WhatsUp Gold 2024.0 Release Notes

You can now exclude specified performance data from being collected. The disk utilization performance monitor is the only one with default exclusions. By default, we will no longer collect data from Windows ‘system reserved’ partitions. These filters can be modified to exclude items from reports related to CPU Utilization, Memory Utilization, Interface Utilization and Disk Utilization. Please let us know your use cases for updating/modifying the filters.

The following enhancements have been made to Alert Center:

• The ability to edit and customize the Email notification.
• The ability to create a notification to be triggered when a device goes back into threshold.
• The ability to create additional notification types.

You now have the ability to import SNMP traps to the passive monitor library using the WhatsUp Gold web user interface rather than the admin console application. When viewing the Monitors Library, click Import to launch the Import trap definitions dialog. The list of traps displayed is populated by the MIBs typically found in the MIB folder on your WhatsUp Gold server. You can use the Search field at the top of the dialog to locate a specific SNMP trap by Trap Name. Select the checkbox(es) to the left of the desired trap definitions, then click Import. Please note, when a single SNMP trap is selected, its attributes are presented in a dedicated Attributes section of the dialog.

After the SNMP trap has been successfully added to the Monitors Library, select System Settings > Passive Monitor Listeners from the SETTINGS menu. Ensure the Listen for messages control is enabled under SNMP Trap Settings and the port number is accurate . You can then add the SNMP trap as a passive monitor to a device through its Device Properties interface.

In addition to being the primary interface with which to view information about monitors in WhatsUp Gold, the Monitors Library now presents users with an additional interactive data point. In the Devices using this monitor column, each number displayed represents the number of devices which have the specific monitor assigned. These device counts are hyperlinked and, when clicked, launch the Monitors Applied full page report pre-filtered for that monitor.

You can now validate actions without the need to launch the WhatsUp Gold Admin Console Application. In the web user interface, access the Actions and Policies library by selecting SETTINGS > Action & Alerts > Actions and Policies from the main menu at the top of the WhatsUp Gold user interface. To test an action, first ensure the Actions tab is selected, then click the Test link to launch the Action Test dialog. Select an action from the drop-down menu provided, then click Test. Review the results of the test. If you encounter any errors, modify the action's configuration settings as needed and retest.

Please note, at this time, the Test function can be used with the following actions:

• Email
• Log to Text File
• Post to Slack
• PowerShell Script

Please submit an idea to request any additional actions.

• Assign or edit active monitors in bulk on multiple devices
• Edit active monitor properties in bulk on multiple devices
• Add monitors in bulk through the Device Properties interface

Upon successful installation or upgrade to WhatsUp Gold 24.0, an SFTP/SCP server is automatically installed on the local WhatsUp Gold machine indented for use with Configuration Management. The SFTP and SCP File Transfer settings will be configured out of the box. Select Configuration Management > File Transfer Settings from the SETTINGS menu to access File Transfer Settings.

WhatsUp Gold no longer allows users to choose HTTP during installation or upgrade. When upgrading to WhatsUp Gold 2024.0 or later, your web interface and REST API will automatically be migrated to HTTPS.

WhatsUp Gold now allows you to:

• Upload MIB files larger than 2 MB in size.
• Upload multiple MIB files at once.

You can now use Kerberos authentication for monitoring your devices. You can toggle Windows authentication protocol settings within the General Settings dialog (SETTINGS > System Settings > General Settings).

If both options are enabled, WhatsUp Gold will authenticate devices using Kerberos first and only use NTLM if Kerberos fails.

• Devices whose host names in WhatsUp Gold match their Service Principal Names (SPN) in the domain.
• Devices must be joined to a domain.
• Devices with Windows domain account credentials.

Disabling NTLM will prevent WMI access to devices that do not meet this criteria.

The Device Overview section of the Device Properties interface can now be collapsed to create more space while still displaying important device information in the header. This is especially beneficial when viewing devices with a long list of monitors. Additionally, the Monitors section has been enhanced to utilize seperate tabs which allows assigned monitors to be displayed either in a single view or by categorized by monitor type.

It's now possible to view WhatsUp Gold in Dark Mode. This new theme can be configured for each user and their individual preference. In the upper-right corner of the user interface, click the name of the user account currently logged in to WhatsUp Gold, then select User Preferences. In the Theme section of the dialog the appears, select Dark, then click Save.

Hardware requirements vary depending on the WhatsUp Gold configuration. Increasing the number of devices monitored, number of monitors, types of monitors, polling intervals, or other configuration options can result in additional load on the server and database. Hardware configuration adjustments may be required to optimize performance for your network.

WhatsUp Gold supports the following Windows Server platforms:

• Microsoft Windows Server 2022

• Microsoft Windows Server 2019
• Microsoft Windows Server 2016

For evaluation purposes, WhatsUp Gold operates on Windows 10 and 11. However, production level support requires Windows Server versions only.

• Installing WhatsUp Gold on a domain controller is not recommended or supported.
• If WhatsUp Gold is hosted in virtual environments, to prevent licensing issues, make sure that you assign a static MAC address to the virtual machine on which WhatsUp Gold is operating. Refer to your virtual machine software help documentation for information about assigning a static MAC address for the virtual machine.
• WhatsUp Gold requires quad-core processors @ 2.6 GHz (min). If you are installing WhatsUp Gold on a virtual machine, make sure that your guest VM has at least four CPU cores allocated to it. Refer to additional Hardware requirements guidelines.

WhatsUp Gold requires a database to maintain data about monitored devices, store system configurations, and save user specified customizations. The database may be co-located with the WhatsUp Gold installation, or may be hosted on a remote machine. Data services for WhatsUp Gold can be provided by the following database servers. The following database versions are supported:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2017
• Microsoft SQL Server 2019
• Microsoft SQL Server 2022

The WhatsUp Gold installer automatically installs/enables IIS on platforms where it is supported.

WhatsUp Gold requires the following Web Server Role Services for IIS at a minimum:

• Web Server
• ASP .NET
• Static Content
• HTTP Redirection
• Default Document

WhatsUp Gold requires the Microsoft .NET Framework and other Microsoft packages for scripting. The following are required software framework and support packages:

• .NET 4.8, included in installation program.
• PowerShell 2.0 (Optionally required for PowerShell scripting. Not included in the WhatsUp Gold installer. Refer to the Microsoft MSDN web site for more information about installing PowerShell).
• Microsoft Windows Scripting Host v5.7 (or later).
• Microsoft SAPI 5.1 (required for Text-to-Speech actions).

The following web browsers are currently supported for use with WhatsUp Gold:

• Microsoft Edge
• Google Chrome
• Mozilla Firefox
  Tip: does not support any version of Internet Explorer in Compatibility or Quirks mode.

The WhatsUp Gold Log Management feature collects log data from monitored devices and stores that data for reporting and analysis in an Elasticsearch database, which can be either installed locally on the WhatsUp Gold server, or can be a remote instance of Elasticsearch.

The WhatsUp Gold server requires the following to support a remote Elasticsearch instance:

• CPU speed >= 2.6 GHz
• CPU count >= 8 cores
• RAM >= 16 GB

The WhatsUp Gold server requires the following to support a local Elasticsearch instance:

• CPU speed >= 2.6 GHz
• CPU count >= 8 cores
• RAM >= 32 GB
• Disk space >= 585 GB

Depending on the network environment and product deployment, WhatsUp Gold can poll up to 100,000 metrics with one WhatsUp Gold server and additional pollers. Additional pollers installed on your WhatsUp Gold system transmit active monitor and performance monitor data to the WhatsUp Gold server. Extending polling activity across multiple pollers increases the number of devices for which WhatsUp Gold can poll and collect data to send back to the WhatsUp Gold system. Using additional pollers, WhatsUp Gold can efficiently scale polling operations to a larger number of network devices, ultimately providing the capacity to monitor and manage larger networks. Additional pollers may be installed on any Windows system on the network, other than the WhatsUp Gold server.

Minimum requirements for each additional poller:

To maintain adequate operation and security protection for your WhatsUp Gold deployment, we recommend the following:

• Install WhatsUp Gold and any components in a locked server room or cabinet so that physical access is restricted to trusted administrators.
• Install WhatsUp Gold software components on dedicated servers. Do not use these servers for any other purpose.

This version of WhatsUp Gold supports direct upgrade installations from WhatsUp Gold v20.0.2 and newer. If you are running an earlier version of WhatsUp Gold, you must first upgrade to v20.0.2 before installing the latest version of WhatsUp Gold. Make sure to clear the browser cache so the user interface displays the new web application pages after the upgrade. As always, before performing an upgrade be sure to back up your database. If you are using the SQL Express database included in WhatsUp Gold, this can be done by the installer/updater before proceeding with the upgrade. Refer to the Installing WhatsUp Gold guide for details about installation, upgrade, repair, and uninstall.

To see the list of currently supported versions of WhatsUp Gold, please refer to the Product Life Cycle page.