As part of the Pulseway 8.50 release, the Pulseway Networking Monitoring (PNM) module has been redesigned to not only make it customizable and utilitarian to a much higher degree than before, but also with a view to render it scalable and lay the foundation for numerous future improvements to come.

Let's dive into the capabilities and features of the Pulseway PNM.

Creating a Network is simple - under the "Networks" module, click on the "Manage" option and choose "Create Network". Here, the User can choose the "Probe" machine. In addition, the User can define "Custom Subnets" to be scanned by the Probe to discover devices for the network (which is important to ensure that the scanning process does not take a long time by unnecessarily scanning irrelevant portions of the network).

In addition, the User can also configure basic notifications for when new devices are added to the network and also in the absence of devices.

Once the network is created and the associated devices are discovered, the Network Topology Map is generated. Users can view the same by simply clicking on the Network name in the "Manage" section. The PNM groups the discovered devices into Clusters based on the Device Type i.e. Printers, Workstations, Routers, etc.

The Topology Map screen also presents some summary information on the network at the bottom of the screen. Also, at any point in time, the original network discovery settings that were entered while creating the Network, can be edited by clicking on the "Edit" icon on the bottom right corner of the Topology Map screen.

On hovering over the Probe, the PNM displays the summary information of that device such as whether it is online or offline, how long it has been online, the number of alerts related to it, the devices on its network segment and so on.

On clicking on the Probe (or any network device), a right panel opens up with details of the machine. On this right panel, by clicking on "See System Details", a new Tab will open up with the complete Probe machine information on the "Systems" screen.

On right-clicking any Device on the network, the system generates options to -

(1) Edit - to rename or change the device type

(2) Enroll - to enroll as a Managed Network device

(3) Move - to shift the device to another part of the network

(4) Hide - to eliminate the visibility of devices that are no longer relevant . Devices on the Topology Map can be hidden - either individually or as whole clusters. The User can later "Show" (or un-hide) previously hidden devices.

When the User clicks on the 3 dots in the right panel of each Device / Cluster, they see the options to -

(a) Edit (only for Device)

(b) Enroll / Un-enroll (only for Device)

(c) Open SSH terminal - if the device has SSH support (only for Device)

(d) Rename (both Device and Cluster)

(d) Add custom device (only for Cluster) - The User can add a Device manually to a Cluster using this option (in cases such as Discovery not picking up a device or if the User does not want a scan to occur and so on). If the User knows its MAC address, the Device can be added manually. During the next scan, if this manually added custom device is discovered, the system will auto-reconcile i.e. there will be no duplicates.

Note – To ensure that the Custom Device is reconciled during the next scan, make sure to "Edit" it and add the MAC address.

On enrolling a Device, the User has the option to enable an Offline Notification setting for that Device. The Device does not need to have SNMP enabled in order to support this offline notification setting, as it is based on a Ping test.

Note – It is recommended that the offline notification be enabled for the Probe - because if this setting is not enabled and the Probe goes offline, Users will receive a surge of offline notifications for each of the devices mapped to the Probe.

Unknown Devices

If the PNM does not recognize a certain Device Type, it classifies the same as an "Unknown" Device and groups all Unknowns together. For each unknown device, the User can manually define the Device Type with ease, by right-clicking on the Device and choosing the "Edit" option.

The User can try and identify the Device Type of an Unknown device using its IP address and MAC address displayed in the Topology Map. Once an Unknown device is classified into a known device type by the User, it gets automatically added to the respective cluster.

There is also an option to classify a Device as a "Custom" device type. Once a User does so, the device will have its own Cluster. It will not be grouped with other Custom devices (if any). That is, each Custom Device Type will have its own individual Cluster.

Note – if a Cluster has only one device, its Device Count will show as 0 (as the cluster, by definition, is meant to contain multiple devices and the cluster is not yet a container with just one device).

Note – If an Unknown device is classified into a known Device Cluster (such as, say, "Workstations"), it cannot be relabelled again as an Unknown device. To add it back to "Unknown Devices", it has to be deleted and a re-scan needs to be done.

The Pulseway Network Topology Map also offers the capability to perform nesting of devices as per user preferences.

One of the key principles behind the redesign of the PNM (as part of v8.50) is to give Users the capability to cluster / group the nodes on the Network Topology Map in the way that makes most business sense to them. In other words, Pulseway empowers each User of the PNM Module with perspective-based visibility.

Every Networking Tool builds Topology Maps based on the way that the network information is conveyed to the Engine that is scanning the network devices and its attempt to understand the relationships between the Devices. However, most of the time, Maps do not always come out the way that the network is physically laid out. More importantly, the Maps are not designed based on each User's functional perspective. Therefore, to vest Users with the power to redesign the Map based on their individual requirements, the Pulseway Networking Module allows Nesting of devices by each User.

For example, let’s say there is a Wireless Router for each Floor of an office facility and each Router is meant to be accessed by all the Workstations (and other devices) on that Floor. In this case, when a Scan for the building's network is completed, all Wireless Routers will be clustered together, the Workstations will be grouped into another cluster and so on. However, a certain User, if such is their preference, can choose to nest all the Workstations on a floor under the Wireless router on that particular floor (as those PCs would access the internet through that particular router).

Hence, though the network scanning function may have clustered the devices by device type, Users can still redesign the Topology map by nesting devices based on their perspective for individual convenience of viewing. Moreover, by providing comprehensive information on each System on the Map itself, the PNM renders it very easy for the User to perform this customized nesting without leaving the Topology screen to look up device information.

The PNM supports SNMP monitoring through the configuration of SNMP Profiles, which is a centralized configuration of SNMP-related variables and alerts. For more information on the same, click here.