What's new

New features, capabilities, and coverage are available in the latest release.

  • For information about the agent version in each release or refresh, see Change history.
  • For detailed system requirements, see the Software Product Compatibility Reports for IBM® Cloud Application Performance Management - Agents V8.1. Expand the Report filters twistie, click Edit, select the agents and data collectors that you want to view, and then click Apply. The detailed information such as operating systems, prerequisites, and supported software is displayed for you.

What's new for the May 2023 refresh of V8.1.4.0.20

Expanded platform support for agents
  • Added support for Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® (RHEL) 9.0 on x86_64 for the following agents:
    • Cassandra agent
    • DataPower® agent
    • JBoss® agent
    • MariaDB agent
    • RabbitMQ agent
    • WebLogic agent
    • WebSphere® Applications agent
  • Added support for Windows Server 2022 (Datacenter and Standard editions) for the following agents:
    • Cassandra agent
    • Internet Service Monitoring
    • J2SE data collector
    • Microsoft SQL Server agent
    • Microsoft .NET agent
    • Microsoft Exchange Server agent
    • Microsoft IIS agent
    • Microsoft SQL Server agent
    • Oracle Database agent
    • WebLogic agent
Cassandra agent
Added support for Apache Cassandra Database 4.1
DataPower agent
Fixed vulnerability issues
Db2® agent
General improvements
Internet Service Monitoring
Fixed issues to improve the performance of the agent
J2SE data collector
Upgraded J2SE agent to the latest toolkit build, 7.3.0.16.0
Linux KVM agent
Fixed vulnerability issues
MariaDB agent
Added support for MariaDB Server 10.11.0 and MariaDB Server 11.1.0
Microsoft SQL Server agent
Added support for Microsoft SQL Server 2022
Microsoft IIS agent
Improved agent performance by fixing the environment crash issue. The IIS agent can voluntarily stop data collection for the impacted attribute groups, and hence, improve agent performance by using less system resources.
NetApp Storage agent
Fixed vulnerability issues
Oracle Database agent
Added support for Oracle Database 21c
PostgreSQL agent
Added support for PostgreSQL Server version 15.2
RabbitMQ agent
Added support for RabbitMQ Server version 3.11.x
SAP agent
Provided compatibility support for SAP NetWeaver RFC SDK 7.50 PL11 libraries
SAP NetWeaver Java™ Stack agent
  • Upgraded SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent to the latest toolkit build, 7.3.0.16.0
  • Fixed vulnerability issues
Sterling File Gateway agent
Fixed vulnerability issues
WebSphere Applications agent
Fixed vulnerability issues
WebLogic agent
Fixed vulnerability issues

What's new for the November 2022 refresh of V8.1.4.0.19

Expanded platform support for agents
  • Added support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.0 on x86_64 for the following agents:
    • Cisco UCS agent
    • Db2 agent
    • Hadoop agent
    • Internet Service Monitoring agent
    • Linux KVM agent
    • HTTP Server agent
    • Linux OS agent
    • MongoDB agent
    • MySQL agent
    • NetApp Storage agent
    • SAP HANA Database agent
    • Sterling Connect Direct agent
    • Sterling File Gateway agent
    • SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent
    • Oracle Database agent
    • PostgreSQL agent
    • Response Time agent
    • SAP agent
    • Tomcat agent
    • VMware VI agent
  • Added support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9.0 on zLinux Operating Systems for the following agent:
    • Db2 agent
    • HTTP Server agent
    • Linux OS agent
    • Oracle Database agent
    • Response Time agent
    • Tomcat agent
  • Added AIX® 7.3 Operating System support
    • Db2 agent
    • Oracle Database agent
MongoDB agent
  • Added support for MongoDB 6.x Server
Internet Service Monitoring agent
  • Upgraded Log4j to version 2.19.0

What's new for the April 2022 refresh of V8.1.4.0.18

Expanded platform support for agents
  • Added support for Windows Server 2022 (Datacenter and Standard editions) for the following agents:
    • Amazon EC2 agent
    • Amazon ELB agent
    • Azure Compute agent
    • Cassandra agent
    • Cisco UCS agent
    • Citrix VDI agent
    • Db2 agent
    • DataStage® agent
    • Hadoop agent
    • HTTP Server agent
    • JBoss agent
    • Microsoft Active Directory agent
    • Microsoft Cluster Server agent
    • Microsoft Exchange Server agent
    • Microsoft Hyper-V Server agent
    • Microsoft IIS agent
    • Microsoft .NET agent
    • Microsoft SharePoint Server agent
    • Microsoft SQL Server agent
    • MySQL agent
    • MariaDB agent
    • MQ Appliance agent
    • NetApp Storage agent
    • PostgreSQL agent
    • RabbitMQ agent
    • Response Time Monitoring agent
    • SAP agent
    • SAP HANA Database agent
    • SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent
    • Siebel agent
    • Sterling Connect Direct agent
    • Sterling File Gateway agent
    • Sybase agent
    • Tomcat agent
    • VMware VI agent
    • WebLogic agent
    • WebSphere Applications agent
    • WebSphere MQ agent
    • Windows OS agent
  • Added Windows 11 Operating System support

    Added Windows 11 support for Windows OS agent.

  • Added support for AIX 7.3 Operating System for the following agents:
    • Db2 agent
    • DataPower agent
    • Hadoop agent
    • HMC Base agent
    • HTTP Server agent
    • IBM Integration Bus agent
    • Oracle Database agent
    • Response Time Monitoring agent
    • SAP agent
    • SAP HANA Database agent
    • SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent
    • Siebel agent
    • UNIX OS agent
    • WebLogic agent
    • WebSphere Applications agent
    • WebSphere Infrastructure Manager agent
    • WebSphere MQ agent
    Note: To get the expanded platform support for Windows Server 2022, Windows 11, and AIX 7.3, you need to apply 8.1.4.0-IBM-APM-CORE-FRAMEWORK-IF0023. For more information, see IF0023 Readme.
  • Added Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 support on Windows

    For Windows 64-bit operating system, Microsoft Visual C++ is upgraded to 2013 from 2008 for Microsoft Active Directory agent.

Cassandra agent
  • Added support for Apache Cassandra Database 4.x
DataStage agent
Added support for InfoSphere® Information Server V11.7.1.1
Microsoft Active Directory agent
Added Failed Certificates Details widget and Failed Certificates data set to view details of the failed certificates from the certificate authority
Microsoft Exchange Server agent
  • Added Message Tracking Log Details dashboard, Message Track Log Events widget, and MS Exchange Msgtrk Log Details data set to view details of message tracking logs
Microsoft SharePoint Server agent
  • Added support for Microsoft SharePoint Server Subscription Edition
  • Deprecated “Trace Log” attribute group for all the Microsoft SharePoint Server Agent versions
MongoDB agent
  • Added support for MongoDB database V5.0.1
  • Added Transport Layer Security (TLS) support for MongoDB agent
MySQL agent

Removed JDBC Jar dependency as a prerequisite during agent installation

MariaDB agent
  • Added support for MariaDB Community Server 10.6 Standalone and Cluster Setups
  • Added support for Ubuntu 16, 18, and 20 platforms
PostgreSQL agent

Added support for PostgreSQL Server version 14

RabbitMQ agent
Added support for RabbitMQ Server v3.9.x
SAP agent
Added support for SAP S/4 HANA version 2021

What's new for the October 2021 refresh of V8.1.4.0.17

Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 support on Windows/Linux

For Windows 64-bit operating system, Microsoft Visual C++ is upgraded to 2013 from 2008. You need to apply 8.1.4.0-IBM-APM-CORE-FRAMEWORK-IF0022 or later release to work with V8.1.4.0.17.

Note:
  • Windows 32-bit operating system is not supported by IBM Cloud Application Performance Management V8.1.4.0.17 or later releases. If you want to install IBM Cloud Application Performance Management on Windows 32-bit operating system, you need to use IBM Cloud Application Performance Management V8.1.4.0.16 or earlier versions and 8.1.4.0-IBM-APM-CORE-FRAMEWORK-IF0021 or earlier versions.
  • The IBM Integration Bus agent is not included in agent installation package of Windows 64-bit operating system because of Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 support issue. If you want to install IBM Integration Bus agent on Windows, you need to use the agent installation package of V8.1.4.0.16 or earlier versions. For more information, see Part numbers.
Agent enhancements
Db2 agent
  • Upliftment to Visual Studio 2013.
  • Resolved potential memory access issues.
Hadoop agent
  • Added support for MIT Kerberos based authentication on Hadoop HDP flavor for Ambari services.
  • Added support for Active Directory Kerberos based authentication on Hadoop HDP flavor for Ambari services.
  • Added support for Manual Kerberos based authentication on Hadoop HDP flavor for Ambari services.
  • Enhanced with validation of Kerberos parameters for Kerberos based Hadoop cluster.
  • Enhanced with validation of truststore parameters for SSL Hadoop daemons.
Microsoft Active Directory agent
Added the following new attribute groups:
  • Pending Certificate Requests
  • Revoked Certificates
  • Group Membership Changes
  • Local Group Membership Changes
  • Universal Group Membership Changes
Added the following new widgets:
  • Pending Certificate Requests Details
  • Revoked Certificates Details
  • Global Group Operations Details
  • Local Group Operations Details
  • Universal Group Operations Details
Microsoft Cluster Server agent
Added the following new attribute groups:
  • Storage Pool
  • Virtual Disks
Microsoft .NET agent
  • Removed the IIS Metabase 6 Compatibility feature dependency.
  • Upliftment projects to Visual Studio 2013.
  • Upliftment projects to 64-bit.
Microsoft Exchange Server agent
  • Added a new attribute group MS Exchange Server Component State.
Added the following new widgets:
  • Server Component State
  • Server Component State Details
Microsoft Hyper-V Server agent
Resolved vulnerabilities reported by AppScan®.
Microsoft IIS agent
  • Added new attribute Website Load Speed.
  • Improved performance by changing data sources from PowerShell script to CDP (C# code) for reducing memory consumption.
  • Removed the prerequisites for attribute group Web Application.
  • Added prerequisite check for IISCurrentExecutingReqs.exe to resolve high resource consumption and performance issue.
  • Support configurable variable MonitorCurrentRequests to monitor the current executing requests.
  • Changed data type of attribute AppPool_State for both attribute groups IIS_Application_Pools_Details and IIS_Application_Pools_Setting to resolve the issue of situation.
Microsoft Office 365 agent
  • Added new attribute group widget to SharePoint Site Content for monitoring of SharePoint Lists data.
  • Added new attribute group for Monitoring of Team Channels data.
  • Added new attribute group for Monitoring of Team Members data.
Microsoft SharePoint Server agent
Resolved vulnerabilities reported by AppScan.
Microsoft SQL Server agent

The new CUSTOMIZED_QUERY_TIMEOUT environment variable added to set the customized query timeout interval (in seconds) for any attribute group.

MySQL agent
  • Improved code quality and handled security vulnerabilities that are identified by SonarQube scan.
  • Resolved vulnerabilities reported by AppScan.
Response Time Monitoring Agent
Added support of Windows 2019.

What's new for the June 2021 refresh of V8.1.4.0.16

Agent enhancements
IBM MQ (WebSphere MQ) agent
Added support of IBM MQ 9.2.
Microsoft Active Directory agent
  • Added the following new attribute groups:
    • Users with Old Password
    • Empty Group Name
    • Empty Group Count
Microsoft Cluster Server agent
  • Added Cluster Storage Setting and NIC Team Members widgets.
  • Added new situation NIC_Failure_Critical.
Microsoft Exchange Server agent
  • Added a new attribute group MS Exchange Mailbox Database.
Microsoft .NET agent
Implemented Apdex score attributes.
Microsoft IIS agent
  • Changed data source of attribute group Worker_Process_Requests from CDP (C# code) to PowerShell script to reduce CPU consumption.
  • Implemented Apdex score attributes.
Microsoft SharePoint Server agent
Added a new widget that shows the most recent top 5 audit log entries of each site.
Microsoft SQL Server agent
  • Added support to monitor databases with size more than 20TB database.
  • Added support for Virtual Service account, Managed Service account and Group Managed Service account.
  • Updated the following attribute groups with general enhancements:
    • Database Detail
    • Device Detail
    • Table Detail
    • Filegroup Detail
    • Table Summary
  • Updated the following widgets with general enhancements:
    • Database Used Widget
    • Log Used Widget
    • Device Status Widget
    • Table Status Widget
Skype for Business Server agent
  • Added new attributes to widget Failure Summary: Failed_App_Sharing_Count_Per, Conf_Failed_App_Sharing_Count_Per.
  • Added new attributes to widget Usage Summary: App_Sharing_Count, Failed_App_ Sharing_Count.
  • Updated widget File Transfers on Overview page.
Sybase agent
Added a new attribute Server Version New in the following attribute groups:
  • Server Detail
  • Server Summary
  • Device Detail
  • Sybase Server Enterprise View
Tomcat agent
Added support for Tomcat Server 10.

What's new for the March 2021 refresh of V8.1.4.0.15

Agent enhancements
Db2 agent
Fixed prerequisite issue on SLES 15.1 on zLinux platform.
Hadoop agent
  • Added support for monitoring of additional Cloudera Manager services namely HBase, Flume and Sqoop.
  • Added support for monitoring of BigSQL service and BigSheets service on Hadoop BigInsights® platform.
  • Added new widget to display the roles present on each node/host in the configured Hadoop Cluster.
  • Added the following new attribute groups:
    • BigSheets
    • ClouderaHbase
    • ClouderaFlume
    • ClouderaSqoop
Microsoft Active Directory agent
  • Added the following attribute groups:
    • Expiring Certificates. The prerequisites for this attribute are:
      • PowerShell version 3.0
      • PSPKI Module
    • Logon Peak Hour Usage
Microsoft Exchange Server agent
  • Added new attribute group - MS Exchange Email Transport Queues.
  • Added widget to monitor email transport queue details.
Microsoft Office 365 agent
  • Fixed display issue for attribute values of Reachability widget.
  • Resolved alignment of Mailbox storage values in Mailbox Storage Utilization group widget.
  • Fixed display issue for Mailbox users of Mailbox Policy Details group widget.
Microsoft SQL Server agent
  • Added a new widget Database Write Transactions(history).
  • Updated widget Database Transaction.
  • The option for disabling Long Live Database connection is removed from the agent configuration. From release 8.1.4.0.15 onwards, Support Long Lived Database Connections is enabled by default.
PostgreSQL agent
The agent now supports PostgreSQL Server version 13.
SAP agent
  • Added a new widget Database Write Transactions(history).
  • Updated widget Database Transaction.
  • The user needs to take backup of the configuration file before upgrading the SAP agent on Windows platform and non-Windows platforms.

What's new for the December 2020 refresh of V8.1.4.0.14

Expanded platform support for agents
CentOS 7 x86-64
  • Cassandra agent
  • DataStage agent
  • MariaDB agent
  • MongoDB agent
  • MySql agent
  • RabbitMQ agent
CentOS 8 x86-64
  • Cassandra agent
  • DataStage agent
  • MariaDB agent
  • MongoDB agent
  • MySql agent
  • RabbitMQ agent
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15
  • MariaDB agent
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12
  • MariaDB agent
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
  • MariaDB agent
Agent enhancements
DataStage agent
  • Improved code quality and handled security vulnerabilities identified by SonarQube scan.
Internet Service Monitoring
  • Added support to enable creation of data validation conditions based on MIB names from the selected OID group in the SNMP profile. After upgrading the agent to 8.1.4.0.14 version, you need to deploy any one profile for proper functioning.
Hadoop agent
Added Independent SSL/Non SSL modes for monitoring of the following Hadoop components:
  • Name node, Secondary Namenode Resource Manager, Standby Resource Manager, Job History Server, Journal Node, ZKFC, Datanode, NodeManager
  • Ambari Services
  • Cloudera Manager Services
Linux KVM agent
  • Added support to configure retry count for connection attempts in the event of connection failure.
MariaDB agent
  • Resolved high memory usage for Linux and Windows platforms.
  • Resolved incorrect data display for attributes firstErrorSeen and lastErrorSeen of attribute group ErrorInfo in Attribute Details tab.
  • Improved code quality and handled security vulnerabilities identified by SonarQube scan.
  • Added support for the latest MariaDB 10.5.
Microsoft Active Directory agent
  • New attribute DCA Virtual Domain Controller is added to the attribute group Domain Controller Availability.
Microsoft .NET agent
  • Added support for IBM Cloud® Application Performance Management .NET Core monitoring.
  • Fixed Request Name URL in attribute group Database Call Details .
  • Resolved conversion of Selective Filtering tool from 4.6.2 to 4.7.2 .Net Framework.
  • Removed KQE_SERVICEDETAILS from Attribute Details tab.
  • Resolved application failure due to security trust level (APAR IJ28399).
Microsoft Exchange Server agent
  • New attribute ContentIndexState is added to the attribute group MS Exchange Replication.
  • Resolved the issue where Microsoft Exchange Server agent stopped working on the Edge Server (APAR ID -IJ29123).
Microsoft IIS agent
  • Improved performance by changing data sources from PowerShell script to CDP (C# code) for reducing memory consumption for the following attribute groups:
    • IIS_Web_Sites_Detail
    • WPROCESS
    • Website_Inventory
    • Website_Response_Message
    • IIS_FTP_Sites_Detail
    • IIS_FTP_Server_Status
    • IIS_Web_Server_Status
    • MEMIISUS
    • Web_Applications
    • IIS_Application_Pools_Details
    • ASP_Garbage_Collection
    • WebsiteErr
    • IIS_Application_Pools_Setting
    • ASP_NET_Application_Statistics
Microsoft Office 365 agent
  • Added the following new widgets:
    • Teams Details
    • Mailbox Policy Details
    • Available Licenses
    • Mailbox Size
MongoDB agent
  • Resolved help content for attribute FQDN of attribute group KKJ_ROUTER_LOCATION.
  • Added support for the latest MongoDB Shell version 4.4.2.
  • Improved code quality and handled security vulnerabilities identified by SonarQube scan.
MySQL agent
  • Resolved mismatched values between attribute values of attribute group KSE_EVENTS and values in database.
  • Improved logging for wrong credentials used during agent configuration.
  • Improved code quality and handled security vulnerabilities identified by SonarQube scan.
PostgreSQL agent
  • Improved code quality and handled security vulnerabilities identified by SonarQube scan.
RabbitMQ agent
  • Improved code quality and handled security vulnerabilities identified by SonarQube scan.
SAP agent
  • The SAP agent is enhanced to monitor SAP S/4HANA 1809 , SAP S/4HANA 1909 and SAP S/4HANA 2020 flavors.
VMware VI agent
  • Resolved the issue of lagging in processing all events showed on vCenter by introducing 30 seconds of grace period for the agent to check the event history in each event collection cycle (APAR IJ28887).
  • Enhanced with new timeout field KVM_VIRTUAL_MACHINE_IP_TIMEOUT in attribute group Virtual Machines to allow the agent to wait for the configured duration (in milliseconds) before returning the value of FQDN and subsequently all other attributes. The field KVM_VIRTUAL_MACHINE_IP_TIMEOUT can be configured in the environment variables. If this field is not configured or if this field is set to 0, the timeout functionality is disabled and attribute group collection follows the default behavior. See Configuring Environment Variables.
  • Enhanced with orphan disk monitoring. See Orphan disk monitoring on APM.

What's new for the September 2020 refresh of V8.1.4.0.13

Expanded platform support for agents
CentOS 7 x86-64
  • Hadoop agent
CentOS 8 x86-64
  • Db2 agent
  • Hadoop agent
Ubuntu 16.04 x86-64
  • Hadoop agent
Ubuntu 18.04.3 x86-64
  • Hadoop agent
Ubuntu 20.04 x86-64
  • Hadoop agent
Ubuntu 20.04 zLinux
  • Db2 agent
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 for zLinux
  • Oracle Database agent
  • WebLogic agent
RedHat Enterprise Linux 8 for zLinux
  • Oracle Database agent
  • WebLogic agent
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15
  • MySQL agent
Agent enhancements
Cassandra agent
Agent is now able to collect data for new node that is added to existing Cassandra cluster.
Db2 agent
  • Added diagnostic information for failed SQL queries.
  • Resolved the issue of crashing on pLinux LE platform.
  • Resolved the issue of attachment failure due to password store limitation.
Hadoop agent
  • Added support for monitoring of Journal Nodes and ZKFC on HDP 3.1.5 platform and Cloudera 5.4.3 Hadoop platforms.
  • Added support for monitoring of Ambari services such as Infra Solr and Spark 2.
  • Added support for monitoring of Cloudera Manager Services like: HDFS,Hive,Hue,Impala,Kafka,Oozie,Sentry,Solr,Spark,YARN and ZooKeeper.
  • Added support for monitoring of Hortonworks HDP 3.1.5.
Internet Service Monitoring
Added the following enhancements:
  • Added support for having URL length up to 2048 characters for HTTP and HTTPS protocols. (RFE 142342)
  • Added support for handling 303 status code for HTTP and HTTPS monitors.
Microsoft Active Directory agent
Added three new attribute groups that are supported on Windows Server 2008 and later versions:
  • User Group Computer Management

    It shows count of changes made in user, group and computer accounts such as addition, deletion and modification.

  • Enabled Disabled User

    It shows count of enabled and disabled users.

  • Logon Failure Count Per Error Code

    It shows count of failed logon attempts such as bad user name and password, disabled and expired account.

Microsoft IIS agent
  • Added following new attribute groups:
    • ASP .NET System Counter
    • HTTP method requests per second
    • Worker Process Requests
  • Added following new group widgets:
    • ASP.Net Applications - Request Statistics
    • Requests/sec - By HTTP Method
    • Internal Server Error (history)
    • Internal Server Error (history)
    • Worker Process Requests - Last 15 mins
Microsoft Cluster Server agent
Added new attribute group HyperV Virtual Machine
Added new widget Cluster HperV VM
Added new situations
  • VM_CPU_Usage_Critical
  • VM_CPU_Usage_Warning
Microsoft Exchange Server agent
Added new attribute groups
  • MS Exchange Retention Policy
  • MS Exchange Litigation Policy
  • MS Exchange Unhealthy Monitors
Added new widget User Count per Protocol
Microsoft SharePoint Server agent
Added new attribute group Document Library.
NetApp Storage agent
  • Added support for Windows Server 2019 Datacenter and Windows Server 2019 Standard.
  • Implemented retry count enhancement that limits the number of connection attempts in the event of connection failure. Connection attempts can be configured via the environment variable KNU_DATA_PROVIDER_CONNECTION_RETRY_COUNT.
  • Added a new configuration field KNU_API_SERVICES_PORT to agent configuration panel of OCUM API Services tab.
  • Fixed the issue when API Services configuration is unavailable. Agent is able to fetch the storage objects Disks, Storage-VMs and Qtrees without API Services configuration.
Skype for Business Server agent
Added new widget File Transfers
VMware VI agent
  • Added support for Windows Server 2019 Datacenter and Windows Server 2019 Standard.
  • Implemented retry count enhancement that limits the number of connection attempts in the event of connection failure. Connection attempts can be configured via the environment variable KVM_DATA_PROVIDER_CONNECTION_RETRY_COUNT.
  • Added new attribute Snapshot_Age in the VM_Snapshots group.
  • Added new attribute Creation_Timestamp that supersedes Creation_Time.

What's new for the June 2020 refresh of V8.1.4.0.12

New agent
IBM i OS agent

The Monitoring Agent for IBM i OS provides you with the capability to monitor and perform basic actions on IBM i operating systems.

For more information, see IBM i OS monitoring.

Expanded platform support for agents
The following agents and platforms are now supported:
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
  • Linux for System x:
    • Cassandra agent
    • Linux OS agent
    • RabbitMQ agent
  • Linux for System z®:
    • Linux OS agent
Note: To support Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, you must apply core framework IF18 on the server and configure agent installation images. For more information, see the Specific operating systems section of Preinstallation on Linux systems.
Cent OS 7.6, 8.0, and 8.1
  • DataPower agent
  • Oracle Database agent
  • VMware VI agent
  • WebSphere Applications agent
Agent Builder enhancements
You can now create custom agents that can run on the IBM Cloud Pak® for Multicloud Management.
You can also reconfigure existing custom agents to run on the Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management. For example, if you previously created a custom agent to run on IBM Tivoli® Monitoring or IBM Cloud Application Performance Management, you can now reconfigure this agent and connect it to the Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management. For more information, see Preparing the agent for Cloud Pak for Multicloud Management.
Agent enhancements
Cisco UCS agent
Added support for Windows Server 2019 Datacenter and Windows Server 2019 Standard.
Hadoop agent
  • Label of widget Block Capacity is changed from Block Capacity to Number of Blocks.
  • Added support for monitoring of Cloudera CDH 6.3.2 and 5.16
Internet Service Monitoring
  • Added support for profileUpgrade tool for Windows platform.
  • Two standalone utilities Properties Migration and Profile Migration have been made available for migrating Monitor properties and Internet Services profiles respectively from Legacy versions of the Internet Service Monitoring agent, such as 2.4 and ITM, to APM version of the agent. These utilities are supported with ISM agent version 8.1.4.0.12 onwards. For more information on these utilities, refer to Migration support.
Liberty data collector
Added monitoring support for Liberty 19 and 20.
Linux KVM agent
  • Added support for Ovirt Java SDK 4.3. From 8.1.4.0.12 onward, the agent will support RHVM 4.0. Versions older than RHVM 4.0 are not supported from 8.1.4.0.12.
  • Data provider is optimized to decrease the overall CPU consumption on Ovirt engine.
  • Live snapshot support attribute is deprecated in the Hosts attribute group.
  • A limit is added on the number of retries the agent attempts to connect to the data source (RHVM or Hyper-V) if connection fails. The default number for retry attempt is 6. This value can be changed by setting the following variable in the agent instance specific environment file: KV1_DATA_PROVIDER_CONNECTION_RETRY_COUNT
Microsoft .NET agent
Added the CLR Remote Monitoring group widget.
Microsoft Active Directory agent
Added the new widget Group Membership for changes of users.
Microsoft Cluster Server agent
Added the following new widgets to the Overview page:
  • Quorum Configuration
  • CPU Performance
  • Cluster Availability
Added the following new widget to the Cluster Node details page:
  • Disk Read and Disk Write
Added the following attributes to the existing widget Resource Groups:
  • Current® RG Node
  • Previous RG Node
  • RG Node Changed
Microsoft Exchange Server agent
Added the following new widgets:
  • Server Health Status
  • Email Statistics
Microsoft Hyper-V Server agent

Enabled the help content for the following attributes and attribute groups on dashboard:

  • Server Memory Available
  • Server Maximum Processor utilization
  • Virtual Machine Disk Details
  • Processor Load Details
  • Disk Details
  • Virtual Machines Processor Load
  • Network Virtual Switch Details
Microsoft IIS agent
Added three new attribute groups:
  • ASP.NET Application Statistics
  • Website Inventory
  • Website Response Information
Microsoft Office 365 agent
Added support for the following service communication APIs:
  • GetServices
  • GetCurrentStatus
  • GetHistoricalStatus
  • GetMessages
Microsoft SharePoint Server agent
Added four new attribute groups:
  • Crawl History details
  • Active Crawls details
  • Web Application information
  • Status of Database Connection
MySQL agent
Improved the logging mechanism for incorrect agent configuration.
SAP agent
  • Added support of Master Control Panel to handle various configurations of SAP agent at the server.
  • Added support for conversion of data received from SAP system to UTF8 format.
  • Added support for Solution Manager 7.2 SPS 11.
SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent
Added support for SAP Netweaver 7.5 Application server Java SPS 018.
Skype for Business Server agent
Added the following new widgets to the Overview page:
  • IM CCCP Processing
  • User Services Conference Notification
  • SIP Authentication
  • Server Details
  • Skype Topology
Sterling File Gateway agent
Added support for Windows Server 2019 Datacenter and Windows Server 2019 Standard.
Sterling Connect Direct agent
Added support for Windows Server 2019 Datacenter and Windows Server 2019 Standard.
Tomcat agent
Enhanced JMX connection implementation that improves the agent performance in terms of threads or memory.
VMware
Added support for CentOS 7 and CentOS 8.

What's new for the March 2020 refresh of V8.1.4.0.11

Agent enhancements
Expanded platform support for agents
Added Cent OS 7.6, 8.0, and 8.1 support for the following agents:
  • HTTP Server agent
  • JBoss agent
  • Linux OS agent
  • PostgreSQL agent
Internet Service Monitoring
  • Added support for SLES 15 on x86-64 (64 bit) platform.
  • Enhanced the configuration panel to have Active and Description fields for every monitor element listed in profile edit dialog box.
  • Added Activate and Deactivate buttons on profile edit grid so that user can activate or deactivate multiple monitor elements at a time
  • Enhanced Delete functionality in the profile edit dialog box for user to delete multiple monitor elements at a time.
Microsoft Active Directory agent
Added New widget for Last Logon Information of privilege users.
Microsoft Exchange Server agent
Added widget for DLPPolicyTips and show Data Loss Prevention Policies and Policy tips in Attribute details tab.
Microsoft IIS agent
Added new attribute group called Web Application. For more information about prerequisites for this attribute group, see Prerequisite to install Web Application Attribute Group
Microsoft SQL Server agent
Added tolerance support for SQL Server 2019
RabbitMQ agent
  • Added support to HTTPS protocol.
  • Added configuration panel parameters Protocoland Path to truststore.
Documentation enhancement
Added HTTP Server monitoring solution overview architecture. For more information, see Overview of HTTP Server monitoring.

What's new for the December 2019 refresh of V8.1.4.0.10

New Agent
MariaDB agent
The Monitoring Agent for MariaDB offers a central point of management for your MariaDB environment or application. The software provides a comprehensive means for gathering the information required to detect problems early and to prevent them. Information is standardized across the system. You can monitor multiple servers from a single console. By using the Monitoring Agent for MariaDB you can easily collect and analyze MariaDB specific information.
Expanded platform support for agents
The following agents and platforms are now supported:
Solaris X86-64
  • Oracle Database agent
  • WebLogic agent
Agent enhancements
Cassandra agent
Added two new attributes called Agent Hostname and Agent Instance Name in the Cluster Details, Node Statistics, and Keyspace Details attribute groups.
Db2 agent
Added support to monitor Current Running SQL.
IBM Integration Bus agent
Added two new group widgets, TCPIP Client Connections and TCPIP Server Connections in the Integration Server Status - Detail page.
Internet Service Monitoring
  • Added two new configuration panel variables:
    • Active: To select a state for profile element as active or inactive.
    • sniServerName: Indicates the name of host/server for which a certificate from SNI enabled web server is required.
  • Default settings under Data Validation Tab for HTTP,HTTPS and DNS monitors are now editable
  • Agent now supports & character in page field for HTTP and HTTPS monitors

  • Agent now support Danish characters in regex field of HTTP and HTTPS monitors
    Note: Set the locale to da_DK on Linux platform before agent installation to use this feature
Microsoft Active Directory agent
  • Added a new widget called KCC details in the Status Overview page.
  • Added following new attribute groups in the Attribute Details tab:
    • Directory Services
    • Kerberos Consistency Checker
    • Kerberos Key Distribution Center
    • Name Service Provider
    • Exchange Directory Service
  • Added New widget for Last Logon Information of privilege users.
Microsoft .NET agent
Added a new attribute called Request Name in the Database Call Details attribute group. This attribute displays the name of the request that fires the database query.
Microsoft Exchange Server agent
  • Added a new widget called Transport SMTP Recive in the Status Overview page.
  • Added following new attribute groups in the Attribute Details tab:
    • MS Exchange AB
    • MS Exchange ADAccess Processes
    • MS Exchange ADAccess Caches
    • MS Exchange ADAccess Domain Controllers
    • MS Exchange ADAccess Forest Discovery
  • Added the following in Attribute details tab.
    • Policyholders widget
    • Data Loss Prevention Policies
    • Policy tips
Microsoft SQL Server agent
Added tolerance support for SQL Server 2019.
Microsoft Hyper-V Server agent
Added support for Windows Server 2019.
Microsoft IIS agent
  • Added new group widgets:
    • System-Main Memory Statistics
    • IIS Server- Assigned Memory Usage
    • IIS Server- Assigned CPU Usage
    • Worker Process Details
    • .Net Memory Management
  • On each application pool name in Worker Process Details group widget a page is created that shows the historical trend of Requests processed per second, Elapsed time, Requests in Queue, Memory and CPU Utilization.
  • On each application pool name in .Net Memory Management group widget a pop-up is added that shows the historical trend of percent time in GC.
Microsoft SharePoint Server agent
  • Added a new attribute group called Trace_Log that provides the high severity logs information.
  • Added two new group widgets called Trace Log Details and Last 1 Hour Trace Log Count in the Overview page to display the details of recent 100 trace log events and last 1 hour count of unexpected, monitor-able and high level trace logs.
MySQL agent
The agent collects data consistently after server restarts.
NetApp Storage agent
The agent now shows exact list of Qtress that are mapped to Volume.
PostgreSQL agent
The agent now supports PostgreSQL Server version 12.
Response Time Monitoring agent
  • A new configuration parameter KT5AARIPTOUSERID is added. It allows you to save Client IP address in User Name property in AAR raw data. By default, it is set as NO. To change the setting, you need to restart the Response Time Monitoring agent.
    • KT5AARIPTOUSERID=NO: If the value is NO, the Response Time Monitoring agent agent will save username of transaction to userID property of AAR.
    • KT5AARIPTOUSERID=YES: If the value is YES, the Response Time Monitoring agent will save Source IP address of transaction to userID property of AAR.
  • The Response Time Monitoring agent now supports specifying KT5AARIPTOUSERID value in silent configuration.
  • The title of existing group widget Worst By User - Top 5 is changed to Worst By User - Top 20. The group widget is changed to display top 20 users with highest percentage of transaction failures over the selected period.
VMware
  • Agent now supports fetching of the IP address or Host name of vCenter from vSphere API call, instead of showing Configured Address as it is from configuration panel. User can activate this feature by setting the flag in agent environment to Y. For example, KVM_RETRIEVE_HOSTNAME_FROM_API=Y.
  • Retry count now can be given a limit to restrict the connection attempts with data source. For example, KVM_DATA_PROVIDER_CONNECTION_RETRY_COUNT=1000, adding this variable in agent environment file would put a lock on connection retry count in case of connection failure with vCenter. 1000 indicates agent would try till 1000 subsequent unsuccessful connection attempts and then would bring down the data provider process with a log message NO MORE ATTEMPTS OF CONNECTION;STOPPING THE DATA COLLECTION, TO RESUME MONITORING PLEASE RESTART THE AGENT. TO HAVE MORE ATTEMPT OF CONNECTIONS, RESET THE VALUE OF THE VARIABLE KVM_DATA_PROVIDER_CONNECTION_RETRY_COUNT. Default value to retry connection attempts is 6, user can set the desired threshold as per the requirement.
  • Agent supports configuring of Instance specific heap size to efficiently utilize the allocated memory on the system. For example, KVM_CUSTOM_JVM_ARGS= -Xmx512m, by setting this variable in instance’s environment file would mean that instance is configured to use 512 MB of heap memory. The size can be changed based on the total count of vCenter objects an instance is monitoring.

What's new for the September 2019 refresh of V8.1.4

Expanded platform support for agents
The following agents and platforms are now supported:
Solaris X86-64
  • Db2 agent
  • SAP agent
  • Sybase agent
  • UNIX OS agent
  • WebSphere Applications agent
  • WebSphere MQ agent
  • IBM Integration Bus agent
RHEL on x86-64 (64 bit)
  • Internet Service Monitoring
  • Microsoft SQL Server agent
  • Sybase agent
RHEL on POWER® Little Endian (ppc64le)
  • RabbitMQ agent
Agent enhancements
Db2 agent
  • The agent now supports Db2 server version 11.5.
Hadoop agent
  • A new configuration parameter Unique Cluster Name which is a unique name for Hadoop Cluster indicating its version and flavor is added in the configuration panel.
  • The Hadoop agent now shows display item for the thresholds created on Ambari Services.
  • The Hadoop agent now supports monitoring of Streaming Analytics Manager service in Hadoop cluster.
  • The Hadoop agent now supports monitoring of Schema Registry service in Hadoop cluster.
HTTP Server agent
  • The agent now supports Oracle HTTP server on Solaris Sparc.
Internet Service Monitoring
  • The agent now supports IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus.
  • The agent is enhanced to delete profiles from the existing profiles and rename the existing profiles.
MongoDB agent
  • The agent now supports MongoDB database version 4.x.
MySQL agent
  • FQDN attribute is added for Application Availability in the Help section.
  • Fixed Tooltip display for IP Address Agent Configuration parameter.
  • The following new attributes are added for monitoring in IBM Cloud App Management.
    • Database Size Information
    • Error Information
    • Count of Db Instance Lock
    • User's connection details
    • Process list details
    • Events Information
PostgreSQL agent
  • Two new situations called Deadlocks_Count_Crit and Deadlocks_Count_Warn are added to monitor number of deadlocks in a database, which will help you to address the exact issue for the deadlocks.
  • One new attribute group called Deadlocks_Info is added to check the deadlock details.
Sybase agent
  • FQDN attribute is added for Application Availability in the Help section.
Synthetic Playback agent
  • Firefox V68.0 ESR is now supported.
  • System proxy, PAC proxy, and no proxy configurations are now supported.
Tomcat agent
  • The agent is enhanced with metrics and UI views for monitoring Heap/Non-heap memory pool usage for JVM.
  • The agent is enhanced with metrics and UI views for monitoring threads, and class loading information for JVM.
  • The agent UI now displays FQDN on Server Information view.
UNIX OS agent
  • The agent is now updated with the custom scripting feature. Shell scripts, PERL scripts and other types of scripts can be used.
VMware VI agent
  • A new configuration field named KEY_STORE_PASSWORD is added. It allows user to configure the agent with new key-store password set for the agent JRE.

What's new for the June 2019 refresh of V8.1.4

Expanded platform support for agents
The following agents and platforms are now supported:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8
The following agents and data collectors now support RHEL 8. Before installing agents on RHEL 8, be sure to read the Specific operating systems section of Preinstallation on Linux systems.
RHEL 8 on x86-64 (64 bit)
  • Cassandra agent
  • Cisco UCS agent
  • DataPower agent
  • DataStage agent
  • Db2 agent
  • Hadoop agent
  • HTTP Server agent
  • Internet Service Monitoring agent
  • J2SE data collector
  • Linux KVM agent
  • Linux OS agent
  • MongoDB agent
  • MQ Appliance agent
  • MySQL agent
  • NetApp Storage agent
  • Node.js data collector
  • PHP agent
  • Python data collector
  • PostgreSQL agent
  • RabbitMQ agent
  • Response Time Monitoring Agent
  • Ruby agent
  • SAP agent
  • SAP HANA Database agent
  • SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent
  • Sterling Connect Direct agent
  • Sterling File Gateway agent
  • Sybase agent
  • Tomcat agent
  • VMware VI agent
  • WebSphere Applications agent
  • WebSphere MQ agent
RHEL 8 on System z
  • Db2 agent
  • Linux OS agent
  • Node.js data collector
  • Python data collector
  • Response Time Monitoring Agent
  • WebSphere Applications agent
  • WebSphere MQ agent
RHEL 8 on POWER Little Endian (ppc64le)
  • Db2 agent
  • Hadoop agent
  • J2SE data collector
  • Linux OS agent
  • MySQL agent
  • Node.js data collector
  • SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent
  • WebSphere Applications agent
  • WebSphere MQ agent
Solaris Sparc 10 and 11
  • JBoss agent
  • Oracle Database agent
  • WebLogic agent
Windows Server 2019
  • WebSphere Applications agent
Agent enhancements
Hadoop agent
  • The Hadoop agent now supports monitoring of HDF 3.3 (with HDP 3.1.0) Ambari service Big SQL 6.0.
  • The Hadoop agent now supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15 on x86-64 platform.
HMC Base agent
The HMC Base agent supports HMC V9.1.
Internet Service Monitoring agent
The agent now has Service Assurance Agent monitor, which monitors Cisco Service Assurance Agent probes.
Microsoft IIS agent
The agent is enhanced with tolerance provision to the Windows 2019 server. This enhancement displays the FTP site data for agent that is installed on Windows 2019 server.
MongoDB agent
The agent now supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 on x86-64 (64 bit) platform.
Python data collector ifix02
The data collector now supports Django 1.10 and higher.
SAP agent
The SAP agent now supports the following platforms:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 on x86-64 (64 bit)
  • SAP NetWeaver Application Server 7.52 (SAP Basis 752)
SAP HANA Database agent

The SAP HANA Database agent is enhanced with the following features:

  • Hostname is added in the :HDB Subnode node of SAP HANA Database agent for its unique identification.
  • The agent now supports scale out architecture.
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 on x86-64 (64 bit) and Linux ppc64le platforms.
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15 on x86-64 (64 bit) platform.
  • A new attribute Trimmed Host is added under System Database attribute group.
SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent
The SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent supports the following platforms:
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 on x86-64 (64 bit)
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 15 on x86-64 (64 bit)
  • Windows Server 2019 DE and SE
  • Windows Server 2016 DE and SE
Synthetic Playback agent
  • Supports .side script recorded by Selenium IDE 3.2.X, 3.3.X, or 3.5.X
  • Supports playback by Firefox ESR 60.5.1
  • Supports the wait, flow control, and linkText locator type Selenium IDE commands
Skype for Business Server agent
The Skype for Business Server agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • The agent now supports Skype for Business Server 2019.
  • Two new group widgets such as Database-Throttled Requests(DBStore) and Database-Throttled Requests(SHAREDDBStore) are added on the Overview page that displays number of requests throttled by the Skype for Business Server due to high latency of the database queue for DBstore and shared DBstore.
Prerequisite scanner

The IGNORE_PRECHECK_WARNING command is now available as an alternative to the SKIP_PRECHECK command. For more information, see Bypassing the prerequisite scanner.

Documentation enhancement

A page is created to help you quickly find out the version information and change history for each agent and data collector. See Change history.

What's new for the March 2019 refresh of V8.1.4

Expanded platform support for agents
The following agents and platforms are now supported:
Windows Server 2019
  • Cassandra agent
  • DataStage agent
  • Db2 agent
  • Hadoop agent
  • Internet Service Monitoring
  • Microsoft Active Directory agent
  • Microsoft Cluster Server agent
  • Microsoft IIS agent
  • Microsoft Exchange Server agent
  • Microsoft SQL Server agent
  • MySQL agent
  • PostgreSQL agent
  • RabbitMQ agent
  • SAP agent
  • SAP HANA Database agent
  • Sybase agent
  • Tomcat agent
  • Windows OS agent
Solaris SPARC 10 and 11
  • Db2 agent
  • HTTP Server
  • MySQL agent
  • SAP agent
  • Sybase agent
  • UNIX OS agent
  • WebSphere Applications agent
Monitoring Agent for Cassandra
The Cassandra agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added support for Windows Server 2019 Operating System.
  • Added detailed logging for troubleshooting.
Monitoring Agent for Db2
The Db2 agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • The Db2 agent now supports Windows Server 2019.
  • The Db2 agent now supports Solaris SPARC 10/11 platforms.
Monitoring Agent for Hadoop
The Hadoop agent is enhanced with following features:
  • Added support to monitor the SSL enabled Hadoop BigInsights, Hortonworks and Cloudera clusters.
  • Added support to test the connection to SSL enabled Hadoop cluster.
  • Added support of Windows Server 2019 Operating System (Datacenter and Standard Editions).
  • Added support for monitoring Hadoop offering: Cloudera 6.1.1 (CDH 6.1.1).
  • Added support for monitoring Hadoop offering: Hortonworks 3.1.0 (HDP 3.1.0).
Monitoring Agent for IBM Integration Bus
The IBM Integration Bus agent is enhanced with the following feature:
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Internet Information Services
The Microsoft IIS agent now supports Windows Server 2019 Operating System.
Monitoring Agent for InfoSphere DataStage

The DataStage agent is enhanced with the following features:

  • Added support for Windows Server 2019 Operating System.
  • Added query timeout to data collection queries for better performance of the agent.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Active Directory
The Microsoft Active Directory agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added support for Windows Server 2019.
  • Added new attribute group AD_Services_Status that provides services state that are related to Active Directory Server.
    Based on the services state, it determines the Server Status of Active Directory.
  • Added new situation AD_Server_Status that monitors Active Directory Server Status.
  • Added new attribute group Root_Directory_server that provides active version and monitored OS name.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Cluster Server
The Microsoft Cluster Server agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added support for Windows Server 2019 Operating System.
  • Added the CLUSTER_SERVICE_VERSION attribute.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server
The Microsoft Exchange Server agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added support for MS Exchange Server 2019.
  • Added new attribute group MSExchange MAPIoverHTTP that provides information about MAPI over HTTP protocol statistics.
Internet Service Monitoring
The Internet Service Monitoring agent is enhanced with following features:
  • Added support for LDAP, NTP, NNTP, SOAP, SNMP, SIP, RTSP, RPING, RADIUS and TFTP monitors.
  • Added support for Windows 2008 R2 server OS and Windows server 2019.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft SQL Server

The Microsoft SQL Server agent now supports Windows Server 2019.

Monitoring Agent for MySQL
The Monitoring Agent for MySQL is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added support for Windows Server 2019.
  • Added support for Solaris SPARC 10/11 platforms.
  • Added capability to set additional properties to the agent initiated JDBC connection with the MySQL server.
Monitoring Agent for PostgreSQL

The PostgreSQL agent now supports Windows Server 2019 Operating System.

Monitoring Agent for RabbitMQ

The RabbitMQ agent now supports Windows Server 2019 Operating System.

Monitoring Agent for Skype for Business Server
The Skype for Business Server agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added support for Windows Server 2019 Operating System.
  • Added a new attribute group called KQL_Server to display the Skype for Business Server product related information.
  • Added a new situation called Skype_Server_Down to monitor the Skype for Business Server status based on the server front-end and IM conferencing services status.
Monitoring Agent for SAP Applications
The SAP agent is enhanced with following features:
  • Added case sensitive password feature for application user being used between SAP agent and SAP server.
  • Added support for Windows Server 2019 Operating System (Datacenter and Standard Editions).
  • Added support to see the Long Running Jobs present in SAP System for more than 24 hours.
  • Improved performance of /IBMMON/ITM_MAIALRT_INX function Module.
  • Added support for Solaris v10 and v11 SPARC Operating Systems.
  • Added trim feature to SAP hostname in order to match the Managed System Name’s maximum 32 characters limit.
Monitoring Agent for SAP HANA Database
The SAP HANA Database agent is enhanced with following features:
  • Added support to discover the tenant databases when the tenant db name and HANA system SID are same.
  • Added support for Windows Server 2019 Operating System (Datacenter and Standard Editions).
Monitoring Agent for Sybase Server
The Sybase agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added support for Windows Server 2019.
  • Added support for Solaris SPARC 10/11 platforms.
  • Enhanced Sybase query for better concurrency and reduced locking.
Monitoring Agent for Tomcat
The Tomcat agent now supports Windows Server 2019 Operating System (Datacenter and Standard Editions).
Monitoring Agent for UNIX OS
The UNIX OS agent is enhanced with the following feature:
  • Added support for Solaris SPARC 10 and 11.
Monitoring Agent for VMware VI
The VMware VI agent has been refreshed to ignore the unavailable(-1) values while displaying the trend of average on the graph for all multi-line charts.

Monitoring Agent for WebSphere Applications
The WebSphere Applications agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added support for Solaris SPARC 10 and 11.
  • Added support for monitoring WebSphere® Extreme Scale. You can configure monitoring for an Extreme Scale zone, or several zones, under the node for any server belonging to the zone or zones. You can drill down to view information for different servers, map sets, and partitions within the zone or zones. For more information, see Configuring the WebSphere Applications agent to monitor WebSphere Extreme Scale.

Monitoring Agent for WebSphere MQ
The WebSphere MQ agent is enhanced with the following features:

Data collector enhancements
J2SE data collector
The J2SE data collector is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added support for OpenJDK 9, 10, and 11 versions.
  • Added support of Windows Server 2019 Operating System (Datacenter and Standard Editions).
  • Added feature to auto-discover the J2SE application specific classes and methods for Transaction Tracking and Diagnostic Data monitoring.
Selenium IDE 3.2.X and 3.3.X for synthetic scripts

Selenium IDE versions 3.2X and 3.3.X are now supported; scripts and test suites are saved in .side format rather than the .html format used by older versions of Selenium IDE. If you have existing .html scripts, you can still use them. In some instances, you might want to edit the .html scripts or re-record them in the new .side format.

For more information, see these subtopics of Managing synthetic transactions and events: Recording synthetic scripts, Structuring complex scripts, and Updating scripts from earlier Selenium IDE versions.

What's new for the December 2018 refresh of V8.1.4

New agent
Monitoring Agent for IBM Cloud
The Monitoring Agent for IBM Cloud collects virtual machine inventory and metrics from your IBM Cloud (Softlayer) account. Use the IBM Cloud agent to track how many virtual devices you have configured and running in IBM Cloud. You can see what resources are allocated to each virtual device in the detailed dashboard page, which also shows information like the data center a device is located in, the operating system, and the projected public network bandwidth for the month.
Agent enhancements
Monitoring Agent for Cassandra
The Cassandra agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added a new threshold named Cassandra_Cluster_Down that monitors the state of the monitored instance.
  • Added support for Ubuntu 18.04 operating system.
  • Added support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 platform.

Monitoring Agent for Db2
The Db2 agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • The Db2 agent now supports HADR Monitoring Capabilities for  multiple standbys.
  • The Db2 agent now supports new value Stopped for Database Status attribute.
    The Stopped status indicates that the database is not active and having zero active connections while it is healthy and ready to accept new connections.
  • Added the new widget Db2 Server Information to display Db2 Server details.
  • Added the new page HADR Status – Local Databases to display the information about partner databases in the following new widgets:
    • HADR Databases Details is the table widget which displays important attribute values for partner database.
    • Log Gap (History) is the graph widget which displays log gap trend vs time.
    • Standby Flag Status is the table widget which displays standby flag status values.
  • Added the new predefined threshold UDB_HADR_Aux_Standby_Disconnect to monitor secondary standby databases in HADR environment.
  • The Top 5 database memory usage widget is updated to show the correct value.
  • The Db2 agent now supports the following platforms:
    • Ubuntu zLinux 18.04
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 on x86-64 (64 bit)
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 for zLinux
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 for Power® Linux Little Endian

Monitoring Agent for InfoSphere DataStage
The InfoSphere DataStage agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added capability to disable data collection for selected attribute groups.
  • Optimized data collection for Job Runs attribute group.
  • Added support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 platform.

Internet Service Monitoring
Internet Service Monitoring Agent now supports Windows 64-bit and Linux 64-bit platforms.

Monitoring Agent for Microsoft .NET
The .NET agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • The .NET agent now tracks the failed requests. The status of these requests is shown as failed under the Latest Requests group widget of the Middleware Transaction Details page. Also, the Latest Errors group widget lists the recent failed requests along with the status code and error description.
  • The .NET agent also monitors the user data available through ASP.NET Identity and ASP.NET sessions. The user data is displayed in the Users Top–5 group widget of the Middleware Transaction Details page.

Monitoring Agent for MongoDB
MongoDB agent now supports SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 platform.

Monitoring Agent for NetApp Storage
The NetApp Storage agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • A new Search box is added on the Event Details page that filters the event data based on the search criteria.
  • A new Details page is added for LUNs.
  • The user is now able to check the details of related devise mapped to each storage object on the Details page.

Monitoring Agent for OpenStack
Support was added for monitoring virtual machine instances, such as the usage of the virtual machine instance CPU, memory, disk, and network interface controller.

Monitoring Agent for PostgreSQL
  • Support added for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15
  • Optimized data collection for CPU and Memory attribute groups
Monitoring Agent for RabbitMQ
Support added for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15

Monitoring Agent for SAP Applications
SAP agent now supports the following platforms:
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 platform
  • SAP NW RFC SDK 7.50

Monitoring Agent for Skype for Business Server
The Skype for Business Server is enhanced with the following features:
  • Synthetic Transaction Commands in Synthetic Transaction Module are now executable by already configured Test Users. To avail this feature, disable the Use Agent Configuration Values in Agent configuration panel and provide value of Pool FQDN for which Synthetic Commands are to be executed. Make sure the Test User is configured through NewCsHealthMonitoringConfiguration command for Identity provided in Pool FQDN field of Agent Configuration Panel.
  • Users can now disable Synthetic Commands. To disable any particular command from execution, provide false against that command name in LyncSyntheticTrans.exe.config file present at location <CANDLE_HOME>\tmaitm6 for 32-bit version and <CANDLE_HOME>\TMAITM6_x64 64-bit version.

Monitoring Agent for Tomcat
  • New attribute group Cluster is added. It contains information of properties of a cluster.
  • New widget Cluster Information is added. This widget displays information of attribute group Cluster. It will not display any data if the agent is monitoring a non-cluster Tomcat setup.
  • Configuration panel variable Tomcat Server Port is added. This variable represents the port on which Tomcat server is running. Default value of the variable is 8080.

Monitoring Agent for VMware VI
  • Component page has been enhanced to show the IP Address or Hostname of configured vCenter and its connectivity with the agent.

WebSphere Infrastructure Manager agent
The WebSphere Infrastructure Manager agent now supports AIX.

WebSphere MQ agent
The WebSphere MQ agent is now supported on IBM WebSphere MQ 9.1.

Data collector enhancements
J2SE data collector
The J2SE data collector is enhanced with the following features:
  • Added support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 for Power Linux Big Endian (64 bit).
  • Added support for Power Linux Big Endian (pLinux BE) (64 bit).
  • Added support for Power Linux Little Endian (pLinux LE) (64 bit).
  • Added configuration module and Jetty server monitoring.

Expanded platform support for agents
The following agents and platforms are now supported:
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 platform
  • Cassandra agent
  • DataPower agent
  • DataStage agent
  • Db2 agent
  • HTTP Server
  • IBM Integration Bus agent
  • Linux OS agent
  • MongoDB agent
  • OpenStack agent
  • PostgreSQL agent
  • Monitoring Agent for RabbitMQ
  • SAP agent
  • WebSphere MQ agent
Power Linux
  • J2SE data collector
Ubuntu 18.04
  • Cassandra agent
  • IBM Integration Bus agent
  • OpenStack agent
  • Linux OS agent
  • RabbitMQ agent
  • WebSphere MQ agent
Power 9 Support
Power 9 is now supported for all agents.

What's new for the October 2018 refresh of V8.1.4

Integration with Cloud Event Management
Cloud Event Management provides real-time incident management across your services, applications, and infrastructure. Now, with the integration between Cloud Event Management and IBM Cloud Application Performance Management, all the events that are generated in Cloud APM are sent to Cloud Event Management.
To use the Cloud Event Management integration support, you must install the Cloud APM Version 8.1.4.0 Server Interim Fix 7 or later.

What's new for the September 2018 refresh of V8.1.4

New agent available
Monitoring Agent for MQ Appliance
The MQ Appliance agent provides monitoring information that is specific to the MQ appliance level on MQ Appliances, for example, CPU, memory, storage, sensors, and queue managers summary information.
Agent enhancements
Monitoring Agent for Db2
The Db2 agent now supports Power Linux Big Endian operating system.
Monitoring Agent for Hadoop
  • The Hadoop agent now monitors the status of two more services: SmartSense and Druid.
  • The Hadoop agent now supports Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP) 3.0.0.
Internet Service Monitoring Agent
Edit functionality for Internet Service Monitoring Agent is enhanced. All the monitors which have configurable parameters can be edited.
Monitoring Agent for MySQL
The MySQL agent now supports monitoring MySQL v8.0.11.
Monitoring Agent for NetApp Storage
The NetApp Storage agent is enhanced with the following features:
  • A new widget called Overall Events Summary is added on the NetApp Storage Instance page. It displays the cumulative count of events. You can view all the events that occurred across the environment, irrespective of severity or object by clicking the status bar represented as Total Events.

    Also, an Event Status column is added in every objects table, which shows event status prioritized based on time and then the level of severity.

    The NetApp Storage Instance page now displays Events Summary table rather than a chart.

  • The Aggregate Details page is updated to display the related devices that are associated with the selected aggregate.
Monitoring Agent for SAP Applications
Support added for SAP NW RFC SDK 750.
Monitoring Agent for SAP HANA Database
Two new features are added:
  • SAP HANA Database can be monitored in stand by mode.
  • SAP HANA Database agent supports the Big Endian platform for Power System.
Monitoring Agent for VMware VI
  • Monitoring of HostVFlashManager is now supported
  • The ESX Server Dashboard now shows the count of virtual machines that are in their Critical, Warning and Normal status with respect to CPU utilization.
New Platform: LinuxLinux on POWER Big Endian
There is a new platform available. The following agents are now supported on LinuxLinux on POWER Big Endian:
  • Db2 agent
  • IBM Integration Bus agent
  • Linux OS agent
  • SAP HANA Database agent
  • WebSphere MQ agent
  • WebSphere Applications agent

What's new for the July 2018 refresh of V8.1.4

Cloud APM 8.1.4.0 Interim Fix 6 Server Patch
After you apply Cloud APM 8.1.4.0 server Interim Fix 6, you can:
  • Change the names of the Cloud APM server Db2 databases on the remote Db2 server.
  • Change the remote Db2 server port number, host name or IP address.
  • Move the Cloud APM server Db2 databases to a different computer system or to a different Db2 instance user.
New agents available
Internet Service Monitoring

The Internet Service Monitoring offers to determine whether a particular service is performing adequately, identify problem areas and report service performance measured against Service Level agreements. Internet Service Monitoring works by emulating the actions of a real user. It regularly polls or tests Internet services to check their status and performance.

Monitoring Agent for Sybase Server

The Sybase agent offers a central point of management for distributed databases. It collects the required information for database and system administrators to examine the performance of the Sybase server system, detect problems early and prevent them.

Agent enhancements
Monitoring Agent for Hadoop
  • Support added for monitoring Hadoop services such as, Mahout, Atlas, and Falcon.
  • Support added for monitoring Hadoop offering: Cloudera CDH 5.13.
  • Support added for monitoring Hadoop offering: Hortonworks HDP 2.6.4.
Monitoring Agent for HMC Base

HMC V8 R8.7.0 is now supported.

Monitoring Agent for HTTP Server
Support for the 64-bit Apache HTTP Server on Windows was added.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft .NET

The Monitoring Agent for Microsoft .NET is enhanced as follows:

  • The IIS Response Time module now monitors the subtransaction and render time breakdown through JavaScript injection for ASP.NET web forms (.aspx pages) and ASP.NET MVC razor views, which satisfy following conditions:
    • The page meets the W3C HTML standards.
    • Response headers contain Content-Type: text/html, application/xml,application/json.
    • Response content includes the <head> element.
  • The .NET agent uploads the deep dive data to Diagnostic Query Engine (DQE) service on the APM server. The DQE service deep dive dashboard quickly loads and displays the data.
  • The new threshold NET_Slow_IIS_Request_Crit is added that triggers when the Slow Top 10 widget has requests with response time greater than 500 milliseconds.
  • The selective filtering tool is updated with the search box to search an application pool from the list of application pools.
  • The ProcListCaller utility is added to provide the list of processes that have loaded the .NET Agent CLR profiler (CorProfLog.dll).
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft SQL Server
  • The Microsoft SQL Server agent now supports multiple collations in ERRORLOG parsing based on collation settings in koqErrConfig.ini file. When the koqErrConfig.ini file does not contain any valid collation settings, you will be able to see only the default English error message with severity level more than the default severity level, if any. The default severity level is 17. All the collations exist in the koqErrConfig.ini file will be considered while parsing the ERRORLOG file. So only the collations that are in use should be added in the koqErrConfig.ini file. The ERRORLOG parsing is case sensitive, you must ensure the collation keyword values in the koqErrConfig.ini file are exactly the same as the keyword values found in ERRORLOG file or in the reference koqErrConfigSample.ini file. Note that the changes made in the koqErrConfig.ini file is not preserved during agent upgrade, you must make a backup before agent upgrade.
  • The agent also provides the utility tool koqVerifyPermissions.exe to check if an existing SQL Server user has sufficient permissions to monitor the Microsoft SQL Server. If an existing SQL Server user does not have sufficient permissions, you can use the utility tool permissions.cmd as an alternative to grant the minimum permissions to an existing SQL Server user for data collection.
Monitoring Agent for NetApp Storage

The Monitoring Agent for NetApp Storage is enhanced as follows:

  • The new Component page is added to display the details of agent connection state whether the data provider is up or down, along with IP address of monitored data sources. The individual status bar represents the number of nodes, aggregates, volumes, and disks that are in critical, normal, warning, or unknown state.
  • The new NetApp Storage Instance page is added to highlight key properties of clusters, aggregates, volumes, disks, and vServers. It also displays the Events Summary chart with count of events that are occurred on each available storage entity or object across the environment. For example, if there are 12 volumes that are configured and each volume has two events with severity as Critical, then the Event Summary chart depicts the total count of events that are occurred on all the volumes available in an environment. In this case, the chart shows a bar with 24 critical events against the volume as an entity plotted on the X-axis.
  • The Node Details page is updated to show network port details.
  • The Volume Detail page is updated to display details of the associated snap mirrors and LUNs count for each selected volume.
  • The vServers Details page is updated to display information about network logical interfaces.
Monitoring Agent for Tomcat
Tomcat V9.0.5 server is now supported.
Monitoring Agent for WebSphere MQ

Remote monitoring is supported. Two configuration parameters are added for the agent to be able to collect monitoring data for a remote queue manager. However, these configuration parameters do not have any effect on a local queue manager. If you want to configure the agent to monitor a local queue manager, you can press Enter to skip specifying these parameters.

For more information about agent configuration, see Configuring the WebSphere MQ agent.

EIF slot customization enhancement

You can now add multiple attribute values and literal values to the EIF slot. Instead of, say, a Disk free percent is Disk_Free_Percent message for a threshold that tests for low available disk space, you could have Disk free percent is Disk_Free_Percent and inodes free percent is Inodes_Free_Percent. The forwarded message might look like this: Disk free percent is 13 and inodes free percent is 9. For more information, see Customizing an event to forward to an EIF receiver.

IBM Cloud Application Business Insights

You can use the stand-alone IBM Cloud Application Business Insights application that promotes data democratization for business users and small and medium-sized enterprises. It provides advanced and powerful data visualization and exploration tool that functions beyond basic reporting.

Currently, the Dashboard Designer tool has default connectors to Cloud APM and IBM Tivoli Monitoring agents data sources to retrieve and render information on your custom dashboards. You can also connect many relational databases to create dashboards.

For more information, see IBM Cloud Application Business Insights documentation on IBM Knowledge Center.

What's new for the April 2018 refresh of V8.1.4

New agent available
Monitoring Agent for AWS Elastic Load Balancer

The Amazon ELB agent provides you with a central point of monitoring for the health, availability, and performance of your AWS Elastic Load Balancers. The agent displays a comprehensive set of metrics for each load balancer type-application, network and classic-to help you make informed decisions about your AWS Elastic Load Balancer environment.

Agent enhancements
Response Time Monitoring Agent
The IBM HTTP Server Response Time module now supports IBM HTTP Server version 7, 8, and 9 on Windows.
Monitoring Agent for Node.js
By default, user sensitive information, such as cookies, HTTP request contexts, and database request contexts are no longer collected by the Node.js data collector. You can change this default behavior by specifying the new environment variable, SECURITY_OFF.
Monitoring Agent for Amazon EC2
The component name now reflects the agent name.
Extended data retention support is added.
Monitoring Agent for WebLogic
Transaction tracking and deep-dive diagnostics are enabled on AIX. Previously these features were only enabled on Linux and Windows.
The Request Summary drill-down for servlets that are implemented with annotations for transaction tracking and deep-dive diagnostics is enhanced.
Monitoring Agent for Skype for Business Server
Support for Windows Server 2016.
Monitoring Agent for Sterling File Gateway
Agent fetches events for failed file transfer as a default behavior. You can change this default behavior by specifying the appropriate value for the new environment variable KFG_ALL_FGEVENTS.
Monitoring Agent for Sterling Connect Direct
The agent logging feature is improved. For more information, see Troubleshooting section.
Data collector enhancements
Node.js data collector
By default, user sensitive information, such as cookies, HTTP request contexts, and database request contexts, are no longer collected by the Node.js data collector. You can change this default behavior by specifying the new environment variable, SECURITY_OFF.
Remember: To get this enhancement, you must download and apply the IBM Cloud Application Performance Management Node.js data collector interim fix 1 from IBM Fix Central. For more information, see Interim Fix 1 Readme File.
J2SE data collector
Support was added for auto-discovery of entry point class (main class) and alias name of the J2SE application.
Transaction tracking and deep-dive diagnostics can be enabled and disabled locally by using configuration scripts.
Documentation enhancements
See Agent version in Cloud APM, Private releases.
The Agent and data collector capabilities in each offering table is simplified to improve readability. For more information, see Capabilities.

What's new for the February 2018 refresh of V8.1.4

New agent available
Monitoring Agent for Azure Compute

The Azure Compute agent provides you with a central point of monitoring for the health, availability, and performance of your Azure Compute instances. The agent displays a comprehensive set of metrics to help you make informed decisions about your Azure Compute environment. These metrics include CPU usage, network usage, and disk performance.

Monitoring Agent for Sterling Connect Direct

You can use the Sterling Connect Direct agent to monitor health and performance of Sterling Connect Direct server. It monitors Sterling Connect Direct server’s features, such as file transfer activities, scheduled processes, hold and wait queue processes. The agent supports remote monitoring and it is multi-instance.

Monitoring Agent for Sterling File Gateway

The Sterling File Gateway agent monitors the Sterling File Gateway application, which is used for transferring files between internal and external partners by using different protocols, different file naming conventions, and different file formats. It also supports the remote monitoring feature.

Agent enhancements
Monitoring Agent for DataPower
Transaction tracking between the WebSphere MQ agent and DataPower agent is supported.
Monitoring Agent for Db2
Support was added for remote monitoring.
Monitoring Agent for Hadoop
Support was added for monitoring the status of Hadoop services, such as HBase, MapReduce2, Tez, and Ranger.
Support was added for monitoring Hadoop offering: Cloudera CDH 5.12.
Monitoring Agent for InfoSphere DataStage
Support was added for MS SQL as metadata repository.
Support was added for Windows operating system.
Monitoring Agent for Tomcat
Transaction tracking and deep-dive support for PLinux by upgrading the agent framework with the 8.1.4.0-IBM-APM-SERVER-IF0001 patch.
Monitoring Agent for SAP Applications
Enhancement to CCMS feature: automation of idx file deletion. This automation works only when the SAP system is restarted.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft .NET
Support was added for end user transactions by using IIS Response Time module.
Monitoring Agent for Skype for Business Server
The name of the agent is changed from Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Lync Server to Monitoring Agent for Skype for Business Server.
Monitoring Agent for Linux KVM
Support was added for RHEV-M 4.x.
Monitoring Agent for Linux OS
Memory upload interval is changed to 1 minute.
The IP address associated with the network interface is displayed on the Linux OS dashboard and System Information widget.
Monitoring Agent for UNIX OS
Memory upload interval is changed to 1 minute.
Data collector enhancements
J2SE data collector
Support was added for Spring Boot Applications.

What's new for the December 2017 refresh of V8.1.4

New agent available
Monitoring Agent for InfoSphere DataStage

You can use the DataStage agent to monitor the health and performance of the DataStage server resources, such as engine services, engine systems, job activity, job run status, and details of job runs. This agent supports remote monitoring.

Agent enhancements
Monitoring Agent for Hadoop

Support was added for monitoring a Hadoop cluster that is secured with the Kerberos SPNEGO-based authentication, which uses Active Directory Key Distribution Center (KDC).

Support was added for testing connection to hosts of a Hadoop cluster that is secured with Kerberos SPENGO-based authentication, which uses MIT or Active Directory as Key Distribution Center (KDC).

Support was added for monitoring the following Hadoop offerings: Cloudera CDH 5.10 and CDH 5.11.

Support was added for monitoring the status of Hadoop services, such as Flume, Kafka, Titan, Spark, Knox, Pig, Slider, and Solr.

Monitoring Agent for HTTP Server
Support for the Windows 32-bit IBM HTTP Server and Apache HTTP Server was added.
Support for Linux for System z was added (Transaction tracking is not supported).
Support for Oracle HTTP server on Linux for System x was added.
Monitoring Agent for IBM Integration Bus
Support for Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian) was added.
Remember: To get transaction tracking support on Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian), before you start the agent, you must download and apply IBM Cloud Application Performance Management 8.1.4 core framework interim fix 01 from Fix Central.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft .NET
Monitoring support for ODP.NET was added.
Method trace details were added for HttpWebRequest.GetResponse() method.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft SQL Server

Tolerance support for SQL Server 2017 was added.

Support for Always On feature for the SQL Server developers edition was added.

Monitoring Agent for MySQL
Tolerance support for the information schema tables being migrated to performance schema was added.
Support was added for deprecated tables of information schema through performance schema.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Internet Information Services
Support was added for FTP websites monitoring.
Monitoring Agent for MongoDB
Support was added for remote monitoring.
Support for monitoring In-Memory storage engine was added.
Monitoring Agent for OpenStack
Support for OpenStack authentication V3 API was added.
Monitoring Agent for Oracle Database
Agent version is changed to 8.0.
The configuration parameter Oracle JDBC jar file was added and the configuration parameters Oracle Home Directory and Oracle Instant Client Installation Directory were removed.
Monitoring Agent for PostgreSQL
Support was added for remote monitoring.
Monitoring Agent for SAP Applications
Support for SNC communication was added.
New threshold for SAP system down was added.
Monitoring Agent for SAP NetWeaver Java Stack
The capability to restore the SAP NetWeaver Application Server instance was added.
Monitoring Agent for Tomcat
Support was added for Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian) (Resource monitoring only).
Monitoring Agent for VMware VI
Network Summary and Disk Count were added on the ESX Server overview page.
Events group widget was added on Cluster summary page.
Monitoring Agent for WebSphere Applications
Transaction tracking support for Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian) and for Linux for System z was added.
Remember: To get transaction tracking support on Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian) and Linux for System z, complete the following steps:
  1. Download the agent installation image.
  2. Install the WebSphere Applications agent.
  3. Download the WebSphere Applications agent interim fix 2 from Fix Central.
  4. Follow the readme file of the interim fix to apply the fix.
Monitoring Agent for WebSphere MQ
The MQ Service Status group widget was added to provide your MQ service details.
Support for Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian) was added.
Remember: To get transaction tracking support on Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian), before you start the agent, you must download and apply IBM Cloud Application Performance Management 8.1.4 core framework interim fix 01 from Fix Central.
Response Time Monitoring Agent
Support for the Windows 32-bit IBM HTTP Server and Apache HTTP Server was added.
Data collector enhancements
Liberty data collector
The managed system name (MSN) registered by the Liberty data collector is changed to reflect the host name and Liberty server name. The new MSN for this data collector is BI:servername_hostname_md5:BLP, where md5 is the local application GUID based on MD5. The length of servername_hostname_md5 is 25 characters.
Remember: To get this enhancement, you must download and apply the IBM Cloud Application Performance Management Liberty data collector Interim Fix 1 from Fix Central.
J2SE data collector
Transaction tracking support for J2SE applications was added.
Documentation enhancements
The information about default ports that are used by agents and data collectors is provided to facilitate you to prepare the environment. See Default ports used by agents and data collectors.
The information about managed system names (MSN) of Cloud APM agents is provided. Instructions about how to change the hostname string in the MSN are also provided. See Managed system names.
The information about running agent as a non-admin user or permissions that are required to run the agent by non-admin user is provided in the configuration topics for the following agents:
  • Microsoft .NET agent
  • Microsoft Active Directory agent
  • Microsoft Exchange Server agent
  • Skype for Business Server agent
  • Microsoft SharePoint Server agent
  • Microsoft SQL Server agent
  • Tomcat agent

What's new for V8.1.4

Product rebranding and simplification
The IBM Performance Management on-premises offerings were rebranded and consolidated into IBM Cloud Application Performance Management, Base Private and IBM Cloud Application Performance Management, Advanced Private as shown in the table.
Offering name: V8.1.3 release and earlier Offering name: V8.1.4 and later
Monitoring Cloud APM, Base Private
Application Performance Management Advanced Cloud APM, Advanced Private

Some component names also changed: Cloud APM console and Cloud APM server were called Performance Management console and Performance Management server in earlier releases.

Some product extensions were consolidated and renamed:
Extension name: V8.1.3 release and earlier Extension name: V8.1.4 and later
Base Extension Pack
(Hadoop agent)
Base Extension Pack
(adds the new Cassandra agent and Microsoft Office 365 agent)
Advanced Extension Pack
(SAP HANA Database agent and SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent)
Advanced Extension Pack
(adds the new RabbitMQ agent)
IBM API Connect® monitoring
Cloud APM agents and data collectors now support the monitoring of the IBM API Connect environment. You can deploy corresponding agents and data collectors to gain visibility of the health and performance of the components in your environment. Transaction tracking data is also available in addition to resource monitoring and deep-dive diagnostics data, which allows you to view topology information about your IBM API Connect environment. For more information, see Scenario: Monitoring IBM API Connect.
IBM Cloud Private monitoring
You can monitor both your Cloud Private containers and your Cloud Private Liberty-based applications from the Cloud APM console. For more information, see Monitoring IBM Cloud Private.
OS support
Linux for System z
Added Linux for System z support for the following monitoring agents: Linux OS, WebSphere Application, Db2, WebSphere MQ, IBM Integration Bus, Tomcat, and Response Time Monitoring.
Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian)
Added Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian) support for the following monitoring agents: Linux OS, WebSphere Application, and Db2.
Linux for System x
Added Linux on System x to support the Liberty data collector.
Windows 2016 operating systems
Added support for Windows 2016 operating systems. For more information, see the Software Product Compatibility Report (SPCR) for all agents. In the Windows section of the report, find your operating system and click the component icon for a list of supported agents.
IBM i OS agent support
Data for the IBM i OS agent can now be displayed in the Cloud APM console. This agent is an IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6 agent and remains as a V6 agent for the V8.1.4 release. You can use the Hybrid Gateway to retrieve the agent data and send it to the Cloud APM server. As a result, you can view monitoring data and events for this agent in the Cloud APM console. For more information about the IBM i OS agent, see Supported Tivoli Monitoring and OMEGAMON agents..
New agents available
Monitoring Agent for Amazon EC2
You can use the Amazon EC2 agent to monitor the health, availability, and performance of your Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Instance resources. You can monitor the following resources:
  • CPU utilization
  • Elastic Block Store (EBS) utilization
  • Network utilization
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) maintenance updates
  • Disk performance
This agent is in the Infrastructure Extension Pack.
Monitoring Agent for Cassandra

You can use the Cassandra agent to monitor the health and performance of the Cassandra cluster resources, such as the nodes, keyspaces, and column families.

Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Office 365

You can use the Microsoft Office 365 agent to monitor the health and performance of the Office 365 resources, such as the Office 365 subscribed services, Office 365 portal, mailbox users, SharePoint sites, and OneDrive storage.

Monitoring Agent for NetApp Storage
You can use the NetApp Storage agent to monitor the health, availability, and performance of the NetApp storage systems by using the NetApp OnCommand Unified Manager (OCUM). The monitoring agent performs the following tasks:
  • Identifies poorly performing storage system objects
  • Performs discovery and monitoring by using the OCUM server at the focal point
Monitoring Agent for OpenStack

You can use the OpenStack agent to monitor the health and performance of your OpenStack applications and view information such as information about API endpoints, SSH server connection, processes, and hypervisors.

Monitoring Agent for RabbitMQ

You can use the RabbitMQ agent to monitor the health and performance of the RabbitMQ cluster resources, such as the nodes, queues, and channels of the cluster.

Monitoring Agent for SAP NetWeaver Java Stack

You can use the SAP NetWeaver Java Stack agent to monitor the health, availability, and performance of your SAP NetWeaver Java Stack Cluster and Instance resources. You can use the agent to monitor the cluster resources, such as heap dumps, JVM Instance, transaction details, system information, and license details. You can use the agent to monitor the instance resources, such as CPU utilization, disk utilization, memory utilization, database collection, garbage collection, heap dumps, failed application, web container, and session information. You can also collect and view the transaction tracking and diagnostics data. This agent is in the Advanced Extension Pack and available if you have the Cloud APM, Advanced Private offering.

Monitoring Agent for Siebel

You can use the Siebel agent to monitor the health and performance of Siebel resources, which includes Siebel statistics, user sessions, components, tasks, application server, Siebel Gateway Name Server, process CPU and memory usage, and log event monitoring.

New and enhanced data collectors available
You can use the data collectors to monitor the health and performance of the following applications on IBM Cloud, on premises, or both:
J2SE data collector
You can use the J2SE data collector to monitor the health and performance of Java applications and view diagnostics data, such as response time, throughput, request context, and method trace of requests.
Liberty data collector
The Liberty data collector monitors both the Liberty profile in IBM Cloud environment and the local Liberty profile on Linux for System x.
Node.js data collector
The Node.js data collector monitors both IBM Cloud and on-premises applications. You can view both resource and diagnostics monitoring data, such as resource utilization, throughput, and detailed information about requests and methods.
Python data collector
The Python data collector monitors IBM Cloud applications. You can view both resource and diagnostics monitoring data, such as resource utilization, throughput, and detailed information about requests and methods.
The Python agent is removed from the agent installation package in Cloud APM V8.1.4. You can use only the Python data collector to monitor your Python applications.
Ruby data collector
The Ruby data collector monitors only IBM Cloud applications. You can view both resource and diagnostics monitoring data, such as resource utilization, throughput, and detailed information about requests and methods.
Agent enhancements
Monitoring Agent for Citrix Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
  • Added the ability to retrieve Windows Event Log Events for Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) and Desktop Delivery Controller (DDC) machines.
  • The VDA Sessions page, which is accessible through the VDA Machine Details page was added.
  • The Machine Metrics widget was added to the VDA Machine Details page.
  • The Desktop Delivery Controller (DDC) configuration was enhanced to enable the agent to handle DDC fail-over in a distributed environment.
Monitoring Agent for Db2
  • Support for Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian) was added.
  • Support for Ubuntu ZLinux was added.
  • A script file was added to grant privileges to a Db2 user to view data for all the attributes of the Db2 agent for a monitored instance.
  • Support for Linux for System z was added.
Monitoring Agent for Hadoop
  • Support for installing and configuring the agent on Windows 2016 and AIX 7.2 systems was added.
  • Support for monitoring the following Hadoop offerings was added: Hortonworks HDP 2.5 and 2.6, Cloudera CDH 5.8 and 5.9, and IBM BigInsights 4.2.
  • The test connection button for verifying connection to the Hadoop daemons that you specify when you configure the agent was added.
  • The agent configuration process was improved to reduce the configuration time and complexity. The configuration is simplified because the following prerequisite and configuration tasks are not required:
    • Installing the plug-in on each node of the Hadoop cluster
    • Configuring and updating the hadoop-metrics2.properties file
    • Restarting the Hadoop daemons after you configure the hadoop-metrics2.properties file
    • Configuring all the DataNodes and NodeManagers in the cluster
    • Restarting the agent when more nodes are added to the cluster
  • Support for monitoring the status of Hadoop services, such as are ZooKeeper, Sqoop, Hive, HDFS, YARN, Ambari Metrics, and Oozie was added.
  • Support was added for monitoring a Hadoop cluster that is secured with the Kerberos SPNEGO-based authentication, which uses only MIT Kerberos V5 Key Distribution Center (KDC).
Monitoring Agent for IBM Integration Bus

Support was added for Linux for System z (Transaction tracking is not supported).

Monitoring Agent for JBoss
The following enhancements are added to the JBoss agent:
  • Added transaction tracking and deep dive monitoring in the Advanced Agents offering
  • Added a dashboard page to monitor datasource metrics
  • Added support for monitoring the following JBoss offerings: WildFly 8.x/9.x/10.x, JBoss EAP 7.x, JBoss AS 7.x
  • Added support for running the agent on the Windows operating system
Monitoring Agent for Linux KVM
The following enhancements were added to the dashboard of the Linux KVM agent:
  • The summary dashboard was updated to show the overall status of the hosts based on the CPU and memory utilization of your Linux Kernel-based virtual machines environment or application.
  • The Host Detail dashboard was updated to show details about the selected host.
  • The Hosts, Clusters, and Storage dashboard was updated to show details about the monitored virtual machines.
  • The Hosts group widget in the Hosts, Clusters, and Storage dashboard was updated to display the Max Scheduling Memory (GB) and the Live Snapshot KPIs.
  • The Virtual Machine Details dashboard was updated to show details about the virtual machine that you select on the Host Detail page.
  • The Storage Details dashboard was added to display details about the disks and disk snapshots in the storage pool.
  • The Network Transmitted/Received Data (GB) group widget was added to the Host Detail dashboard to display historical information of the total data (in GB) that is transmitted and received over the network.
Monitoring Agent for Linux OS

Support for Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian) was added.

Docker V1.8.0 or later is supported. New attribute groups and widgets were added to enable the Linux OS agent to deliver docker monitoring capabilities.

Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Active Directory
  • Group widgets and pages to display the details of Group Policy Object, Netlogon, Local Security Authority, and LDAP details were added.
  • The following data sets that you can view in the Attribute details tab were added:
    • Services Data Set
    • Replication
    • File Replication Service
    • Moved or Deleted Org. Unit
    • LDAP Attributes
    • Security Accounts Manager
    • DFS
    • Address Book
    • Event Log
    • Password Setting Objects
  • Data sets for ADFS, ADFS Proxy, and Asynchronous Thread Queue were added.
  • Group widgets and pages to display details of ADFS and ADFS Proxy were added.
  • Support for installing and configuring the agent on Windows Server 2016 systems was added.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Exchange Server
The following enhancements were added to the dashboard of the Microsoft Exchange Server agent:
  • The inbound time and outbound time attributes were added to the Reachability data set.
  • Pages and group widgets to display reachability details were added.
  • An eventing threshold for reachability was added.
  • Support for installing and configuring the agent on Exchange Server 2016 and Windows Server 2016 systems were added.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft Internet Information Services

Support for installing and configuring on a Microsoft Windows Server 2016 system was added.

Monitoring Agent for Skype for Business Server
  • The Lync Usage Summary group widget was added to the Lync Server Overview dashboard to view the front-end registration status and the quality of poor calls.
  • A dashboard to display the details of the Microsoft Lync Server usage was added.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft .NET
The following enhancements were added to the dashboard of the Microsoft .NET agent:
  • The MS .NET Status group widget on the Component page was updated to display the response times of database calls, status of .NET processes with high thread count, and Just in Time (JIT) compilation failures.
  • Data sets, pages, and group widgets were added to show JIT compilation details, database call details, GC handles and pinned objects collection for a selected .NET process, thread contention rate, and thread queue length.
  • Eventing thresholds were added for JIT failures, .NET request failures, slow commands, garbage collection, and the active threads in .NET processes.
Monitoring Agent for Microsoft SQL Server
The following enhancements were added to the dashboard of the Microsoft SQL Server agent:
  • The Expensive Queries group widget was added to the Server Performance - Detail page to view the top 10 cached query plans according to the performance statistics of the Microsoft SQL Server.
  • Support for monitoring the Microsoft SQL Server 2016 was added.
  • Support for installing and configuring the Microsoft SQL Server agent on a Microsoft Windows Server 2016 system was added.
  • The new COLL_ERRORLOG_RECYCLE_WAIT environment variable was added to set the time interval (in seconds) for which the agent waits before it collects the MS SQL Error Event Detail attribute group data.
Monitoring Agent for MongoDB
The following enhancements were added to the dashboard of the MongoDB agent:
  • The Component page was updated to display the number of MongoDB instances and their status.
  • Pages for displaying details of the MMAPv1 and the WiredTiger storage engines were added.
  • The Input Output Information page was added to display cursor details and historical data for the queued operations, active connections, data flow, and the data access of the selected host.
  • Pages were added to display details of the locks of version 2.x and version 3.x, or later.
  • The Replication Details page was added to display details of the replication member, oplog, and historical data of the replication lag and the space that is used by the oplog.
  • Support was added for monitoring the MongoDB cluster or replication setup when the primary node fails.
Monitoring Agent for MySQL

Data sets and a configuration parameter were added to remotely monitor MySQL resources.

Monitoring Agent for Node.js
The following enhancements were added to the Node.js agent to leverage Node Application Metrics (Appmetrics):
  • New dashboard and group widgets to view garbage collection details
  • New dashboard and group widgets to view event loop details
Monitoring Agent for Oracle Database
The Oracle Database agent dashboard includes the following new features on the Instance Details page:
  • A table that displays information about the lock contention on the selected instance.
  • A table that displays information about the Oracle Real Application Clusters GCS and GES.
  • A table that displays details of the Automatic Storage Management (ASM) disk groups that are attached to the selected instance.
  • A view that shows detailed information per table space, which is visible if you click Bottom 5 Free Table Space.
  • A table that displays the historical details of the foreground and background processes that are attached to the selected instance. You can click the entity in the table and view a detailed table of all processes for that instance.
  • A table that displays the Top 5 Worst SQL queries (by run time) on the selected instance. You can click in the table and view a detailed table of the top 50 worst SQL queries for that instance.
Monitoring Agent for PostgreSQL
  • Support for installing and configuring the agent on Windows systems.
  • Support for monitoring PostgreSQL V9.6.
  • The Status Overview page was updated so status is not critical when the buffer hit rate is zero.
Monitoring Agent for SAP HANA Database

The License Expiry Days attribute and the HANA_License_Expiry_Crit_SYS and HANA_License_Expiry_Warn_SYS thresholds were added to monitor the number of days that are remaining before license expiration.

Monitoring Agent for Synthetic Playback

The Synthetic Playback agent includes a new filtering feature for synthetic transactions. In the Synthetic Script Manager, configure blacklists and whitelists for your synthetic transactions that exclude or include requests to specified URLs and domains. Use blacklists and whitelists to filter out or include dependencies that affect the response times for your application, such as third-party metrics.

You can now prevent passwords that are stored in synthetic scripts from displaying in the Synthetic Script Manager.

Monitoring Agent for Tomcat
  • Support was added for Linux for System z
  • Support for installing and configuring the Tomcat agent on Windows and SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 systems was added.
  • Data sets, dashboards, and group widgets for transaction tracking and deep-dive diagnostics were added.
Monitoring Agent for VMware VI
  • The ESX Server group widget in the Server Summary dashboard was updated to show the SSH status.
  • Agent decoupling feature was added to view and select the agent node and its subnodes in the same view. When the VMware Virtual Infrastructure component was selected in the Select Component window, the Component Editor displayed a tree structure of the agent node with all its subnodes.
    • If the tree was expanded and the agent node was selected, all subnodes were automatically selected. The subnodes that were to be monitored could be individually selected.
    • If an agent node was selected when the tree was collapsed, all subnodes were automatically excluded.
    • When the ESX Server component was selected in the Select Component window, along with subnodes, stand-alone ESX Servers were also displayed in the Component Editor.
    • With the subnodes, stand-alone ESX Servers could be selected for monitoring.
    • After the application was created, the APM UI dashboard displayed a tree structure of the agent instance as parent and its nodes as children.
Monitoring Agent for WebLogic

Transaction tracking and deep-dive diagnostics were added to the agent in the Advanced Agents offering.

Monitoring Agent for WebSphere Applications
Support for Linux for Power Systems (Little Endian) was added.

Support for Linux for System z was added (Transaction tracking is not supported).

Support for IBM WebSphere Application Server traditional V9 was added.
The Memory Analysis dashboard was added to help you diagnose possible memory leaks by checking the heap usage information for each heap dump. The diagnostics mode must be enabled for this dashboard to contain data.
Support was added to use the Application Health Status data set to create event thresholds for application status monitoring. The data collection for this usage is disabled by default. You must modify the data collector properties file to enable it before you create event thresholds.
The manual configuration of the data collector was simplified. For WebSphere Applications Server, you only need to add some JVM arguments and variables for the application server on the WebSphere administrative console. For Liberty, you only need to modify three files for the server.
Monitoring Agent for WebSphere MQ

Support for Linux for System z was added (Transaction tracking is not supported).

Channel and queue long-term history data is supported. After the queue manager is configured to collect channel or queue statistics data, you can configure the agent to enable channel or queue long-term history data collection. Although there are no predefined dashboards or widgets to display the collected long-term history data, you can the Attribute Details tab to query the collected data in your custom tables.
Response Time Monitoring Agent
  • Support for the Windows 32-bit IBM HTTP Server and Apache HTTP Server is added (V8.1.4 Fix Pack 1).
  • Support for configuring user tracking for applications on the Agent Configuration page was added.
  • Support for configuring session tracking for applications on the Agent Configuration page was added.
  • You can now customize the locations that are applied to specific IP addresses or address ranges in the End User Transaction dashboards for your particular environment. Use the Geolocation tab in the Agent Configuration to customize location values.
IBM OMEGAMON® for Application Performance Management support
OMEGAMON for APM enables support for your IBM OMEGAMON agents in your Cloud APM offering. OMEGAMON agent data is sent to the Cloud APM server by the Hybrid Gateway. The Hybrid Gateway retrieves the OMEGAMON agent data and events from the IBM Tivoli Monitoring infrastructure that the OMEGAMON agents are connected to. As a result, you can view monitoring data and events for your OMEGAMON agents in the Cloud APM console.

OMEGAMON for APM support is available if you have either of the Cloud APM offerings. To install OMEGAMON for APM, complete the steps in Integrating with OMEGAMON.

Enhanced data retention

When you view the agent or data collector attribute descriptions in the help or reference guide, each data set includes a statement about the frequency with which data samples are sent to the Cloud APM server and how long those samples are stored for historical reporting, which is now 8 days by default. You can change the number of days that the data samples are saved for up to 32 days before the oldest samples are removed to make room for the new data samples. For more information, see Managing historical data retention values.

Cloud APM server enhancement

When you connect to a remote Db2 server, you can now specify a custom Db2 instance user name. In previous releases, the Db2 instance user db2apm was used. A custom Db2 instance user name cannot be used if you are completing a server upgrade from V8.1.3.

Enhanced visualization
Custom Views

You can use the IBM Cloud Application Business Insights Universal View to create customized pages for the applications that you are monitoring. In the Custom Views tab, you can use an existing template or create customized templates for your page. You can choose from different chart and metric options to create widgets to monitor data according to your requirement.

By using the Universal View, you can create dashboards to monitor data from various agents. You can export the customized page data to a Raw Data file.

For more information, see Custom views.
Calendar for comparing a previous day's data
When you are viewing line charts that show historical data, a calendar opens after you choose the time selector option to compare the time range from a previous day. The days that are unavailable for comparison are crossed out. For more information, see Adjusting and comparing metrics over time.
Time selector calendar opened after user selects Compare to
Application Performance Dashboard Status Overview
The Application Performance Dashboard page for the selected application is streamlined for improved viewing.
Previous release: Application dashboard page from the previous version of the Performance Management console
Current release: The new Application dashboard page before and after clicking the toggle button to switch between views
A count of critical and warning severity events is displayed on the Events tab title and replaces the Event Severity Summary bar chart. For applications with topology views enabled, the Aggregate Application Topology view has a toggle button for switching to the Current Component Status bar chart. For more information, see Status Overview.
Application Performance Dashboard Attribute Details tab
For visually impaired users, the ability to create historical tables provides an alternative to line charts, which assistive technologies such as screen-reader software cannot interpret. For this reason, the Attribute Details tab is available for Response Time Monitoring agent and Synthetic Playback agent transaction instances for creating historical tables. For more information, see Example of creating a custom table with keyboard controls.
Dashboard Log
A Dashboard Log option was added to the Actions menu to review the list of agent dashboards that were updated since the last server restart. For more information, see All My Applications - Application Performance Dashboard.
IBM Knowledge Center help server
In previous versions, the Cloud APM console help system was hosted on an Eclipse help server. The help system is now hosted by IBM Knowledge Center. You have the icon Hide table of contents tool, search and print capabilities, and links to support information and feedback options.

Before IBM Eclipse Help Server was used before the current release

After IBM Knowledge Center for the current release

Agent Builder enhancements

Support is improved for building Cloud APM summary dashboards for Agent Builder agents. You must use single-row data sets to provide data for summary dashboards. You can provide such data sets from entire log files and from any sets of data that can be filtered to a single row. For more information, see Monitoring a log file, Filtering attribute groups, and Preparing the agent for Cloud APM.

When you create an agent to monitor data from a Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) database, you can modify the enumeration values that are set for Error, Missing data, and No value to avoid overlap with legitimate values in the database.

You can set the Time Stamping Authority for JAR files in the Agent Builder Preferences window. If the default Time Stamping Authority signing certificate expires, by setting a new authority, you can continue to verify JAR files.

Enhanced integration
Customizable EIF Slots for events
When you have event forwarding configured, you can customize the base EIF slot message and create custom EIF slots for events sent to a receiver such as Netcool/OMNIbus. The Threshold Editor has a new Forward EIF Event? field and EIF Slot Customization button for customizing how events are mapped to forwarded events. For more information, see Customizing an event to forward to an EIF receiver.
Multiple Hybrid Gateways
In previous releases, you were able to install the Hybrid Gateway on a single IBM Tivoli Monitoring domain, which has one hub Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server. You can now install a Hybrid Gateway on multiple Tivoli Monitoring domains. The Hybrid Gateway category in the Cloud APM console Advanced Configuration page has been moved to its own Hybrid Gateway Manager page. Here you can create and edit Hybrid Gateway profiles for monitoring managed systems from multiple Tivoli Monitoring domains, one profile for each domain. For more information, see Hybrid Gateway.
Enhanced scalability
An increase in the maximum number of managed systems that you can monitor from Cloud APM, Private from 4,000 managed systems to 10,000 managed systems.
API
You can use APIs to create scripts for automating the onboarding of your Performance Management environment. For more information, see Exploring the APIs.

Previous releases

For information about new features, capabilities, and coverage in previous releases, see the following What's new topics: