Network monitoring specialist Paessler has rolled out a couple of updates to security as well as IoT capabilities in its flagship PRTG solution.
PRTG Network Monitor 20.3.60 comes with 163 solved issues around security as well as boosts to SMS delivery and Amazon SNS notifications, as Paessler’s Sascha Neumeier explains.
“For example, we added the option to use HTTP basic authentication for custom SMS service providers that require authentication,” he writes. “We also added updated endpoints for BulkSMS delivery, which will simplify the configuration of SMS delivery for you.
“And we added new AWS locations for Amazon SNS notifications. That means you can now choose any region that AWS currently provides for SNS notifications. Plus, SNS notifications can now be sent to encrypted topics.”
There’s also a “significantly revamped display” of Paessler PRTG Enterprise Monitor license information, another significant update for the Japanese language file and many other “neat enhancements” for various sensors and the PRTG server, he says.
Other PRTG 20.3.60 improvements include a lookup file for the VMware Host Hardware (WBEM) sensor, a validation for individually defined domain controllers for the PRTG Active Directory integration, and a performance boost for the dependency calculation “that will be especially noticeable in larger installations”, according to Neumeier.
This release also fixed 58 bugs, implemented 73 feature tickets, and finished 32 tasks, to-dos, and stories – see the full release notes.
Europe (Stockholm) is now also available for all Amazon CloudWatch sensors.
Other updates and enhancements
Paessler wanted to add some new sensors but last-minute changes mean that this won’t happen until release 20.3.61 in August, he says.
“Our PRTG roadmap mentions another MQTT sensor and there should also be something for monitoring your Microsoft365 environment,” Neumeier says.
Last month’s update included enhanced IoT monitoring – a welcome addition as many professionals continue to work remotely from their own homes.
“This is also reflected in the release 20.2.59 of PRTG Network Monitor, which was developed entirely at home – thanks to the advantages of agile, location-independent software development.”
PRTG 20.2.59 included a new MQTT Statistics sensor, enabling users to check if their IoT devices and the broker are still sending messages. “This sensor monitors MQTT topics and shows related statistics of the broker, like the number of incoming messages from a subscribed topic and the received payload.”
There was also an update to the MQTT Round Trip sensor, the ability to visualise the status of MQTT brokers in the dashboard via four new map objects, a new DNS v2 sensor for monitoring DNS servers, resolving domain name records, and comparing the records to a defined filter, as well as better Active Directory integration. Read more details.
PRTG Enterprise Monitor has an annual per sensor subscription and an ITops board. Users can easily roll out more than 20,000 sensors, he points out.
