We are proud to announce the release of Zenoss 2.4. The latest Zenoss version was developed in conjunction with our community of more than 40,000 members who provided product input, monitoring extensions, patches and beta testing.

Zenoss 2.4

Zenoss 2.4 includes the following new features:

• Set-Up Wizard – Zenoss Core now includes a guided setup to create users and to easily add devices to be monitored. The easy-to-use setup will prompt Zenoss users for authentication credentials for Windows and Linux/UNIX servers as well as community strings for SNMP devices.
• SSH Monitoring Capabilities – Zenoss users can now securely access Linux and Unix servers via secure shell to pull performance metrics and develop extensions for deep reporting capabilities of server performance.
• Improved Reporting – Zenoss now provides the ability to normalize data into common units. Users can now add aliases to data points and convert performance metrics to measures that are consistent across all devices.
• Extended Monitoring Guide – A new extended monitoring guide provides detailed information on how to gather metrics and outlines best practices for managing IT infrastructure with Zenoss Core.

In addition to the new features, the documentation has all been refreshed and substantially updated.  For this release, there were over 400 external tickets closed, greatly improving the overall stability and reliability of Zenoss Core. We would also like to take the opportunity to thank and highlight the 70+ community-contributed ZenPacks that are currently available.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the Zenoss 2.4 “Blue Crab” beta program as well!

Release Notes for Zenoss 2.4.0

Downloads and evaluations are available at Zenoss Download.

Greetings from Zenoss,

We are pleased to announce the start of the beta-testing cycle for the next major release of Zenoss, 2.4 (aka “Blue Crab”). The beta is not ready for production and is not recommended for new users. Your participation is an invaluable part of the Zenoss software development process. It is your feedback that helps us continue developing high-quality releases. On behalf of the entire Zenoss team, we thank you for your time and efforts.

NEW FEATURES IN THE BETA  INCLUDE:

• Setup and Configuration Wizard – Point and click guide through the initial install and configuration of Zenoss. The wizard greatly reduces the time it takes to setup Zenoss and simplifies configuration tasks.
• Scalable, Agentless Monitoring of Linux/Unix Servers – Easy to deploy, agentless monitoring for Linux with no compromise to scalability or security.
• Normalization of Monitoring Metrics Across Platforms – A single consistent view of your monitoring information across Linux, Unix and Microsoft Windows platforms. Simplifies cross-platform management and reporting in the enterprise.

SUGGESTED NEW TEST CASES

Below is an outline of suggested use cases that test the major areas of new functionality. Please attempt to run through as many of these areas as possible. The other major objective of this beta program is to ensure the product has been exposed to real customer environments. You are strongly encouraged to test and exercise any part of the product in a similar manner to your production installation.

INSTALLATION AND UPGRADE

1. Please go to http://www.zenoss.com/beta/2.4/ to get started with your download.
2. Install a fresh installation of Zenoss on your platform using your preferred installation distribution. At this point we do not have the VMware images and Red Hat/CentOS 5 installers available for download, they will be available shortly.
3. For customers running a development or non-production version of Zenoss, please test the Zenoss upgrade functionality.
4. The upgrade between the 2.4 beta to the 2.4 release is not officially supported, and we will not be testing it.

GENERAL USAGE

1. Monitor a set of devices that represent your current production installation.
2. Set monitoring thresholds that are representative of your current production installation.
3. Configure events in a similar manner to your production environment.
4. Browse dashboard, event console, device list, network map and reports. Verify the necessary information is presented.
5. Configure alerts in a similar manner to your production environment. Verify alerts are sent and contain the expected information.

OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS

1. Did you encounter any errors that caused Zenoss to stop working? If so, please describe.
2. Did the user interface show unexpected exceptions or cryptic error pages? If so, please describe.
3. Did the new Linux SSH monitoring capabilities work as expected? Did you encounter any errors? If so, please describe.
4. Did the new reporting capabilities work as expected? Did you encounter any errors? If so, please describe.
5. Did the new setup wizard work as expected? Did you encounter any errors? If so, please describe.
6. Do you have any additional comments or feedback on this beta version?

There is a forum for discussing issues with the beta that is called “zenoss-testing” and available at http://forums.zenoss.com Like all of our other forums, you may subscribe to it as a mailing list if you prefer.  Just go to http://www.zenoss.com/mailprefs_form and select “zenoss-testing” under “Receive emails”. All announcements regarding the status of the beta will be made to this forum.

If you are interested we can provide Trac accounts or you can use the “zenoss” account to open defects. If you have any questions about anything beta-related please post on the “zenoss-testing” forum. Future updates to the beta will be discussed in the zenoss-testing forum as well.

Thank you again for participating in the Zenoss 2.4 Beta program.