In this newsletter

- Maintenance Mode.
- What are the Developers doing?
- CentOS migration.
- Hardware Upgrades.

Maintenance Mode

Maintenance Mode is a new feature that allows an administrator to select groups of monitored devices(nodes) and temporarily exclude them from the Event/Alert process. 

To recap, an Event occurs when a monitored property (e.g. disk drive, memory, ping response etc.)changes its Status from OK (normal) to Warning or Critical. Once the Event threshold has been passed (2minutes by default), the Event is considered to be “Open” and it will remain in this state until the propertyreturns to an OK Status or it is no longer monitored. The Event is then considered to be Closed. Whilst anEvent is Open, Mutiny will, if configured, send Alerts (emails, SMS messages or Traps) to one or moreContacts. 

There are times when it is desirable for a monitored device to be excluded from this process - one examplebeing when it has to undergo scheduled or emergency maintenance. Although it has always been possibleto do this from the Mutiny GUI, it is quite laborious, involves a large number of clicks and there is nomechanism to indicate or remind the operator that a node has been excluded. In response to customerfeedback, Maintenance Mode has been developed to address this issue. 

To enable (or disable) Maintenance Mode, you must be logged on as an Administrator or Super-Admin asyou will need to access the Node Manager pages. 

From the menus bar, select “[Nodes]=>Manager” and you will see the new [Maintenance] button, top right:

for more detailed instructions see section 8.9 in the user manual; https://www.mutiny.com/mutiny-support/Manual/Manual-8/

What are the developers doing?

We are currently assembling the parts for Mutiny Version 6.1. This will include:

- A major re-write of the Dashboards to add new feature and allow them to be shared and published (accessible without a login).
- An update to Tracked-View Alerting to allow filtering of the Event type and to add delays and repeats.
- We will be adding an option to allow ping-only nodes to change their IP address (without the need to delete and then re-add) and with that an Agent that will allow monitoring by DNS name rather than a fixed IP address.
- There will be new Agents for the APC NetBotz and Cisco Nexus Environmental monitoring.

We have also been developing a new range of micro probes based around the Orange Pi motherboard that will allow the gathering of data from inaccessible network locations.

CentOS Migration

Most customers have already migrated over to the CentOS version of the core Mutiny appliance, but if you are holding back, then you are missing out on the latest releases and the free IPAM module.

The process is fairly straight forward and allows you to migrate over your running configuration to the new appliance with very little disruption.

We can also carry out the migration for you with a site visit and health check, just drop us a line or open a support ticket if you are interested in this service.

For your reference, this is the support page for migration: https://mutiny.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/13000088235-migrate-your-virtual-appliance-to-centos-appliance

Hardware upgrades

I know we all like to sweat the assets and Mutiny is a great way to keep an eye on hardware performance, but even we have to upgrade sometimes, recently we migrated hardware that was installed in 2006, so 10 years is a great testament to our choice of appliance!

However with the migration to CentOS, some of the older appliances will not perform as well as our current AP4 so we are offering appliance upgrades to suit all.

Additionally we offer an "Appliance-Upgrade Bundle" that includes a new rack-mount appliance and onsite professional services to migrate, upgrade and health-check your system. 

If you would like more information, take a look at the upgrade options here: https://www.mutiny.com/product/Appliance_Upgrade/