Release Notes

New features, feature enhancements, and bug fixes in this release:

Dashboard - version 1.3.0

Service Experience Insights v1.3.0 is a major release of the on-demand testing feature that also includes helpful improvements to existing features and minor fixes that improve the overall usability.

New Features

On-demand Troubleshooting

The new troubleshooting tab on each agent page enables a SEI Dashboard Admin or Co-admin to instantly run a suite of on-demand troubleshooting tests on any online agent without the need to access the agent or host device.

This capability extends the capabilities of Service Experience insights from a network monitoring service into a powerful troubleshooting and diagnostics assets for enterprise users.

• Run on-demand tests for any agent directly from the dashboard without accessing the host device.
• Designed for users experienced in network troubleshooting in a Linux environment.
• Tests are available for every agent directly from the dashboard and do not require direct device access. Click the troubleshooting tab on any agent and run tests instantly
• Intuitive test inputs and familiar CLI-like output eliminate the learning curve to perform tests.
• Test results stream directly to the dashboard providing real-time network information and test results.
• Enable packet capture PCAP for up to one hour. Download .PCAP files for use in existing network visibility processes and tools like Wireshark
• Enabled for all agents version 0.5.12 and above

Available tests:

Network Information

• Begin troubleshooting with real-time network information for the agent
• Network Information for the agent is fetched when the troubleshooting tab is loaded or the update button is clicked
• View information about the agent’s network Interfaces, routing table, ARP table, IPv6 table, and WiFi

Ping Test

• Verify host reachability and view real-time loss and RTT from each agent to any reachable internet endpoint.
• Send up to 1000 requests. View packets and minimum, average, maximum, and StdDev RTT for all attempts sent during the test.
• Use advanced configuration options for more specific tests:
  • IP versions - V4 (default) or V6
  • Payload size upto 8 bytes to 10 Kb
  • Echo time out up to 5 seconds
  • TTL up to 225 seconds
  • DSCP (many options)
  • Ability to enter custom source destination IP

DNS Lookup

• Interrogate DNS name servers, and perform DNS lookup that displays the answers that are returned from the name server(s)
• Lookup DNS of any address
• Query by record type - many selectable options (defaults to Type A)
• Supports custom DNS port (Default to 53) and DNS server IP address
• Switch from TCP to UDP

Path Discovery

• Path Discovery enables multipath UDP, ICMP, and TCP path tracing for existing targets or any destination endpoint
• View the latency of each hop between that agent and target to identify intermediate hops and potential bottlenecks
• Perform up to 10 attempts per test (defaults to 3)
• Switch IP version from V4 (default) to V6
• Choose Protocol: UDP (default), ICMP, and TCP
• View that latency to hop for each path trace attempt

HTTP Test

• Send synthetic HTTP traffic to simulate agent-to-server interaction with existing HTTP targets or any HTTP endpoint
• Sends HTTP requests to measure response times and availability of applications, APIs, and cloud-hosted services
• Identify server-side issues that may otherwise appear as network capacity limitations
• Switch IP version from V4 (default) to V6
• Thoroughly test API connectivity with GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE Request Methods
• Add custom request headers and body
• Basic authentication (username and password) supported
• Optionally enter local IP as the source for the test

Packet Capture

• Pinpoint the root cause of network issues with packet capture.
• Enable packet capture to examine detailed network information about packets, protocols, and payloads of all packet traffic from an agent.
• Capture just the headers or perform full packet capture for up to one hour.
• Packet Capture (PCAP) files are instantly available for download when the capture duration is complete, or the process is canceled.
• PCAP files are available for download until packet capture is enabled again

Feature Enhancements

Expandable Map Views

• Expandable Maps allow dashboard users to customize the map size to view the location of agents in larger geographic areas.
• Expand maps by clicking the expand icon at the bottom of the map frame and drag vertically. Click reset to snap the map back to the smaller default view.

Improved Plot Rendering

• Plots component enhance to support better handling of large data sets. Plot data is now being loaded with pagination to support the rendering of large data sets and 45-second time out to eliminate page failures resulting from data requests that are too large to render.

Probing Distributions agent and target counts

• More intuitive labeling in the dashboard removes confusion about the number of agents and targets assigned to a probing distribution versus the number of agents actively sending probing traffic.

Resolved Issues

• Map Views
  • Issue - The agent was not visible on the map when its geographical location was discovered by IP lookup, and no fallback address was added to the agent record.
  • Resolution - Map view now uses active agent location instead of the primary location entered by the user. If an active location is not found, the primary location is used.

Changes in this release:

Dashboard - version 1.2.3

Minor release (improvement)

• Improved: Agent and target plot alignment period resets to the default alignment period when longer time periods are set with the time range selector. Doing so, increases plot loading performance and reduces the likelihood of pages freezing when the amount of data requested exceeds the capacity of of the plot visualization library. See default time ranges are listed in the Metrics article.

• Improved: Tables with more than 100 results are now sortable in ascending and descending order by clicking the column label in sortable columns. Sortable columns are indicated with an up arrow for ascending and down arrow for descending. This change removed the partial sorting capability of other columns. While fewer columns are now sortable, the sorting quality is greatly improved for resource names and groups. Table search and filtering is are unaffected by this update.

Minor release (hotfix)

• Fixed: Heatmaps on the dashboard and probing distributions pages load with a 48-hour time range by default. The data in the heatmaps used a 1 hour alignment period for any time range selected. However, 15 minutes is the default auto-alignment period for the 48-hour time range in the plots. With this fix, heatmaps now use the same auto-alignment period as the plots, making the data in the heatmaps align better with the data in the plots.

• Fixed: The time zone function in the regions settings was not updating the time for regions observing daylight savings time. The time zone component has been updated to automatically adjust to daylight savings time changes in all regions.

• Fixed: External IP was being saved as an Internal IP address when configuring target functionality for Static and Cloud Agents. The Add and Edit agents modal forms were updated to ensure that the External IP configuration is saved to the agent record.

• Fix: Path discovery visualizations on the agent pages did not align with the time range of the plots. Path visualizations are now synched with the metric value shown in the plot lines. This improves troubleshooting by making viewing the hops at any point in the time series data easier.

Changes in this release:

Dashboard - version 1.2.2

Minor release (improvement)

• Improved: In this update, the pagination functionality of the agent table has been refined. When advancing through the paginated results within the table, agents are consistently displayed alphabetically, offering a clear and expected progression of agent display names when each paginated table view is rendered.

Changes in this release:

Dashboard - version 1.2.1

Minor release (hotfix)

• Fixed: Updated Favicon image from Watchdog Icon to NTT Infinite Loop (per NTT Ltd. brand guidelines March 2023)

• Fixed: Added menu support for NTT Ltd. Service Portal

Note: Minor release policy

• Minor hotfix releases are incremented in the third digit of the version number and are released on a continual basis without prior notice. Examples of hotfixes are minor changes and bug fixes that improve but do not materially alter the end user’s experience. These continuous updates are listed by date in the release notes.

• New features and major updates to existing features are packaged into a major release that is incremented in the second digit (i.e., 1.1 to 1.2). Updated documentation is provided for these releases.

New features, feature enhancements, and bug fixes in this release:

Dashboard - version 1.2.0

New Features

Alerts

• The Alerts feature helps The Service Experience Insights users improve service quality and user satisfaction through proactive performance monitoring, issue identification, and faster resolution.

• Use the Alerts feature to create threshold-based Alert Policies that continuously monitor the performance of agent-to-target paths. These policies trigger Alerts and Alert Notifications when the observed metrics violate the threshold for the duration of the event. Create Alert Policies to monitor latency, jitter, loss, HTTP target availability, WiFi signal strength, and agent connectivity. Configure the trigger - Alerts are stored in time series and listed in the Alerts table. Each Alert links to an Alert page that shows the threshold and the observed metrics before, during, and after the event—view by searching the Alerts table or clicking through from a notification.

• Receive alerts for a single agent-to-target path or use Agent and Targets Groups to trigger alerts that identify issues specific to certain regions or network segments.

• Subscribe to alerts via webhooks or email. Webhooks allow users to receive real-time notifications and trigger automated actions responding to an alert, such as populating a Slack channel. Subscribe to a webhook to receive a JSON file for alerts grouped by Alert Policy. Use webhooks with your existing systems to automate tasks like sending an SMS message or opening a ticket in a service management tool.

  • Continuous monitoring: The feature enables users to create Alert Policies that continuously monitor the performance of agent-to-target paths, ensuring that issues are identified and addressed promptly.

  • Threshold-based alerts: Alert Policies trigger Alerts and Alert Notifications when observed metrics violate the threshold for the duration of the event. This helps to identify performance issues and take corrective actions proactively.

  • Multiple monitoring options: Users can create Alert Policies to monitor latency, jitter, loss, HTTP target availability, WiFi signal strength, and agent connectivity, providing comprehensive monitoring coverage.

  • Configurable triggers and notifications: Users can configure the trigger conditions and notification channels for Alerts triggered by the Alert Policy, allowing them to customize the alerting process to meet their specific needs.

  • Group-based alerts: Users can receive alerts for a single agent-to-target path or use Agent and Targets Groups to trigger alerts that identify issues specific to certain regions or network segments.

  • Integration with existing systems: The feature allows users to subscribe to alerts via webhooks or email and integrate with their existing systems to automate tasks like sending an SMS message or opening a ticket in a service management tool.

  • Real-time notifications: Webhooks enable users to receive real-time notifications and trigger automated actions responding to an alert, such as populating a Slack channel, ensuring that issues are addressed promptly.

Downloadable Data

• Download .CSV and image files for every data visualization in the application.

• Benefits of this feature Include:

  • Flexibility: Conduct more in-depth analysis of the data, including creating custom visualizations, charts, and graphs that is not available be available in the dashboard. Import downloaded .CSV file into various applications like Excel to create reports and combine them with data from other sources.

  • Enhanced Data Visibility: Use .csv files to compare Service Experience Insights data with other sources.

  • Collaborative Analysis: Share the downloaded file with team members that do not have dashboard access.

  • Easier Reporting: .CSV files are easily consumable by other reporting tools and downloadable image files remove the hassle of taking screenshots for PPT presentations.

Feature Enhancements

Improved Data Visualization

• Expandable plots and better plot navigation make focusing on events in the Agent and Target metrics plots easier.

• Combined with the new data download feature, these improvements make the data more accessible and actionable.

  • Expandable plots enable the user to view all agents or targets in a single plot view.

  • Improved plot navigation makes it easier to zoom in and out of time ranges to compare individual agent-to-target paths.

• Improved path discovery (Hops) visualization

  • The Path Discovery time slider is now synced with the plot zoom function to make correlating a hop path with a spike in the plot lines easier.

  • Unreachable targets are now shown after the last detected hop, with the target identified as unreachable. The unreachable target is outlined in red with a message to indicate that the system attempted to detect the path but was unable to do so either because the server did not respond or due to a network issue that prevented the detection packets from reaching the target.

Availble Tests

Resolved Issues

• Time zone settings

  • Issue - Metrics were displayed for the time zone detected in the user’s browser, not the region settings of the dashboard.

  • Resolution - The time range was component refactored to convert time to dashboard location settings.

• Large Dataset Handline

  • Issue - Storing API selectors in URL caused pages to fail when handling large datasets producing an HTTP response code 414 error message.

  • Resoluton - Refactored URL string handling to shorten URLs for large queries.

Changes in this release:

Dashboard - version 1.1.33

• Minor UI Update
  • Added support for displaying more than 100 projects in the project selector dropdown.
  • This change is relevant for organization-level admin users with permissions to view projects accross entire organiztion.

Changes in this release:

Dashboard - version 1.1.32

• Service stability and maintenance
  • Added CI/CD functionality for development server migration to staging environments.

Changes in this release:

Dashboard - version 1.1.31

• UX improvement

  • Agent page, Speed Test

  • Last updated time is not available in real-time; therefore, the time displayed could not be instantly updated after the manual speed test.

  • Remove the last updated time from the Speed Test panel to eliminate confusion.

• Bug fixes

  • Pending Agents removed from Dashboard Agent Selector, link count - link counts only activated agents selected in the dashboard view.

  • The target page agent selector could not select more than 20 agents. Selector query logic updated to choose the first 200 agents and make 201+ agents selectable.

  • Table column sorting did not function for some table columns in the Activity Logs and Agent page tables.

  • The table component was reconfigured to enable sorting all sortable table columns.

  • Missing JA translations - added translation check function to find all missing translations. Translations are updated and 100%. Future missing translations are less likely, and the time to discover/respond with a hotfix is improved.

Mobile Agent - version 0.3.0

• Replaced Watchdog project identification app icons to reflect Service Experience Insights product identification.

• Removed user feedback icons for the deprecated user rating service.