Device Expert

Feature Enhancements and Bug Fixes done in each release listed below:

• DeviceExpert Build 5020
• DeviceExpert Release 5.0
• DeviceExpert Build 4300
• DeviceExpert Build 4210
• DeviceExpert Release 4.2
• DeviceExpert Release 4.1
• DeviceExpert Build 4030
• DeviceExpert Build 4020
• DeviceExpert Build 4010

New Features / Enhancements

Download Build 5020 If you are using DeviceExpert 5010, upgrade to Build 5020

• Configuration Diff reports have been enhanced to display more lines along with diff lines to better understand the "context" of the configuration change.
• Detailed DeviceConfiguration and SecurityAudit report is now provided for each device. DeviceConfiguration Report gives details about configuration settings and SecurityAudit Report identifies security related issues and recommendations to resolve it.
• Navigation improvements in "Device Details" and "Device Group" pages.
• Report generation time will be displayed for reports sent via email for Scheduled Configuration Backup and Configuration Change notifications.

New Devices Support

Support for the following new device types:

• Riverbed Steelhead
• Alcatel switch
• Huawei Quidway AR 18xx

More HP Switch and DLink Switch models are now supported.

Bug Fixes

• Build 5010 had issues in scheduled configuration backup with larger number of devices. This has been fixed.
• Fortigate device addition issue in build 5010 has been fixed.
• Issues in updating certain hardware properties of Cisco ASA, AccessPoint, CatOS devices has been fixed.
• Device addition and schedule creation issues with IE 6 have been fixed (But we recommend using IE 7.x or Firefox 2.x)

• Provision for examining device configurations for compliance to a defined set of standards/criteria/rules and monitoring and reporting the compliance status
• Automated Compliance Check: Support for associating compliance policies to devices, thereby automating the compliance check for each change in configuration
• Option to define your own compliance policies to cater to the standards of your organization

• 12 new intuitive reports on  Network Inventory, Firmware Inventory, Network Health Status, Configuration Changes, User Permissions, Network Compliance etc
  
• Hardware details such as Serial Number, IOS Version, OS Image Name are depicted in reports
• Support for scheduling report generation at periodic interval and emailing the same to required recipients
  
• Provision to export reports in CSV format

• DeviceExpert can be integrated with ManageEngine OpManager (Network Monitoring Software). Device configurations can now be managed from the 'Device Details' page of OpManager

• Provision for creating 'Public Groups', which are visible to all users
• Provision for creating Device Groups based on more fine-grained criteria

• Option to receive Change Management Notification emails in a text format to facilitate better viewing in hand-held devices such as mobile phones.

• Provision to assign public device groups to users (belonging to the roles PowerUser, Operator)

• Option to receive emails only for error conditions in backup schedules.

TFTP  interface configuration in multi-homed machines

• DeviceExpert uses TFTP server to transfer the configuration files to-and-fro the devices. Provision for specifying the interface to be used for transferring the configuration files from/to the devices, if  DeviceExpert is running in multi-homed machines.

• Syslog server is used for real-time change detection. It binds its syslog listener at port 514. In multi-homed machines, if you want to run some other application with a syslog server in the same machine, you can bind the DeviceExpert syslog server to a specific interface leaving the other interface(s) for use by other application(s).

• DeviceExpert executes configuration operations such as backup, upload, scheduled task execution, report generation etc as parallel jobs. The number of threads available for such parallel tasks are limited. Provision for specifying the number of parallel jobs depending on the hardware configuration of the machine in which DeviceExpert is running.
  

• Performance tuning has been done to improve client responsiveness for various configuration operations & scheduled tasks.

• Automatic support for device models that are similar to the already supported models. This is due to the removal of model-specific device support.
  

• Support for four new device vendors - Juniper, NETGEAR & Dell. DeviceExpert already supports devices of 16 vendors - Cisco, HP, Nortel, D-Link, Juniper-NetScreen, Force10, 3Com, Foundry, Fortinet, ADTRAN, Enterasys, Huawei, Extreme, Proxim, Aruba and Blue Coat
• New Device Type: Support for Cisco VPN Concentrators, Extreme Summit, 3Com 4500, Nortel Contivity Router, Enterasys XSR Router

Changes

• Simplified procedure for manual addition of devices and importing devices from text file
• Schedules creation procedure simplified
  
• Provision for giving credentials to multiple devices from discovery status page.
• Option for switching off email intimation upon DeviceExpert application user creation
  
• Option to stop any device operation mid-way from inventory page

Bug Fixes

• Backup operation of Cisco PIX 7.x models consumed considerable CPU process. This has now been fixed
• Issue related to accessing Netscreen firewall devices via SSH fixed
• If banner was set for HP switches, configuration backup failed. This is now fixed
• In configuration change management notifications, email content formatted with newlines were not taken. This is now fixed
• While displaying configuration difference for cisco devices, entries related to self-signed certificate were shown as a difference. This is now fixed
• In the case of Extreme Black Diamond switches and Netscreen Firewalls, the status of "Real-time Change detection" was incorrectly depicted. This has now been fixed
• For some cisco devices, hardware property population did not work. This has now been fixed.

Configuration Rollback

• Provision for rolling back device configuration to any of the available versions

Configuration Enforcement & Change Management Enhancements

• Support for automatically reverting to the previous or BASELINE version on detecting unauthorized changes

Scripting Support

• Support for CLI command execution on devices in user-defined sequence. Useful in automating repetitive and time-consuming operations on devices

Hardware Properties Retrieval

• Provision for fetching hardware properties of devices on demand and in periodic intervals

Show Commands

• Support for executing various commands for fetching device details on demand. Useful in executing various 'show' commands 

Recent 5 Configuration Changes

• Provision for quick view of five most recent configuration changes of any device

Disaster Recovery Tools

• Tools for exporting latest device configuration files to a flat file on the disk for transferring to any secondary storage medium.
• Provision for automated backup of entire DeviceExpert database. Helpful in rapid restoration of DeviceExpert server, in the event of any disaster

Database Administration

• Provision for purging older audit trails and device configuration versions

Detailed Audit Trails

• Detailed information depicting the reason for operation failure as part of device audit trail display

New OS Support

• DeviceExpert now runs on Windows Vista

Device Models Support

• Support for more than 300 device models including many Force10 models
• Support for a total of 16 vendors - Cisco, HP, Nortel, D-Link, Juniper-NetScreen, Force10, 3Com, Foundry, Fortinet, ADTRAN, Enterasys, Huawei, Extreme, Proxim, Aruba and Blue Coat

Enhancements

• Support for pushing the configuration of HP & Nortel devices
• Simplified procedure for manual device addition
• Device details page enhanced with provision for carrying out various actions on device

Bug Fixes

• Earlier, rescheduling time for periodic schedules was calculated based on the completion time of previous execution. This has been fixed.

Changes

• JRE containing DST fix is bundled with DeviceExpert now
• For DeviceExpert GUI, blue theme has been standardized and green theme removed
• Ready-to-use custom templates (Syslog configuration, SNMP Configuration & Password configuration) will be removed in the next major upgrade as more powerful scripting functionality has been added

• Device Discovery

  1. Nmap based Discovery: Device Discovery has been enhanced with Nmap-based discovery, which offers a host of advantages over the existing process. Earlier, when running DeviceExpert in non-English OS, ping for device would fail during discovery, resulting in disruption of discovery process. Now, with Nmap-based discovery, all such issues have been addressed.

  2. Stopping Discovery: Provision to stop device discovery, at any point of time during the discovery process.

  3. DNS Name in Discovery status: While viewing the discovery status of specific devices, the DNS Name of the device is also displayed.

  4. Discovery support for most of the models: Most of the device models that are supported by DeviceExpert could now be discovered and added to the inventory. Refer supported device models page for more details.

• Configuration Diff

In the contextual, side-by-side comparison of configuration versions, option has been provided to view only the lines in which there is a difference. Navigation buttons have also been provided to move from one diff line to the next easily.

• Syslog-based change detection

Syslog-based change detection is now supported for more device types including Cisco ASA, NetScreen firewall, Fortinet FortiGate firewall, ADTRAN LAN Switch, Nortel Baystack 5510 & 5520.

• Device Model Support

1. Support for more than 280 device models

2. Nortel Business Policy Switches running an older version of OS software (v3.0.6.08) are also supported

3. Support for a total of 15 vendors - Cisco, HP, Nortel, D-Link, Juniper-NetScreen, 3Com, Foundry, Fortinet, ADTRAN, Enterasys, Huawei, Extreme, Proxim, Aruba and Blue Coat

Changes

• Terminologies

The term 'Download' which was being used to denote the transfer of configuration from DeviceExpert to the device, has been changed to 'Upload' to adhere to industry standard terms. Henceforth, the following terminologies would be consistently used:

* Backup denoting retrieval of current configuration from device and transfer of the same to DeviceExpert

* Upload denoting the transfer of the configuration from DeviceExpert to the device

• ResultHandler

The 'ResultHandler' feature has been removed. A more powerful Change Management feature was added in the previous release (4200) itself.

Download Now!

For more information/clarification, please contact us at support@deviceexpert.com.

• New Device Models Support

  Support for over 275 device models that include routers, switches, firewalls, access points, access servers, integrated access devices, adaptive security appliances and others from multi-vendors.

• New Vendor Support

  Support for a total of 15 vendors - Cisco, HP, Nortel, D-Link, Juniper-NetScreen, 3Com, Foundry, Fortinet, ADTRAN, Enterasys, Huawei, Extreme, Proxim, Aruba and Blue Coat.

• Device Discovery
  

  (1) Earlier, for device discovery only two options were available - discovering specific devices or the devices falling under a specific IP range in bulk. Now, option is provided to discover multiple devices by importing hostnames or ip addresses from a file at one go.

  (2) Provision to specify multiple SNMP community for device discovery (to enable discovery of multiple devices in bulk)

• Configuration Change Management

  (1) Support for sending email notifications or SNMP V2 traps upon detecting configuration changes
  
  (2) Option to generate trouble tickets to Help Desk upon change detection

• Device Inventory

  IP address of device is displayed in the inventory table for easy reference. It is added as an additional column in inventory table, not listed by default. (Go to the column chooser to list this as a column in the table)

• Reports

  Network inventory report has been enhanced with display of more hardware details

Changes

• Configuration Diff

  While taking configuration diff, difference due to comments will be ignored henceforth

• GUI Enhancements

  The default theme of DeviceExpert GUI has been changed to blue from green. The previous green theme has been made optional. Minor changes in GUI have been made for ease of navigation and improved usability

• Editing Device Details

  Option is provided for changing model number and series of a device from the Device Details page

• SSH Support for additional models

  SSH support for Cisco ASA models

• ResultHandler

  Since a more powerful Change Management feature has been added in this release, the "Result Handler" feature will be removed in the next release
  

• New Device Models Support

  Support for over 240 device models that include routers, switches, firewalls, access points, access servers, integrated access devices, adaptive security appliances and others from multi-vendors.

• New Vendor Support

  Support for a total of 12 vendors - Cisco, HP, Nortel, 3com, Foundry, D-Link, ADTRAN, Fortinet, NetScreen, Enterasys, Blue Coat and Huawei.

• Approval Mechanism for Configuration Update

  All device configuration changes initiated by an operator require approval from a privileged user before the actual update in device.

• Search in Device Configuration

  Search utility to look for specific words, strings, phrases or a combination of these in device configuration files.

• Fine-grained User Access Control

  Support for imposing role-based access restrictions for accessing devices and carrying out various operations

• Managing Devices outside private networks

  Devices present outside the private network/firewalls can now be managed by DeviceExpert

• Disaster Recovery Tools

  Utilities provided to backup/restore DeviceExpert database. Script for backing up latest stored configuration, is also provided.

Bug Fixes

• Previously, Device Groups could not be deleted even if not referred in other places. This is now fixed.
• The issue with regard Telneting to a PIX device from Device Properties page of DeviceExpert has now been fixed.
• Hitherto, daily schedules were not getting rescheduled at the end of every month. This is now fixed.
• Previously, in the case of cisco devices going into enable login mode directly, there was a restriction that host name needed to be given in prompt, enable password prompt and enable prompt. This restriction has been removed now.

Download Now!

For more information/clarification, please contact us at support@deviceexpert.com.

Feature Enhancements

• New Device Model Support
  
  Support for 10 more device models that include routers, switches, firewalls, access points, access servers, integrated access devices and others from multi-vendors. DeviceExpert supports a total of 160 device models at present.
  
  
• Complete SSH Support
  
  Configuration operations through SSH for all supported models of Cisco & D-link. Already, DeviceExpert supports SSH for Cisco PIX, Foundry and Fortinet models.

Feature Enhancements

• New Device Model Support
  
  Support for 50 more device models that include routers, switches, firewalls, access points, access servers, integrated access devices and others from multi-vendors. DeviceExpert supports a total of 150 device models at present.
  
  
• New Vendor Support
  
  Support for four more vendors such as Nortel, D-Link, ADTRAN and Enterasys. DeviceExpert already supports Cisco, HP, 3COM, Juniper NetScreen, Foundry and Fortinet.
  
  
• SSH Support
  
  Configuration operations through SSH for all cisco pix models and FortiGate models.
  
  
• Discovery Status Tracking
  
  Support for tracking the status of device discovery. Progress of discovery in terms of percentage of completion and finally the result can now be tracked.
  
  
  
• Option to test the validity of Credentials
  
  Testing option is provided to find the correctness of device credential details. After entering the credentials, when test option is invoked, DeviceExpert will pinpoint the valid and invalid values.

Bug Fixes

• Earlier, when a device discovery attempt failed, manual addition of the device to the inventory also failed due to incomplete cleanup of residual data pertaining to the discovery of unsupported models. This issue has now been fixed.
• Previously if the IP address of the machine got changed in subsequent restart of the server, DeviceExpert had to be reinitialized and started afresh. It is not required now.

Features

• Support for more than 100 device models that include routers, switches, firewalls, access points, integrated access devices and others from vendors like Cisco, HP, 3COM, Foundry, NetScreen, FortiGate etc.,
  
  
• Support for Cisco devices with CatOS
  
  
• Capturing username and IP address when someone opens a telnet console and directly carries out a configuration change to Cisco IOS switches and routers, as part of enhancements in real-time change detection
  
  
• Provision for copying running configuration as startup in bulk

Bug Fixes

• Residual data from the discovery of unsupported models are now cleaned up properly
  
  
• Hitherto, copying running configuration to startup did not work in SNMP-TFTP protocol mode. This issue has now been fixed
  
  
• While using credential profiles, when independent update of the profile values was carried out, sometimes, the changes did not reflect in the credentials used for the device. This issue has now been fixed