows servers), this innovation will allow the product to apply SNMP monitors to the device in order to monitor hardware.

SNMP monitoring The

new version contains a new type of monitor - SNMP monitor. The operation of this new monitor is consistent with the behavior of other monitors, so any administrator who is familiar with monitoring in Panda Systems Management can easily implement SNMP monitoring on their networks.

This new SNMP monitor can be freely assigned to any device or device group using a policy. SNMP values ​​can be calculated or translated so that they are easier to understand. Panda Systems Management’s new real-time monitoring capabilities will show real-time SNMP results on the platform, and a graphical history of these changes will also be available.

In addition to the new SNMP monitor, we also added a new SNMP bandwidth monitor. This monitor allows administrators to monitor channel bandwidth consumption for internal or external interfaces of routers or switches.

Offline monitoring

Offline monitoring can also be applied to network devices using policies. Like SNMP monitoring, a network node will check device availability. The device status indicator in the product management console will show what status the network device has.

Auditing a network device

Auditing network devices will be ongoing, which will provide the same functionality that is offered for devices where the Panda Systems Management agent is installed. We will introduce many standard SNMP fields in the system and make them available in our filters. New default filters will be available, so built-in monitoring policies can be used.

Network management

SSH / Telnet

Network devices must be managed by specialists, although connecting to them can be quite cumbersome. Without requiring a VPN or any other tools, Panda Systems Management users can now directly connect to the terminal interface of any managed device. These sessions can be quickly started from the Summary tab of a specific device, from the list of devices and in the agent’s browser. The agent browser will connect us to the appropriate network node to connect to the device and use the integrated version of PuTTY to ensure a transparent connection.



HTTP / HTTPS

Similar to how SSH / Telnet connections work, a Panda Systems Management user can now configure the browser connection to any managed device in the product. The network host will act as a proxy to connect to the device without the need for a VPN or additional tools. You can change and save the connection settings, and the connections themselves will be recorded in the Panda Systems Management activity log.

b> Custom Connections

The new network management feature can also be used to configure a custom tunnel to any device. This allows you to use any application directly to any device. Examples of such use are: managing VMWare hosts using vSphere, or using a third-party management console on a Windows device.

COMSTORE

Monitoring Policies

The COMSTORE Component Store now has a new category for monitoring policies. We provide policies to implement best practices for monitoring devices using the Panda Systems Management solution. These policies are based on best practices for monitoring the most common platforms and servers (such as Exchange / DNS), well-known hardware manufacturers (such as Dell / HP) and network devices (such as Cisco and SonicWall). The monitoring policies downloaded from COMSTORE will appear in their own policies, where they can be changed before applying them to devices through filters or groups.

Conclusion

The new version of the integrated cloud RMM-solution Panda Systems Management is designed to improve the user experience with this service, increase the usability of it, as well as the efficiency of its use. The main emphasis in improving the new version is made on more efficient monitoring of devices, as well as increasing the product's capabilities for managing and monitoring network devices.