We’re pleased to announce that we’ll soon be introducing a significant enhancement to the ‘Server Overdue Alerts’ feature in MAX RM. Currently, the fastest setting for overdue server alerts is 7.5 minutes. With the upcoming improvement however, you’ll be able to set it as quickly as 1 minute. This has been a much-requested feature enhancement, with many of you taking to our Ideas Site to cast your votes – thanks for raising this one up!

In addition, we have an improvement to the ‘Data Overdue Cross Check’ feature, so that if you wish, you can continue to receive Server Overdue Alerts when there’s a network issue at play. To this end, we’re adding a new option to the Data Overdue Alert emails so you can see the status of the Data Overdue Cross Check – now, when you receive a Server Overdue alert, you’ll know if it’s a server issue or a network/ISP problem.

We’re also excited to be releasing a new ‘Wake on LAN’ Automated Task that will let you wake a device up over a local area network. Add the new Wake-on-LAN (WOL) Task to a device on a network that supports WOL, then specify the Mac address of the device you want to turn on. Using the task, you’ll be able to do this on demand or on a predetermined schedule.

Here are all the details of the improvements coming your way…

Faster Server Overdue Alerts

Note that this enhancement requires RC Agent 10.4.4 and above.

• Servers running the latest RC Agent will now see an updated option under ‘Offline and overdue alert settings’ on the Edit Server dialog, allowing you to set the alert frequency anywhere between 1 minute and 6 hours (1).

• This replaces the previous set of options that started at 7.5 minutes. The new system takes advantage of the real-time architecture announced earlier in the year.

• As is currently the case, to take advantage of the fastest overdue alert settings, you need to set the 24×7 Check cycle to 5 minutes. Servers running on the 15 minute check cycle and slower can set the overdue alerts to a maximum of 15 minutes.

• Please note that on top of the selected alert time, there’s some processing and verification time before the actual alert is sent. This can vary a little depending on the nature of the outage and whether it’s a server issue or a network issue. Typically, it will take 10 to 30 seconds for the alert to go out.

• Servers on the current GA Agent will continue to see the existing set of options (7.5 minutes, 12.5 minutes, etc.), although you’ll see the update we’ve made to bring the Offline and Overdue settings together into one section, to help simplify the UI a little (2).

• When devices move from the current GA Agent to the RC Agent and the next GA Agent once it’s promoted, servers will automatically update to use the new overdue alert settings. We’re converting the current check-cycle values to the closest matching new value, where round up the nearest fastest setting. Here’s the conversion table so you can see how the devices will update:

A Better ‘Data Overdue Cross Check’ Feature

Note this update does not require the RC Agent and can be turned on straight away.

• We’ve also enhanced the existing ‘Data Overdue Cross Check Feature’, which you’ll find on the Edit Site dialog. You now have the option to continue to receive Server Overdue Alerts, even when the Data Overdue Cross Check fails to get a response from the router pings. To turn this on, just tick the checkbox on the screen (3)

It means you can still be alerted in the event there’s a network or ISP issue, something many of you have asked for.

• In order for you to know what the issue is when you receive the alert – the server is down or there appears to be a network issue – we’ve added a new code snippet to the Data Overdue Alert Mail template. To add this to your emails, head over to Mail Templates > Server Monitoring > Data Overdue Alert Mail (4).

• Click the dropdown box at the top of the dialog and select Data Overdue Cross Check Status, then click Insert Code. This will add the snippet to your email alert (6). If the Data Overdue Cross Check pings respond and all is fine, the status will show as Pass. If the routers can’t be reached, the status will show as fail, telling you it’s the network that’s has the issue.

• At this point, the device status icon in the Dashboard North Pane and Wall Chart will show the ‘Site Down’ icon  to further indicate that there’s a network problem at that site.

We encourage you to download the latest RC Agent to check out the faster server overdue alerts option. Let us know if you have any feedback.

‘Wake on LAN’ Automated Task

Last but not least in this release, we’re adding a new Wake on LAN automated task, so you can turn powered-down devices back on across networks that are set up to support Wake on LAN. This is one of the most requested features on the Ideas site so we’re particularly excited to bring you this update!

Here are the release notes for today’s update…

Summary for Service Release
– Faster server overdue alerts, Data Overdue Cross Check alert, Wake on LAN Task
– Dashboard v6.28
– New RC Agent v10.4.4

Dashboard v6.28
UPDATE: New faster server overdue alerts with the option to set new frequencies up to 1 minute (requires RC Agent 10.4.4 and above)
UPDATE: Option to continue to receive Server Overdue Alerts when the Data Overdue Cross Check fails
UPDATE: Option to show the Data Overdue Cross Check status in the Data Overdue Email Alerts
UPDATE: Improvement to the UI for Offline Mode and Overdue Alerts Settings on the Edit Server dialog
UPDATE: Improved descriptions and usage notes for several of the recently added Automated Tasks
UPDATE: New Automated Task: “Wake on LAN”
UPDATE: New Automated Task: “Set AD User Password”

Agent v10.4.4 RC
UPDATE: Add support for ‘CloudBerry Backup’ to Backup Check

Automation Manager v1.8.9
BUGFIX: Resolve issue with the Wake on LAN module
Download the new version from ‘Script Manager’ on the Settings menu