EPO Elements - Welcome

Introduction

Thank you for installing EPO-Elements. This document contains some pointers on how to get started using EPO-Elements.

First use

To get you started on using EPO-Elements there is an introduction on the website. You should register yourself as a user on the EPO-website to use the forum, or access probes and extensions that are available on the site.

Changes since version 4.4

Version 5.0 has the following changes:

Log on screen

Language selection. You can select the language of the client
Emergency log on. When there aren't enough epoints available for another log on an administrator can still log on*

*You need administrator privileges on the server where the EPO server is installed and log on with a local client

Probes

Added an email probe for testing sending or receiving email. Supports Exchange/Outlook only for now
Windows scheduled tasks probe. Existing Tasks that aren't found are made unavailable
Added the AIDIDO probe for use with the new AIDIDO device. The AIDIDO offers analogue and digital inputs and digital outputs. More information will be available soon
External probe. Added a [EPO: LOG] option for parsing single line logs, see log rules
Webprobe. Fixed a bug that in some situations (mostly on Windows 2003 systems) caused the probe to stop working

Customer Care

Almost over SLA is now editable. Default is still 4 hours
Need-by dates can be overruled by a default SLA template
A new cost tab within a registration to register other costs made
A history tab within a registration which shows other registrations from the same customer

Client

Client has been completely rewritten
Now uses a new version of WeifenLuo to allow for much easier window placement
Out of service windows are now called Maintenance windows

User Manager

EPO Elements now uses a full featured user manager to regulate user access
You can add users and groups
Users belong to one or more groups and groups contain roles.
A role is a certain right to do something (for example view a tree)
Passwords are matched against the available local or domain accounts or can be set in the EPO Elements client

Tree editor

EPO Elements now supports multiple business trees
The tree editor allows trees to be made or removed
Trees can have groups of users that are allowed to view the tree

Service windows

The service window editor now has an improved interface that allows for easier creation of custom service windows

Measurement database

EPO Elements now has a measurement database manager accessible from the Administration menu
Measurement data is stored in a lot of small files. To free up hard disk space it is possible to archive data.

EPO Server

Data storage. A bug has been fixed that occasionally created corrupted data files when the server is stopped unexpectedly
Because of this, the way data is stored has been changed and EPO Elements 5 data is not compatible with EPO Elements 4 data.
Though EPO 5 can read EPO 4 data it will store it as EPO 5
Data storage. Fixed a bug where data keys couldn't be read when they had the pipe symbol (|) in them.

Escalation Manager

The escalation manager is now integrated into EPO Elements
It now works based on notifications as viewed in the notification window
Notifications are not only sent

Business tree

When a node is unavailable the graphic is changed from a single node to two overlaying nodes. One blue and one woth the last know status

Business tree editor

The business tree editor has been completely revamped
You are now able to edit the live tree. You can drag and drop new nodes to the live tree
The editor has a convinient sidebar with frequently used actions
New nodes now come from a toolbox which has several different tabs with different incoming data
The toolbox will update live as new information (data from probed objects) comes available
To prevent cluttering the toolbox, only active data from probed objects is displayed
Data from inactive probes can still be made visible if needed
The ordering/grouping of the probed object data can be changed

Custom labels

Nodes can now have custom labels that can be used for different actions
A custom label can be used to store extra information or used to execute a program with the contents of the label as argument
Default labels are a rdp label that allows taking control of a remote machine and a general execute program label
New labels can be added easily

Graphs

Graphs can now be zoomed-in on
Graphs are updated live
Graphs have a background color overlay for the status it had at a certain time. The background will be red where the status was critical for example
The status timeline has this background overlay as well.
The unavailable status is displayed as a striped pattern overlaying the timeline

Reporting

Reporting is now integrated into the EPO Elements client and is completely new
One default report is available from the reporting menu. It can be customized easily
Reports use XSLT and XPath to get data from EPO Elements and to transform it to a variation of output types. The example supplied creates a pdf
With use of the EPO client commandline interface you can create reports automated

Network editor

You can locate the server you need far easier now by typing the first few letters of the device name

Changes since version 4.3

Version 4.4 has the following changes:

Probes

Added a webcamprobe, this allows you to take pictures using a webcam (e.g. linked to a door sensor of a RBU)
Probe configuration screen is no longer modal
Probes without a custom detail screen (e.g. Check-it probe) do now use the default Log and Schedule settings
When there was a trailing space in the external probe working directory, it would result in an invalid path error
An external probe can now opt to not send some information, just add a DontSend=true
Eventlog probe can now count the number of events that are logged within a specified period
Windows session probe is not longer enabled for new installations
Windows scheduled tasks probe is not longer enabled for new installations

Customer Care

Field ChangedBy was missing in database (bug)
Unable to delete attachments (bug)
Indication added if fields will be truncated automatically
Error message for fields that contain too much text also reports the length of the field
Fixed Almost Over SLA escalation

SMS Gateway service

New to the EPO-Elements box Uninstall your old SMS gateway service before upgrading
You change the settings of the service using the configuration editor
You view the log of the service using the configuration editor
Test interface available for quick testing from within the configuration editor

Mail Gateway service

You can now view the log of the service using the configuration editor
Test interface available for quick testing from within the configuration editor

Client

Added a beta indication on the splash and the client when it is a beta release/li>
Fixed a GDI+ error while drawing statustreegraph
Fixed a NullReferenceException while first displaying a tree
When requesting a trial the e-mail address was sometimes rejected when it was entered in uppercase
Many internal improvements of the interface
Fixed not updating the Status Tree Graph bars

RBU (firmware needs to be upgraded, please contact support for this)

You are now able to send SMS-text messages using the RBU
GSM status is included in the display
GSM status is recorded by the probe
The webcam can be linked to an input of the RBU
You are able to setup a fallback connection (the RBU will initiate this connection using tcp, GSM-ppp-tcp, or GPRS-tcp)
Fixed some connection issues when reading multiple units from one probe
Configuration of IP address (static, dhcp, autoip) is now possible
Tool for configuration of the IP address and running a selftest is now included in the setup
Default gas detection thresholds removed, you should set it yourself according to the monitored response levels

Message Transport service

Performance improvements when you have many connections on a device

All components

Fixed a bug involving a DirectoryNotFound error when the first logger starts

Changes since version 4.2

Version 4.3 has the following changes:

CustomerCare

Persons, Operators, Companies, Assets and Categories can be hidden
Simple implementation of assets
Added a note for service information to companies

Client

Added some links under the Help menu
When the client is open while viewing today's data, and a new day starts, the client will move to the new day
Tree focus problems resolved when navigating using the cursor keys
Tree context-menu now has expand/collapse options
Graphs can now scale automatically when getting values less then 0
Login credentials for the client passing to the server are now encrypted

Probe configuration

Copy / paste of probe configurations is now possible.
Direct save button on the probe settings
Scheduled probes now have a "Run now" button
View the last 100 log lines that are generated by a probe
View the last results of an external probe
External probe comment now is the application name by default
Snmp bandwith probe the screen used to add interfaces is now populated in real-time
Performance counter probe the screen used to add counters is now populated in real-time

Probes

Added a probe to monitor the windows and citrix sessions
Snmp probe now retries queries (as the udp protocol is unreliable)
Snmp probe now uses snmp protocol version 1 instead of 2c by default
Snmp bandwith measurements on devices that have non-incremental numbering (e.g. 1, 2, 5000) now work correctly
Changed performance counter probe to be able to query some counters that were not supported by the .Net framework
Eventlog probe filtering on the Message is now done using regular expressions, previously the whole text should match
External probe now accepts DEVICE= to change the device name

Server

Some performance improvements were made
Fixed copy of last measurement on 0:00, the text is now no longer copied.
Sometimes the reading of messages from the Message Transport service would be delayed by 45 seconds

License

Manage license screen now has the ability to re-request a license and it allows you to remove licenses
License website is now available for manual registration of your license
Upgrade requires software upgrade protection

EPO-Extensions

EPO now offers a documented protocol to interact with the EPO-services
There is an open source implementation of this protocol launched at sourceforge
You can control access from the probe editor (Edit -> Edit probe configuration -> then click on the Message service configuration icon on a device

Tools

TestCheckit.exe now allows logging per source
MeasurementViewer.exe displayed the error message when reading multiple files when the read was successfull

Setup

Service user account and restart information are retained after upgrade
Added this documentation
Start menu now under all users