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Hyperic HQ 4.1.2 Enterprise Now Available Build #1053 For 4.1 documentation, please see HQ Documentation.
HQ 4.1 Enterprise FeaturesNew and changed features in each 4.x release are listed in the subsections below, ordered with most recent release first. HQ 4.1.0 Enterprise FeaturesUpdated Instructions for Changing Agent Communications DirectionUpdated instructions are provided for changing between bidirectional and unidirectional communications. For more information, see Changing Between Unidirectional and Bidirectional Agent Communications. Support for private groupsUsers that are authorized to create groups may designate a group to be "private". Private groups are invisible to other users, including admin users. You can share a private group by associating it with a role. Dashboard Portlet for IQ ReportsA new portlet in the HQ Dashboard can be configured to allows users to run Hyperic IQ reports from HQ. License expiration emailHQ Enterprise now issues email notifications that your HQ license expiration is near. Email notifications commence 45 days prior to license expiration. HQ 4.1.0 Open Source FeaturesUpgraded Tomcat and JBossThe embedded JBoss and Tomcat servers in HQ are upgraded from 4.0.3 and 5.5, to 4.2.3 and 6, respectively. Note that the 4.1 HQ Agent will auto-discover the HQ Tomcat 6.0 server and present it as a new server in the and auto-discovery portlet of the Dashboard, instead of as an update to the pre-existing Tomcat 5.5 instance. If you add the 6.0 instance to inventory, metrics collected for that instance will be displayed for both the non-existent 5.5 instance and the new 6.0 instance. It appears that you have two HQ Tomcat instances, although you only have the 6.0 instance. There are two options for correcting this:
HQ database supports Oracle 11gThe HQ database can run on Oracle 11G. Support for Oracle 9i is deprecated. Updated page is HQ Server Requirements HQ Web Services API UpdatesThe web services API now includes a set of command line tools for performing administration and configuration tasks. You can use command line tools to access and update information about inventory, metric templates, alerts, escalations, users, and roles. For more information, see ui-hqapi and HQ Web Services API. Enable and Disable Alerts from Browse Resources PageOn the Browse Resource page, you can select multiple resources, and click new controls, Enable all Alerts and Disable All Alerts, to enable and disable all alerts for selected resources. Additional "Add to Group" optionsYou can now add a resource to an existing, as well as a new, group on the Browse Resource page, or from the Tools menu when the resource is selected. Additional Delete optionThe Tools menu for any resource now allows you to delete the resource, or add it to a new group. Audit LoggerEvents around changes to alerts are now written to the database with an indication of the user that performed the action. Auditing can also optionally be configured to write to a log file. For more information, see Alert Definition Change Auditing. MySQL Product Plugin ImprovementsThe MySQL plugin has been optimized to use a minimal amount of queries to capture all performance stats, thereby reducing the impact monitoring could have on overall performance. Replication monitoring has also been added. Additional alert acknowledge and fix optionsNew options on the Alert Center page allow you to acknowledge alerts with escalations, and fix alerts. When you fix or acknowledge an alert, you are prompted to enter an optional comment about the action. A new option in the Recent Alerts portlet allows you enter a comment when you fix or acknowledge an alert. New HQ Health database queries and actionsThe Database tab on the HQ Health page has new queries, one that returns a count of stalled escalations, and two that show database locks and activity. The new queries are troubleshooting aids for Hyperic support. Actions are now available on the Database tab of the HQ Health page. A purge auto-inventory queue action allows you to delete the contents of the queue, in the event that you are having trouble importing resources. Another new action allows you to purge stalled escalations that were detected with the stalled escalation query. Search returns usernamesThe Search button in upper right corner of each page in user interface now returns users, as well as resources. Asynchronous resource deletionWhen you click the Delete button on the Browse Resource tab, selected resources are deleted from the database asynchronously. Although the resources will immediately disappear from the resource listing in the HQ user interface, there may be a short delay before resources are deleted from the database. Do not try to re-import a platform immediately after deleting it - this may fail. Note also that until the delete process running in background completes, a deleted platform will still appear in the HQ Health's Agent tab. Similarly, the HQ license count displayed in the web user interface will not be decremented until the delete process is completed. The delete process will timeout after 15 minutes. Incomplete delete processing can corrupt the HQ database. If wish to delete many resources at once, for example a platform with hundreds of servers or services, first increase the timeout period to ensure the processing has time to complete To increase the timeout, increase the value of the TransactionTimeout attribute in HQ_SERVER_HOME/conf/templates/jboss-service.xml from is 900 seconds to 9000 seconds or more, restart the HQ Server. HQ Enterprise 4.0 FeaturesUnidirectional Agent-Server communicationsA new agent-server communications strategy allows HQ to support specific security policies and controls that are commonly preferred in large deployments. For more information, see Configuring Unidirectional Communications. Groups Alerts Summary Dashboard PortletDisplays traffic light indicators for resource alerts and group alerts for groups. Saved Charts Dashboard PortletA new Saved Charts portlet displays saved charts as a slideshow. Agent Control Commands Available in PortalThe implementation of the JSW launcher enables remote control of HQ 4.0 Agents from the Portal. For more information, see Query and Update the Agent from the HQ Portal. Metric Data ExtrapolationThe HQ Portal provides a new View you can use to predict future values of a metric for the members of group, based on historical metrics. The Metric Data Extrapolation plugin is available on the Views tab when a group is selected. For more information, see Extrapolating Metrics for a Group. Downtime SchedulingYou can now specify a period of time during which metric collection for the resources in a group is paused. During the maintenance window, alerts that are active for the resources will not fire. The Schedule Downtime page is available on the Tools menu when a group is selected. For more information, see Schedule Maintenance for a Group. Script Actions for AlertsA script action allows you to access and use HQ environment variables that contain information about a fired alert. You can use the data in any fashion you wish, for instance in a web service call to external management system. For more information, see Define a Script Action for an Alert. Platform CloningYou can copy the inventory resources on one platform to one or more other platforms that exist in HQ inventory. The Clone Platform page is available in the HQ Portal on the Tools menu when a platform is selected. For more information, see Cloning a Platform. No Escalation Schemes for Recovery AlertsIn HQ 4.0, it is not possible to assign an escalation scheme to a recovery alert. Multi-Condition Alerts are Limited to Three ConditionsTo reduce complexity, the multi-condition alert feature in HQ Enterprise is changed, to limit the number of conditions to a maximum of three. After three conditions have been added to an alert, the Add Condition link will not appear. Existing alerts with more than three conditions continue to function, but you cannot add additional conditions to such alerts. Response Time Feature RemovedThe Response Time feature available for certain server types has been removed, because in some environments use of the feature over a long period of time caused HQ to become unstable. HQ 4.0 Open Source FeaturesPackage Name Changes
JSW Agent LauncherThe HQ Agent launcher is now based on the Java Service Wrapper (JSW), providing improved and automated agent lifecycle management. For more information, see Understanding the Agent Launcher and Agent Lifecycle Management. Changed Agent Directory StructureThe directory structure of the agent installation is changed to support remote agent upgrades. For more information, see HQ 4.0 Agent Installation Directory Structure. Auto-Discovery ImprovementChanges in a platform's fully qualified domain name FQDN are auto-discovered. "Last 8 Hours" Control on Current Health Page*A new control on the Indicators tab of the Current Health page makes it easy to reset the metric display range to the last 8 hours. JMX MBean QueryThe new JMX MBean Query feature allows you to search for MBeans, display their attributes, and invoke selected MBean operations on them. The JMX Console is available on the Views tab when you have a JVM server selected in the HQ Portal. For more information, see Using the JMX MBean Query. Metric Display Auto-Reset from Alert Email linksThe HQ Portal's metric display range for metrics and charts can be automatically reset to eight hours by clicking on a chart link in alert email notifications. For more information, see Monitoring Overview. Integration with Tapestry web application frameworkWe've implemented the Tapestry framework. This environment offers advantages over struts: it enables component reuse, simplifies localization, and allows us to build new features more rapidly. We expect this investment will deliver benefits to HQ community members and customers in the form of an HQ user interface that can we can rapidly grow and in response to customer requirements. Java 5 UpgradeThe Tapestry integration described required Java 5 features. The agent and server build was split from the user interface (Tapestry) build. The agent and server code are compiled at class version 48 (Java 1.4). User interface Tapestry code is compiled at class version 49 (Java 5). The x86 Linux, HPUX, SPARC Solaris, x86 Windows, and AIX agent bundles were upgraded from a 1.4 to 1.5 JRE. Search Improvements
New Escalation Pause OptionsEscalation schemes have new pause options. It is now possible to configure the following pause durations: 5, 10, 20, 30, 45, or 60 minutes; 24, 48, or 72 hours; or until the alert is fixed. Improved Persistence ModelWe've changed the data model and storage strategy for measurement data. Improved performance is the visible result of this change right now. In addition, this change lays the foundation for more powerful and flexible query and reporting in upcoming releases. Key changes include a simplified measurement schema and an optimized storage stragegy for availability data. Web Services APIA new web services-based API for the HQ server is available for download on the HQ Portal's Administration page. The download includes JavaDoc for the API. Issues Fixed in 4.x EnterpriseThis section has links to the lists of fixes in each 4.x release. Issues Fixed for 4.1.2 Enterprise Issues Fixed for 4.1.1 Enterprise Issues Fixed for 4.1.0 Enterprise Issues Fixed for 4.0.3 Enterprise Issues Fixed for 4.0.2 Enterprise Issues Fixed in 4.0 Enterprise Known Issues in 4.xKnown Issues in 4.1.2 Enterprise |
HQ 4.1 Enterprise Release Notes
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