Major New Features for CMDB, Service Desk and Security

We are excited to announce a major update to our software platform, packed with powerful new features to enhance your configuration management and service desk capabilities. The latest release introduces new levels of customisation and flexibility, allowing you to tailor the platform to better meet your organisation's specific needs.

In the CMDB, you can now create fully customised Configuration Management Databases (CMDBs) with flexible templates and properties. You can define custom properties for your CIs with support for various data types, including date-time, integer, string, boolean, and configurable select values. Each property can also have custom validation rules.

We understand the importance of data security. With this update, you can store sensitive CI properties securely with encrypted database storage.

Date-time properties can also be monitored with threshold alerts at three severity levels. Additionally, calculated and scripted properties offer further flexibility by allowing for dynamic property calculations based on other CI data.

​Custom CI templates can now be built for each type of CI, defining required properties and establishing relationships between CIs. You can also extend existing items, such as Contacts, Cost Centres, Customers, Devices, and Users, with custom properties to suit your needs.

The Service Desk module introduces new custom properties for tickets, with similar support for various data types and validation, along with encrypted storage. Calculated and scripted ticket properties enable dynamic calculations, such as determining the duration between date-time properties.

The Monitoring section introduces a connector terminal for direct device connections through a web browser using SSH and Telnet protocols, eliminating the need for the connector application.

Security improvements include an account lock-out feature after multiple failed login attempts, enhanced captcha protection, customisable web session time-outs, and support for OAuth 2.0 authentication for system integrations, allowing remote systems to authenticate and perform tasks under the relevant Integration Profile.

These updates provide more customisation, flexibility, and security, enabling you to better manage your configuration items, tickets, and integrations. Upgrade today to take full advantage of these new capabilities!

This version introduces component software built for different Linux-based architectures and packages. The table below lists the components and their supported platforms.

Monitoring

• Http polling
  • Ssl protocol and cipher scan
• Poller Services software
  • Available for new Cpu architectures and packages
    • Amd 64: Rpm, Deb
    • Arm 64: Rpm, Deb
• Poller software
  • Available for new Cpu architectures and packages 
    • Amd 64: Deb
    • Arm 64: Rpm, Deb, Docker
  • Network relay server function
    • Configures the poller to act as a relay server for agents and other pollers, enabling them access to back end platform services via the poller relay
    • Connector gateway relay server
      • The poller may also be configured relay connector connections to the gateway
  • Network relay client function
    • The poller may be configured to use other pollers as network relay servers, enabling it access to back end platform services via the relay server
  • ​The network relay server and network relay client settings may be enabled using the poller admin utility (Windows application or Linux command line)
• Agent software
  • Available for new Cpu architectures and packages
    • Amd 64: Deb
    • Arm 64: Rpm, Deb
  • Network relay client function
    • The agent may be configured to use pollers as network relay servers, enabling it access to back end platform services via the relay server
    • The relay servers to use by agents may be automatically configured using Dns. Adding the following TXT record to the Dns will make agents automatically configure themselves to use relay servers:
      • GemmbAgentNetworkRelayServers TXT 'hostname1:port1, hostname2:port2, ...'
    • The relay setting may be manually configured on a per agent basis using the agent admin utility (Windows application or Linux command line). This allows overriding swettings resolved by Dns on a per agent basis if required
• Gateway software
  • Available for new Cpu architectures and packages
    • Amd 64: Deb
    • Arm 64: Rpm, Deb, Docker

Web Site

• Platform Servers: new page
  • Found under Administration -> System -> Platform Servers
  • View and manage poller service components
    • Upgrade / restart poller services
  • Download software components
  • Create certificate import keys for instances where the plaform certificate is not stored in the database

There are no patch releases for this version.

​Monitoring

• Agent Polling
  • Native database monitoring
    • Requires a device Agent to be installed on the database server
    • Supports monitoring of the following databases
      • Microsoft SQL Server
      • MySQL
      • PostgreSQL
    • Database credentials are configured using Agent Access Profiles
  • Windows Updates
    • Reboot reboot requires one-time passwor​d
      • Managed using the Windows Update Profiles page
      • By enabling this setting, the user requesting windows updates on a machine will need to be two-factor authenticated to the platform, and will have to re-enter their one-time password before allowing them to select a reboot as part of windows update
  • Eventlog to Syslog Relay
    • When Syslog relaying is enabled, the platform can forward event logs as Syslog to other systems for processing
    • For example, a service provider might nominate an agent installed on their own network to act as the relay device for many customers, and relay Syslogs to the service provider's own systems for further analysis and processing
• Api Polling
  • Ftp Polling
    • New helper methods implemented to allow monitoring of devices that use legacy monitoring methodologies
  • Additional Custom Polling Configuration
    • An option to create a polling configuration Json object has been added to the Api definitions page
    • This Json object may contain any additional information required to poll specific Apis, and is available to use in the api polling scripts
• AWS Polling
  • Implemented polling of virtual interfaces
• Syslog
  • Implemented handling of multi-line Syslog. Some Syslog implementations include multiple Syslog messages in a single packet, particularly when using TCP. The poller will now split these into separate packets when processing and relaying​
• Syslog Relay
  • Allow relaying to multiple IP addresses
• NetFlow Relay
  • Allow relaying to multiple IP addresses
• Poller
  • Enable Syslog over TLS

Email Integration

• System integration and automation using inbound and outbound email
  • Check mailboxes using IMAP or POP3
    • Customisable actions using scripting
    • Integrates to service desk for ticket creation and updates
  • Enable outbound email messaging from a ticket

Service Desk

• Email Integration
  • Creation of tickets from inbound emails
  • Update of tickets from inbound emails
  • Replies to emails from the ticket
  • Direct emailing from a ticket to ticket's contacts
• Ticket Escalation
  • Defined at Ticket Group level, for each User Group that has access to tickets
  • Customisable per ticket type
  • New event type created to capture the ticket escalation event for event processing and notification
• Ticket Category
  • Defined at Ticket Group level
  • Flexible, hierarchical structure
  • Customisable per ticket type
  • Available for ticket creation in the user input form

Website

• System Integration: Device Live Query
  • Enables an on-demand live query to be performed from the Device page to external systems, such as
    • Vendor specific maintenance contract APIs
    • Enterprise CRM / ERP systems
  • Allows configuration of dynamic menu items to be added to the Device page to perform the query and display the results
  • Uses Integration Profiles to define the match criteria for a device to be applicable for the query, for example based on a device's cost centre, business service, Snmp vendor product, etc.
• System Integration: Email Clients
  • Ability to set up email clients for integration
    • Used for inbound and outbound emails
    • Flexible c# scripting allows processing of emails in the  "OnEmailReceived" script
    • Email clients can be made available to tickets for direct emailing from a ticket by configuring the "IsValidForTicket" script
  • System Integration
    • Allow access to Device Snmp Details from integration scripting
• Connector Quick Links
  • Changed the Url that launches the Connector application to allow bookmarking and creating permanent links to device connections
    • The Url format used is 
      https://<website>/Connect/Device/<deviceId>/<connectionType>[/Port/<port>][/<parameters>]
    • The following connection types support quick linking
      • telnet
      • ssh
      • rdp
      • http
      • https
    • An optional port may be added to the Url if multiple ports are configured for the connection type
    • Optional parameters may be passed for http and https connections. These parameters are appended to the Url when the connector initiates the connection to the device, in case the web site requires an additional path or query string to be supplied
    • An encoded version of the quick link Url may be copied from the website, from each device's Connector pop-up and then used from anywhere as long as the Connector click-once application is installed
      • The link is encoded to help obfuscate the connection information, should the link be used outside of the platform
    • Regardless of whether the link is used within the platform, or externally, an authenticated login session to the platform is required
      • Unauthenticated users will be redirected to the login page to authenticate before the connection is established
• Agent Access Profiles
  • ​New page to configure credentials to be used by agents for database monitoring
  • Profile is assigned to an agent using the agent's Device page
• Syslog Profiles
  • Allows configuring multiple IP addresses for Syslog relay
• NetFlow Profiles
  • Allows configuring multiple IP addresses for NetFlow relay
• Windows Update Profiles
  • New setting made available in the Windows Update Configuration section of the profile to enable the "Reboot request requires one-time password" feature
• Windows Updates
  • Implemented "Reboot request requires one-time password" feature 
  • Export to excel added to grid
• Admin Packs
  • Displays more details
  • Allows comparison of versions
• Multiple pages
  • Change the way passwords are set in various profiles and administration pages​
  • Allowed string columns in grids to be filtered on two values
  • Moved device tools icons ​(ping, trace route, etc) into the device Name column ​
  • Added help tooltip and auto-complete functions to multiple script editors
    • ​This feature can be accessed by pressing [Ctrl Space] while inside an editor
    • Predictive help also pops up if a match is found while typing in the script editor
• ​Devices page
  • Added vendor products column to grid
• Status page
  • Added vendor products column to grid
  • Added business services to grid
  • Added new filtering capabilities
• Password Vaults
  • Requires two-factor authentication for identity provider users
• Device page
  • Implemented integration live query menu items and related query result displays
  • Added section for setting agent access profile
  • Added a side-by-side comparison of different versions of stored config harvest documents
  • Removed some duplicate system information sections
  • Converted journal entries to use html iframe 
• Ticket page
  • Converted description and journal entries to use html iframe 
    • Editing of the description is done using the new Edit button
  • Implemented new email related UI for reading and sending emails from the ticket
    • Email is only available if an Email Client is configured in an applicable Integration Profile
    • New emails may be created and sent only to contacts on the ticket
    • Replies to emails may be sent to the sender and other addressees, as well as contacts on the ticket
• Ticket Groups page
  • Added ticket escalation configuration options
  • Added ticket category configuration options
• ​Notification Profiles page
  • ​Added option to include email tracking identifier for email integration
• ​Identity providers
  • ​User description
  • User import from identity provider
    • ​Integration profiles include user import facility
  • ​Streamline first-time login and group membership assignment​
• ​Contacts: Personal Data
  • Restricted access to the following fields of a contact's information, referred to as "personal data"
    • Title
    • Family name (new field)
    • Given names (new field)
    • Email address
    • Mobile number
    • SMS number
  • A new non-personal data field has been added : Description
  • Use the existing Name and new Description fields to describe the contact if need be without divulging any personal data. Phone number is also considered non-personal data. This is the information that is displayed with the existing "ViewContact" permission
  • To view a contact's personal data, users must be assigned "View Personal Data" permission
  • A user with the appropriate permissions must click on the new "View personal data" button next to a contact's name to view the personal data. This action is audited
  • This change affects all pages where contact information is displayed
  • A new setting has been added to select the way a contact's name is displayed, eg. family name first, followed by given names, or other similar commonly used combinations
• General UI style updates throughout the website

Web Api

• Allow disabling Swagger and Swagger UI by setting registry entries
• Web Api exception handling fixes
• Changed DeviceUpdateItem so that properties are optional (nullable). If not supplied, then that property is not updated

General​

• PostgreSQL support for customer (statistics) databases
  • Prior to this version, the platform required MS SQL databases for all its databases
  • Customer databases may now be created as PostgreSQL databases using the Customer Databases page
  • Please note that the primary Gemmb database still requires MS SQL
• Migration of code to .Net 6
  • Web Api, Poller Services and Reporting components have been migrated to .Net 6
• Platform Installer
  • Installs AspNetCore module when required
  • Allows export of platform certificate from database
    • Allows deletion of platform certificate from database
• Further strengthened the security of the WebApi code
• Strengthen security of platform by changing encryption and hashing method of all stored passwords
• Improved core compilers to use less memory
• Time zones are better handled on Linux and Docker platforms due to the migration to .Net 6
• Improvements in compression and handling of files attached to Tickets, Devices, Journals etc.
• Enabled compression on Web Api, Reporting Api and Polller Services for HTTPS

Breaking change in viewing Contact information

• Please give users "View Personal Data" permission to Contacts in order to allow them to view the  protected personal data part of the contact information

Breaking change in System Integration. Please read below information to successfully migrate to the new version:

• Due to new libraries being used in .Net 6, system integration that is configured to use Soap web services will stop working until the following steps are performed after updating to this version:
  • In the Administration / System / Integration page, view the Configuration for the affected Integration Profile
  • Under the Http Soap Api section, expand External Soap Web Services and for each defined Soap web service, regenerate the client code by clicking the "Generate Client Code" button
  • Validate and then save the configuration
  • Perform the above steps for all integration profiles that have Soap web services defined

• Fixed a null reference error when an unknown WebApi exception occurs
• Disabled browser prompting to remember password when editing passwords in a grid
• Fixed syling of some help pop-ups
• Fixed an issue with WatchDog processes for the LinuxAgent, LinuxPoller and LinuxGateway
• Fixed an issue with poller services having certification load issue
• Fixed an issue in the Connector application that was not allowing the user to select "Manual Login" if password vault credentials failed
• Fixed an issue in the Connector application whereby manually configured ports were not showing on connector popup in certain circumstances
• Fixed an issue in reporting that broke the forecast tables after migrating to monthly statistics tables
• Fixed an issue in Api polling whereby in some circumstances a timeout during the Api authentication would stop further authentication retries
• Fixed an issue in the poller whereby Tcp connection monitoring caused the poller to crash when the Tcp connection failed in certain circumstances
• Fixed an issue whereby the adminstrator could not assign access control to Owner security principal type
• Fixed an issue in the Api Definitions whereby the Api entity definition parent wasn't setting value
• Fixed an issue in the Api Access Profiles relating to protocol state of "device direct" monitored Apis
• Fixed typo in Web Api method name causing an error when rejecting a Change Ticket

​

Web [2023-09-30 04:23]
Web Api [2023-09-30 04:25]
New Features 

• Added support for Microsoft 365 mailboxes in system integration email clients
• Extended ticket search to allow searching by contact and business service
• Added search capability when assigning ticket closure code
• Included discovered serial/asset/model numbers in Excel export of device list

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue in ticket creation from a ticket template whereby approvers were not assigned
• Fixed an issue casing agent auto-registration to fail
• Fixed an issue that prevented email notifications to be sent in certain circumstances
• Improved ticket dashboard performace. In certain circumstances, when images are embedded, the description field could become too large to retrieve efficiently for a large number of tickets
• Fixed issue in ticket search caused by compressed SQL columns
• Fixed an issue in pollers, and master pollers pages where the notify from/to email field editing flow was broken
• Fixed an issue in ticket page, in the creation flow, where contacts assigned from ticket template were not showing
• Fixed an issue in Api access profiles page caused by Javascript precision issue with Int64 max value
• Fixed an issue in Api access profiles page whereby the "Apply to All" button didn't correctly set the location and importance on discovered devices
• Fixed an issue preventing event definition deletion
• Fixed an issue causing only the first device contact to be added to a ticket
• Minor styling changes/fixes

Reporting Api [2023-09-30 03:01]
New Features 

• Added business services, affected and originator contacts to relevant service desk reporting objects

Agent[2023-09-30 03:01]
Issues Fixed 

• Allow connector "active" flag to stop agent from attempting to do gateway performance tests

Poller [2023-09-30 03:01]
Issues Fixed 

• Allow interface Snmp polling to work whithout device state polling enabled
• Set TTL for manual pings to use OS default TTL. For traceroute double TTL from 32 to 64

Poller Services [2023-09-30 03:01]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue whereby registration would fail in certain circumstances

​Monitoring

• Gateways
  • Functionality has been added to allow the assignment of a gateway to specific pollers, master pollers and agent customers
    • This provides flexibility in deployment of gateways to specific geographic regions, or even to a specific customer, in order to improve connectivity
  • Gateways created prior to this version are marked as global gateways, and are available for all pollers, master pollers and agents to use
    • This behaviour maintains backward compatibility with previous versions of the software
  • A new web page has been added to manage the gateways:
    • Administration / Monitoring / Gateways
• Linux gateway: New product
  • Provides the same functionality as the Windows gateway, running on Linux
  • Download from the Gateways page
• Docker gateway: New product
  • Provides the same functionality as the Windows gateway, running on Alpine Linux in a Docker container
  • Download from the Gateways page, or using the "docker pull" command provided in that page
• Docker poller: New product
  • Provides the same functionality as the Linux poller, running on Alpine Linux in a Docker container
  • Download from the Pollers, Master Pollers or Poller Dashboard pages, or using the "docker pull" command provided in those pages
• Syslog relay
  • Forward Syslog packets to another system for processing
  • Requires an Agent to handle the relaying
  • The Agent can be installed in the service provider's network to act as the relay device for many customers
  • Relaying feature is configured using the Syslog Profiles page
  • Granular control of which Syslogs are relayed using the Syslog filter scripts
  • Some additional information may be added to the relayed message, eg. Customer tag, device ID/name/external identifier
• NetFlow relay
  • Forward NetFlow or sFlow packets to another system for processing
  • Requires an Agent to handle the relaying
  • The Agent can be installed in the service provider's network to act as the relay device for many customers
  • Relaying feature is configured using the NetFlow Profiles page
• Api polling additional features
  • Api protocol state
  • Alerts for Central Management Device
• Agent event log monitoring 
  • Included CorrelationData property in EventFilterItem so the event filter script can contribute to the ticket sharing outcome
  • Also included AlertText and AlertNotes properties so the event filter script can override the default alert text and notes
• Improvements to threshold alerts from Snmp and Agent polling
• Auto acknowledgement of old alerts
  • ​The system will automatically acknowledge unacknowledged alerts after 90 days
  • The alerts will be marked as acknowleged by System

Website

• Implemented single sign-on feature
  • Supports OpenID and SAML based enterprise identity providers
    • Supports automatic user creation
    • Supports automatic user group assignment
  • Supports authentication using public identity providers
    • Google
    • WeChat
  • Available in version published [2022-05-18 08:48]
• Pollers and Master Pollers pages
  • Docker poller functionality added
    • Create and download Docker poller images
  • Styling changes
• Poller Dashboard
  • Docker poller functionality added
    • Download Docker poller images
  • Styling changes
• Gateways: new page
  • Found under Administration / Monitoring / Gateways
    • Create and download Docker gateway images
    • Manage gateways
• Netflow Profiles: new page
  • Found under Administration / Monitoring / NetFlow Profiles
  • Used to configure profiles for the NetFlow relay feature
• Syslog Profiles page
  •  Added Syslog relay related functionality
• Statistics page
  • Changed to a fixed layout using splitter control to alleviate the need for scrolling to the top of the page when new charts are added
  • New search feature
    • Searches and filters the statistics tree on common fields, eg. device, location, region or statistics name
• Live Query page
  • Changed to a fixed layout using splitter control to alleviate the need for scrolling to the top of the page when new query tables are added
  • New search feature
    • Searches and filters the live query tree on common fields, eg. device, location, region or query name
• Device page
  • One-time password is now required for running PowerShell, Linux shell, and Agent scripting. Hence only user accounts with two-factor authentication enabled are allowed to run these scripts via the website
  • Included the device statistics browser in the page, rather than having to navigate to a different page for statistics
  • Included the device live query browser in the page, rather than having to navigate to a different page to perform live queries
• Devices page
  • Changed the column layout
• Snmp Entity Definitions, ​​Agent Entity Definitions, and Api Definitions pages
  • Added action Creation Identifier and Activation Identifier. These two properties help the discovery engine determine which actions to automatically create or activate
  • Added search function to the statistics data storage dropdown
• Agents page
  • Added column filter for the Agent Name column, including the agent's status
• Traceroute tool
  • Increased number of hops to 32 to match maximum TTL the poller uses
• General styling changes on the grid and treeview components
• The acknowledgement columns in alert grids can now show System or the user name who acknowledged the alert

​
General​

• Data retention engine performance improvements
• Changed the way statistics are stored in the database to monthly tables, improving the performance of data retrieval
• After the upgrade to this version, the Data Retention engine will automatically migrate all existing statistics into the monthly table structure

Important note regarding the statistics data migration

• Before the upgrade to this version, it is highly recommended that
  • The Data Retention engine is enabled for each database server. This is best practice for the Gemmb platform as the data retention engine performs various maintenance roles on the statistics data tables
  • The compression on each Database Server is set to Page compression as any newly created monthly tables will have the compression enabled. Compression of the statistics tables greatly reduces the space consumed by these tables and improves performance due to a reduction in disk activity when reading and writing to the tables

Web [2022-09-04 10:03]
Web Api [2022-09-02 23:16]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue the Users page that was causing an error to be displayed when creating a new user in circumstances where the administrator did not have the correct rights to assign a local identity to the new user

Poller [2022-08-29 09:43]
Poller Rpm [2022-08-29 09:43]
Poller Docker [2022-08-29 09:44]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue in the Poller whereby, in some circumstances, the Tacacs, Snmp Trap, NetFlow, Syslog and Tftp processors were not correctly handling IP address to Device resolution due to IPv6 protocol stack changes

Web [2022-08-10 04:05]
Web Api [2022-08-10 04:11]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue in the Devices page that was causing an error to occur when trying to create a new device without specifying a location
• Fixed an issue in the Customers page that was causing an error to occur when expanding a row after an edit has been performed

Poller [2022-08-10 04:34]
Poller Rpm [2022-08-10 04:43]
Poller Docker [2022-08-10 04:49]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue in the Poller that incorrectly calculated reachability when there was an error in sending ping packets

Reporting Api [2022-08-10 04:08]
New Features 

• Added VMware SD-WAN reporting objects

Web [2022-07-05 04:23]
Web Api [2022-07-05 04:25]
Reporting Api [2022-07-05 03:01]
Poller Services [2022-07-05 02:56]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue whereby deactivated customers were still being presented in a few places across the platform

​
Web [2022-05-18 08:48]
Web Api [2022-05-04 22:40]
New Features 

• Single sign-on feature release

Monitoring

• Windows Agent
  • Windows Update
    • Enables automatic regular checking for updates and installing of updates
    • Also includes manual control over updates and bulk updates of devices
    • Windows Update Profiles used to configure the automatic updates schedule
  • PowerShell
    • Execute PowerShell scripts on the computer, issued from the website
  • Services
    • Live list of services, ability to stop/start etc
  • Processes
    • Live list of processes running with ability to kill running process
  • Live Summary
    • Live query to the agent for current utilisation stats for Cpu, memory, disk etc.
  • Included audit failure/success in all Agent event logs
  • Include seconds in Agent event logs timestamp
• Linux Agent
  • Agent for Linux operating systems, with functionality similar to the Windows agent's where applicable
• Pollers
  • Allow Snmp trap port to be configurable
  • Improved error handling when trying to open a port that was already in use, or when poller shutting down
  • Include Entity Parent in alert notes

Security

• Active Directory Integration
  • Enables login to platform using Active Directory credentials of format [email protected]
    • Requires domain ownership verification by the platform using a public DNS entry
    • Requires a Device Agent with access to the Active Directory to perform queries for authentication and group membership
      • All communication to the Device Agent is encrypted
      • A user's credentials are encrypted in the user's browser prior to being sent to the platform's webservers
      • The credentials are encrypted using the Agent's PKI certificate before being transmitted to the Agent for login verification
    • Active Directory Profiles are used to set up and configure the feature
      • User permissions are controlled by Active Directory
        • Active Directory groups are mapped to the platform's User Groups to grant the required permissions in the platform
• Added "Two Factor Authentication Required" option on User Group
  • Membership of a group is conditional on the login of the user having been Tfa authenticated
    • Only applies to users, not other group members, like Integration Profiles
      • These other types can not use two factor authentication, and hence will not be considered members of the group
      • Users authenticated via an ApiKey are not Tfa authenticated, and hence will not be considered members of the group

Service Desk

• Added custom tag <customerlist> to ticket creation user input form
  • If used, it allows to select a customer in the ticket creation flow rather than having to change to the correct customer first

Service Management

• Service Catalogs
  • Added new setting to allow granular control of which polling types are automatically included in a service catalog 

Reporting

• Allowed saving password
• New reporting objects
  • Device Software
  • Device Firmware
  • Labels for tickets 
• Forecasting using Machine Learning
  • Several new objects added that include ML Forecasting based on current data
• Added ticket External Identifier to multiple tables and Excel objects
• Added ticket Resolution time to multiple tables and Excel objects
• NB: To see the new columns that were added to existing reporting tables and Excel objects, the reporting object has to be removed and re-inserted into the report template

Cmdb

• Implemented customer level contact mappings
  • Allow mappings of contacts across different customers to better cater for a service provider hierarchy
• Added the Affected contact type to the Device contact assignment
• Added Vendors and Model Numbers properties to a Device
  • Discovery of a device supports Model Numbers and auto assignment of Vendors
    • Vendors need to be created using the existing Vendors page
    • To enable auto assignment of Vendors via device discovery, the expected Vendor names to be discovered need to be mapped to an existing Vendor in the system

Website

• Device page
  • ​​​​​Added Settings for threshold and state to action activation
  • Improved initial load speed by loading certain tabs on demand
  • Minor layout changes for cleaner look
  • Included Windows operating system type (server/desktop) and Windows operating system caption in Agent details panel
  • The new Vendors and Model Numbers properties have been added
  • New Agent features
    • Live Summary displays live information received from the agent, such as current Cpu, Memory, Logical and Physical disk usage
    • Windows Services
      • List of Windows services with options to start, stop, restart
    • Windows Processes
      • List of active processes with options to kill
    • Windows Updates
      • check, download, install
      • Setting for Windows update profile
    • Powershell scripting
      • Issue live PowerShell commands that the agent executes
• Devices page
  • Changed default view to only show Active devices
    • Added switch to include inactive devices
  • ​​The Device creation and editing forms have been redesigned​​
  • The new Vendors and Model Numbers properties have been added
• Device Types page
  • Included child table showing assigned devices
  • Added ability to assign and unassign devices
• Ticket Dashboard page
  • Added customer name
  • Combined columns for cleaner look
  • Added "Compact / Details" switch to change grid columns
• Improved handling of WebApiBaseAddress configuration logic
• Access Control page
  • Load on demand implemented on the security containers tree for better perfomance
• Platform Config page
  • Added SQL CLR setting
  • Allowed spaces to be used in Alert Classifications
  • Added option to update all relevant configurations that refer to Alert Classifications when the classifications are changed
• Fully customisable Login Page
  • Administered from the Websites administration page
    • Allowed further customisation of login page
    • Header Html customisable
    • Login page content Html customisable
• Admin Packs
  • Added MinimumPlatformVersion property to enable filtering out available adminpacks to older platform installations
• Published date added to software Version display in multiple places
• The menu entry for the Aaa Profiles page has been moved to
  • Administration / Security / Aaa Profiles

Web Api

• Included HttpHeaders in WebServerHttpHeaders header passed to WebApi. Allows  the platform's WebApi SysLog output to include HttpHeader information
• Added Platform ExportCertificate WebApi method

General​

• Pollers, Agents, and Gateway migrated away from legacy WCF framework to REST Api
• Pollers upgraded from .NetCore3.1 to .Net5
• The dynamic polling script compilations in the pollers and agents moved to a separate process to reduce memory foot print
• Third party components updated to new versions

Web [2021-10-21 04:41]
Web Api [2021-10-21 04:44]
Poller Service [2021-10-21 04:43]
New Features 

• Integration: Added scripting methods for Problem, Request, Change
• Customer Cmdb sync: Allowed unassigning of DeviceType, DeviceGroup, CostCenter, BusinessService
• Authorisation changes: Integration Profiles and identities using ApiKey logins are not considered to be two-factor authenticated by the system when checking group membership. This restricts access to certain actions that are only allowed for two-factor authenticated users

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an error in the user auto activation and auto deactivation methods
• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused the Password vault creation to fail
• Fixup of some excessive Syslog messages generated during login/logout and AD login/logout
• Fixed an issue in the Snmp discovery. whereby the length of the Snmp information was causing a SQL truncation exception as it was being inserted/updated
• Fixed object reference null exception in TraceRoute results when a traceroute hop is empty
• Fixed issue in Integration Profile whereby items were not being deleted / undeleted correctly
• Forced recalculation of Polling Action severity when state handling group is changed
• PollerServiceApiClient had a logic error causing it to never remove a "down" poller service from the unavailable state
• Poller service performance fixes
• General performance tweaks of Data Retention Engine

Linux Poller [2021-09-26 08:57]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue that could cause some statistics to not be inserted in some circumstances when the data retention engine was processing a table
• Fixed null reference exception int Http Polling's Tcp tests when requestContent is null
• Api polling: Fixed issue whereby device discovery was dependent on the network poller assigned to the device instead of the Api Poller
• Config harvest: Added extra protection against exceptions casuing engine to fail to continue running
• Fixed issue causing GemmbPollerHelper to crash due to runtime.template.json missing

Linux Agent [2021-09-23 03:44]
New Feature

• Device uptime statistics collected by agent

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue in the memory polling that could report the same memory utilisation values in circumstances where an error occurs when accessing memory information

Windows Agent [2021-09-02 02:21]
New Feature

• Device uptime statistics collected by agent

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue in the memory polling that could report the same memory utilisation values in circumstances where an error occurs when accessing memory information
• Fixed issue causing Windows Update to stall

Reporting Add-in,
Reporting Api [2021-08-23 03:34]
New Feature 

• Added Agent based system uptime reporting objects
• Added short month name labels

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue in the "Repeat by" section in Excel Ole that was incorrectly removing objects

Windows Poller [2021-08-17 02:12]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed an issue that could cause some statistics to not be inserted in some circumstances when the data retention engine was processing a table
• Fixed null reference exception int Http Polling's Tcp tests when requestContent is null
• Api polling: Fixed issue whereby device discovery was dependent on the network poller assigned to the device instead of the Api Poller
• Config harvest: Added extra protection against exceptions casuing engine to fail to continue running

Monitoring

• Poller: New version, running on .NET Core 
  • Installs self-contained, removing dependency on .NET Framework version
  • Improvements in poller services load balancing to allow selection of least loaded poller service
  • Poller Operating System labels shown on poller dashboard
• Poller Services: improvements to Poller Service Process model to use separate child processes for each key functional component to provide process separation
• Linux Poller (beta version)
  • Functionally equivalent to the Windows poller, built to run on Linux
• Gemmb Agent: 
  • Improved Powershell integration
  • Improved stability and performance
  • Just-in-time Remote Desktop access to Windows machines when connecting using the Connector
    • ​Active Directory Identity field added to User object to support this function
    • The Active Directory Identity is added to the Remote Desktop Users group on the target machine before the connection, and is removed when the connection terminates
    • Password Vault integration of just-in-time access features
      • Optional setting to allow user to be added into the local Administrators group
    • Watch the feature preview video
  • Implemented Agent auto-registration
    • Can be used with software deployment systems to install the GemmbAgent.msi software with parameters that work in conjunction with the auto Registration Profiles defined in the platform
  • Added setting in Agent Admin to control the "Log on as" a specific Windows account for the agent service 
    • This setting must be configured in the Agent Admin to persist it between automatic upgrades. This setting is relevant if a specific service account is required, rather than the default LocalSystem account
  • Implemented methods to support the customer Cmdb Sync feature
  • Extended Event Log monitoring
    • Implemented Event rollup feature. The Agent will monitor the same event occurring within a specified time window, and log it once only for that window, with the count of events that occurred
    • Added event filtering by event source
    • Modified Event Id filtering to allow for both included and excluded event Ids, or range of Ids
    • Added alert classification configuration for event logs
    • Added event filter scripting facility
  • Agent automatically discovers its parent device
  • Agent monitors installed software and patches
  • Starting with this version, the Gemmb Agent is a 64 bit application only, and will not work on 32 bit operating systems
  • Agent .Net Framework minimum requirement downgraded to v4.6.1
• Snmp ​Network Discovery
  • ​Discovers devices on the network using an existing poller
  • Ability to import discovered devices and locations into the Cmdb using the web page or the Gemmb Import Excel Add-In
• Connector:  Added configuration section in the device page
  • Allows to specify multiple ports for the different protocols
  • Allows to disable port checks during device discovery
  • Allows to disable connector functionality to device
• General improvements have been made in the platform controlling which polling actions are enabled by default
• Polling and alert correlation takes into account the newly added manually configured parent of a device

Knowledge Management

• Introduction of Knowledge Bases and Knowledge Articles
  • Knowledge Navigator
  • Integration with Service Desk
  • Integration with Cmdb / Devices
• The Knowledge Management feature can be enabled or disabled on a per customer basis, using service catalogs

Service Desk

• Knowledge integration
  • Suggested knowledge articles are shown based on devices, business services or contacts assigned to the ticket
• The Service Desk feature can now be enabled or disabled on a per customer basis, using service catalogs
• Alert Routing page: new setting under "Topology Alert Ticket Sharing" to allow child symptom devices to always be added to the ticket
  • Symptom devices' contacts are added to ticket as non-primary contacts
• Ticket page
  • Allow contacts from multiple customers to be assigned to the same ticket
  • Included additional fields to search by when searching for devices to assign to a ticket
  • Changed ticket history grid to show plain text instead of formatted text for value and old value
  • Changed the way devices are added to the ticket. A more comple device grid is displayed for selection. Multiple devices can be selected and assigned
  • Device Auto Assignment Rules: New feature for Change tickets
    • Allows creation of rules based on devices' Regions, Locations, Device Types, Device Groups, and Business Services
    • Devices that generate alerts during the Change implementation window, and match a configured rule, are automatically assigned to the change ticket
• Ticket Group page: Added new feature "Allow direct close". Setting this to false requires tickets to be resolved first, before being allowed to be closed
• Ticket Templates page: Added ability to configure the new Device Auto Assignment Rules feature for Change tickets

Service Management

• Allow service catalogs to be applied at customer level to control enabling or disabling platform features such as
  • Knowledge Management
  • Service Desk
• Platform Config web page has new settings that control the enforcement of above service catalog settings
• Services page has a new bulk creation feature, based on available polling actions that are not yet created as a service

Reporting

• New reporting objects
  • Cisco CallManager statistics
  • Server Cpu and Memory
  • Apc Ups statistics
  • Installed Products
  • Installed Patches
  • ISDN voice reports
  • 95th Percentile reports created for multiple reporting objects
  • Device reachability  statistics excluding implementation periods
• Implemented reporting by Device Type

Gemmb Import

• Added feature to export customer data from the platform into Excel
• Added network discovery export to Excel to allow editing of discovery results before performing an import of the data into the Cmdb
• Added Syslog mapping to device

Cmdb Sync

• New feature allows import of customer Cmdb data from SQL Server
  • Based on the Gemmb Import tool functionality
  • Customisable SQL queries and mappings using the new Cmdb Sync web page
  • Requires an Agent to be installed with access to the SQL Server

Website

• UI tweaks for a cleaner look
  • Moved language selection drop-down from website header into user preferences pop-up, under the new UI Settings section
• Agent Registration Profiles: New page 
  • Configures settings to use for automatic registration of agents
• Agent Event Log Profiles: New page
  • Allows event log monitoring profiles to be created and mapped to devices
• Platform Config page
  • Added settings for alert classification definitions
  • Added settings for Syslog that enables the platform to send Syslog messages to a server when users log in, or perform any audited action in the platform
• Integration Profiles page
  • Added methods to create alerts
  • Added method to remove Http headers
  • Added additional Http methods for external events
  • Added system timers
  • Added "AssignedTicketDeviceItems" property to integration models
• Added "Tag" field to the Device item
• Locations page: Added time zone column to grid
• Device page
  • Added option to manually set the device's parent device
  • Added display of the device's assigned pollers
  • Agent event log configuration has been extended to allow configuration of the new features rolled out in this version of the agent
  • Implemented a bulk update of Event log settings, based on the event log hierarchy
  • Added agent discovered software lists
    • Installed Products
    • Installed Patches
    • Windows Update History
• Syslog Profiles page: migrated to customer based profiles
• Enabled top and bottom grid pager to be visible, in several pages
• Syslogs, Event Logs and Aaa Logs pages
  •  Added export to Excel function
  • Changed grid filtering method
• Allowed deletion of a Location and Region
• Added two new customer level report pages for agent discovered software
  • Installed Products
  • Installed Patches
• Web Api documentation style change
• Admin Packs page: Allow bulk upgrade and apply of Admin Packs

Web Api

• Created Ticket User History statistics web Api methods and objects. Used to provide insights regarding ticket creation, state changes, and journal creation and update statistics

General

• Gemmb branding update
  • New logo, new colours
  • Reflected in all application logos and icons
• Improved database performance across multiple areas
• Enabled Tls for platform emails

Monitoring

• Connector: New version
  • ​Supports web browsing of device management Url using embedded Chromium browser
  • Uses built-in functionality for all supported protocols thus removing the need for launching external applications for Telnet, Ssh etc
  • Revised encryption for more reliable and better performance
  • This version of the connector is not compatible with the previous versions
    • The pollers must be updated to the latest version for the new Connector
    • The device agents must be updated to the latest version for the new Connector
• Added selection of Top X to statistics charts data export where applicable, for example NetFlow. The selection applies to the data grid and exported data
• The NetFlow system has been extended to process data received via the NetFlow v9 protocol
• Netflow statistics are now configured separately from other stats in archiving engine
• Added Area information to Status page
• Api polling: Extract Serial and Asset Numbers from Device and Entity properties during entity discovery process

Service Desk

• Added Update timers to tickets
  • Update timers are configurable with different values for open tickets and suspended tickets
• All ticket timers may now be applied to Request tickets as well, in addition to Incidents
• Added Created By and Modified By search criteria to ticket search

Configuration

• Added Product field to Device Service Numbers
• Additional information displayed in Devices page

Security

• Modified the users page to allow automatic activation or deactivation of a user at a specified time
  • Use for example to grant third party contractors login access to the platform for a limited time
• Modified password vault credentials to allow setting a validity period for the credentials
  • Use for example to grant third party contractors access to customer devices for a limited time
• Added DeviceNmsFlag.Configs to allow control of access to Config Harvest report and Config Harvest information on device

Reporting

• Modified multiple service desk reporting objects to enable reporting by region, location or device group
  • If devices from multiple regions, locations or device groups are present on a ticket, then that ticket will show in the report for each region, location or device group from where it has assigned devices
• Multiple Service Numbers are now displayed on new lines, and include the newly added Product field

Administration

• External Applications: New page
  • Registering an external application to the platform allows to add a link to that application from the website's menu
  • OAuth settings are configurable for the external application to allow it access to data provided by the Gemmb Api
• Platform Config: New page
  • Allows editing of the platform's Smtp configuration that is used for all outbound email notification
  • Allows editing the MapQuest Api key for the platform

Web Api

• Access Tokens have changed properties
  • The HashedPassword property has been deprecated
  • Use the new EncryptedPassword property to send the password
  • The EncryptedPassword can be generated using JavaScript or c#
• ​Better handling of Http response code for API requests that have a missing or invalid AccessToken
  • HTTP Status Code 500 replaced with HTTP 401 for requests that require authentication
  • HTTP Status Code 500 replaced with HTTP 403 for requests where the authenticated request does not have the required access permission
• Api request limit changes
  • The Api limiting system has been enhanced to improve usability
  • Automated rate limiting greatly simplifies client/script code as the Api will throttle its responses rather than returning “Too Many Request” errors

Breaking Changes

• Minimum system requirements upgraded to .Net Framework 4.7.2

Reporting

• Changed the "Between Hours" reporting setting to allow reporting on consecutive hours that cross midnight, e.g. reporting between 20:00 and 07:00

Web

• Support Notes
  • To improve security, the ability to add external links and images has been removed. Copy & paste of images still works as the images are embedded
  • Fixed issue whereby images were not scaling correctly
• ​Ticket page
  • Remove button for contacts wasn't displaying in some circumstances
  • Change ticket start and end dates were not displaying correctly in Internet Explorer
  • Ticket timers for tickets created from Ticket Templates were in some rare cases not being  applied to the ticket
  • Turned off auto-complete on the ticket create form's input field​
    
• Ticket Search: Fixed description column formatting
• Api Access Profiles
  • Poller drop-down was not selecting the value on load
  • Api Target Type Name was not being used to label the correct items
• ​Api Definitions
  • Removed Action Request script section
  • Added additional help descriptions
• ​Device Agent administration: Added additional help descriptions
• Status page: Fixed logic for setting the visibility of entity properties

Reporting Api [2020-03-23 08:12]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue in embedded Excel when Repeat by Device Group was selected

Web [2020-03-10 03:59]
New Features

• Implemented External Identifier administration in Api Access Profiles page
• Automatically setting focus on Description field when adding/editing Journals
• Made customer level Support Notes visible on Home page

Issues Fixed 

• Multiple security fixes have been applied
• Fixed issue that would occur when a user with restricted access rights to their customer would log in
• Fixed an issue in editor template for DateTimeFromDurationNullable that would cause an error to occur on 29th February
• Fixed issue whereby Agent Action activation window would not close on successful save
• Changed display of Description field in Ticket Search page
• Fixed issue that would sometimes occur when editing Areas in the Regions page
• Changed grid pager to always show, regardless of number of items in the grid, on multiple pages
• Fixed display issue of the ApiKey in Api Access Profiles Page
• Fixed issue around manual ticket creation from certain templates whereby the new ticket was disabled and user groups were not loading
• Fixed issue in Connector that was causing it to crash when web browsing to a device and then minimizing the Connector window
• Connector improvements:
  • Hardcoded Ssh and Telnet terminal windows to UTF8 encoding as auto detection was not reliable
  • Better handle the fullscreen connection bar title text when using Remote Desktop
  • Allow SSH connection to use insecure algorithms, as the Connector wraps the SSH protocol in its own encryption layer

Web Api [2020-03-05 02:09]
New Features

• Added NetFlow and AWS stat types to Grafana

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue causing errors while deleting a device due to database constraint protection

Gemmb Agent [2020-03-01 22:52]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed Agent Admin whereby Customer list for registration was using the incorrect access checking

Reporting Api [2020-02-26 02:54]
New Features

• Implemented Viptela reporting

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue in ApiStatistics generic stat table flow that was causing no stats to be returned
• Fixed issue that was causing exceptions in the Top 50 and Top100 interface by time reports

Gemmb Agent [2020-02-17 06:06]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue where an invalid EventLog query was generated using certain filtering criteria
• Added exception handling in GemmbAgent when it sets up an EventLog watcher on an EventLog to provide more diagnostic information

Gemmb Poller [2020-02-10 05:23]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue causing the Poller install on a new server to roll back, due to the service failing to start in certain circumstances
• Poller improvements: 
  • Buffer stats to disk instead of memory
  • Add stats post attempt counts to eventlog entries
  • Improve stats transfer for internet connections with higher latency

Web Api [2019-12-25 08:07]
Issues Fixed 

• Allow time range passed by Grafana up to 31 days. Return only entities with active polling statistics are when queried for Snmp entities
• Fixed issue causing Agent scripts not compiling when referencing PerformanceCounters 
• Fixed issue when deleting areas that are mapped to a location
• Fixed timeouts on large customers in Statistics Navigator

Web Api [2019-11-14 00:18]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed Snmp Static Import failing due to a WebApi method signature change

Reporting Api [2019-11-14 01:29]
New Features

• Added Devices and Service Numbers to closed ticket related tables and Excel
• Added Alert Summary for closed tickets to Excel

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue whereby TopX Interfaces query was not selecting the correct Device Group when specified

Web Api [2019-11-11 21:57]
New Features

• Added AllEntities property into SnmpActionStatisticsExport item to allow all relevant SnmpEntities' statistics to be exported. Included SnmpEntityInfos in the export data so the consumer has entity information that can be used for display or processing purposes

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue that caused users unable to login to Grafana OAuth when External Application marked for Read-Only access

Gemmb Agent [2019-11-08 01:58]
Gemmb Poller [2019-11-08 01:59]
Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue that was causing Gemmb Agent to restart due to watchdog when event logs disabled
• Improved resilience in session handling and poller services configuration when the Agent or Poller experienced errors connecting to website

Web Api [2019-11-05 23:32]
New Features

• Added Grafana data sources

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue around ticket visibility for read-only OAuth access tokens

Monitoring

• Snmp Cluster Polling
  • Snmp cluster polling allows the poller to poll multiple devices for information that relates to a single logical Snmp entity
  • Examples of Snmp cluster polling are cases where networks include multiple centralised controllers with remote devices that can register to any of the centralised controllers. 
    • A typical example is Wireless Access Points that associate to either of two core Wireless LAN Controllers, but not both at the same time
• Snmp Polling - added new configuration option in Snmp Access Profiles to set the number of Oids  polled per request
• Api Polling - added new property, IPAddresses, to device discovery, to capture a list of discovered IP addresses on the device
  • Added option in Api Access Profiles to select any of the discovered IP addresses when creating new devices from the discovery

Service Desk

• Enabled Service Levels on manually created tickets. This feature also enables ticket timers on these tickets
  • The applicable service level is configured via the Ticket Template administration page
• Alert classifications (Network, Security, Server, Voice) have been made available. These classifications can be configured for:
  • Devices
  • Device types
  • Device groups
  • Business services
• Added alert classification processing order to the Ticket Group administration
  • The alert classification processing order is used by the system to determine which user group is automatically assigned as the ticket assignee in cases where multiple classifications apply to the ticket

Reporting

• Added configuration harvesting status report to web site
• Added  option in  Word Add-In to enable reporting by Device Group. This new option works similarly to reporting by Region or Location
  • ​Added configuration option in Device Group page to specify that the group is a Reporting Group. Only device groups that are marked as reporting groups will be used by the Word Add-In when reporting by Device Group is selected

Poller [2019-07-10 23:51]
Poller Service [2019-08-02 04:24]
Web Api [2019-08-02 04:25]
Reporting Api [2019-07-10 23:53]
Feature 

• Added feature to search for customer in Report Wizard

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue in config harvesting whereby an on-demand harvest requested within 10 minutes of the previous harvest would cause any new changes to not be registered
• Changed processing of Telnet and Ssh harvesting output to strip Ansi escape sequences
• Fixed issue that was causing External Reference field's value to not display in web page. Issue affected Problem tickets only
• Fixed issue whereby device state alerts were not being associated with Open/In Progress tickets

Monitoring

• Improved Snmp polling engine to handle additional polling circumstances
  • Included default value in Snmp request object to allow a fallback value to be assumed for unsuccessful Snmp polls
  • Provided the Snmp polling scripts access to a new "PollInterval" property. This allows the polling scripts to adapt their polling behaviour based on the poll interval
• Added a new property, "DeviceLocalTime", to alerts. This property holds the local time the alert occurred in the device's time zone

Service Desk

• Expanded the ticket timer configuration to remove the restriction of three fixed levels
  • Allowed configuration of multiple timer levels for the various Sla states of Normal, Warning, Imminent, Breach
  • Implemented a reminder function for timer events
    • Allowed recurring reminders to trigger for the timer events
• Added the value of "None" to ticket Impact and Urgency. Adjusted the ticket priority matrix to include the new value
• Added the ticket priority matrix display to the device details to show the resultant ticket priority based on the device's importance and the alert's severity

General

• Added additional help pop-ups to some pages

Api Polling

• Major new  feature for this release
• Enables polling of virtually any Api using Http/Https (Rest, Soap), for example
  • VMware vCenter
  • Viptela vManage

Monitoring

• Allowed configuring Tftp port on poller
• Allowed configuring Tacacs port on poller
• Optimised poller performance

Service Desk

• Added External Reference field to ticket
• Allowed changing of Impact and Urgency during Priority reset of tickets in Registered state
• Added search by External Reference
• Added extra configurable permissions to tickets based on relation to the ticket, for example
  • View ticket when user has permission to a business service, contact, or device that is associated to the ticket

Reporting

• Added Snmp based Server Disk statistics objects to reporting add-in

General

• Added a pop-up displaying the security container of access controlled items to all relevant grids
• Added help pop-up to Password Vault page
• Extended installation instructions on Reporting Add-in and Import Add-in pages

Poller [2019-03-22 00:31]
Poller Service [2019-03-22 00:32]
Web Api [2019-03-22 00:32]
Web [2019-03-22 00:34]
Features

• Api polling: Post form data object - request and response headers and cookies
• Created ApiHelper method "HttpPostForm" to enable form data to be posted. Some devices require a login and session establishment by posting credentials to a login page
• Created ApiHelper methods "AddCookie" and "SetCookie" to allow cookies to be send in requests. Add will add a cookie, Set will overwrite any existing cookie
• Created ApiHelper properties "Cookies" and "Headers" to give direct access to the Http response's Cookies and Headers (see System.Net.CookieCollection and System.Net.WebHeaderCollection types)

Issues Fixed 

• Fixed issue whereby audit log  was failing when security principal was deleted
• Changed Api polling authentication phase to not block other request until authentication completed
• Added security container display to Users and User Groups pages
  
• Fixed issue whereby language wasn't saved on user creation
  
• Extended error popup display