One of the more common issues that I run into is WMI communications problems. WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is an SNMP like framework that exposes a ton of Windows system information. The good news is that it is part of a standard install with Win2k, WinXP, Win2k3, WinVista, and Win2k8. The bad news is, oddly enough, it only works with Windows systems.
If you are having WMI connectivity issues with WUG, first check the obvious stuff;
1. Username and Password are correct.
2. Username has administrative privilege on the system you want to monitor.
3. The IP/Hostname is/are correct.
If you have checked all of that, look at the event log on the monitored system. See lots of Kerberos errors as you have been attempting to chat with the device? If yes, check the time on the monitored server and the monitoring server.
If you remove all time zone differences (figure back to UTC 0, or GMT) what is the difference? If it is more than 3-5 minutes, WMI monitoring will never work. The security ticket is expired before it’s ever used, or worse is issued for a time that hasn’t occurred yet.

In this case a simple time change may fix the problem. Now this is a temporary fix, as the Mickey Mouse watch I had in second grade kept truer time than most PC’s. You will want to look at setting up a time server to keep this from happening again. And while you are at it, set up a NTP monitor for that new time server.

If you are a current WhatsUp Gold user, or you are looking at WhatsUp Gold, version 12 is right around the corner. There are quite a few new features (20ish) that really enhance WhatsUp as the swiss army knife of network monitoring.

According to Ipswitch, “WhatsUp Gold v12.0 introduces a total of 20 new features and functionality enhancements across all versions of the product family including a number of new tools for SNMP, Split Second Graphs for workspaces and dashboards, high-speed counters, and Microsoft® VistaTM support as both a monitored OS and management host.“

The Split Second Graphs (or SSG’s) are the most outwardly visible reporting change, and honestly they are way cool. For those of you who have been using WUG for a while will notice that this is an updated version of the SNMP Grapher, with the notable inclusion of WMI counters as well. (And the whole web-based thing too.)

They go on to say “New SNMP tools and enhancements provide increased flexibility, capabilities, and configurability of SNMP v1-3 for the WhatsUp Gold product family.“

This is one of those rare things, a marketing understatement. If you savvy SNMP you will be overjoyed with this long needed additions. (If you don’t savvy SNMP, think about signing up for a WhatsUp training class, we spend some time on that.

All-in-all this looks to be a big update with lots of needed under the hood fixes (gigabit interfaces, anyone?) and a slew of new features to boot. Stay tuned and we will keep you advised.

At WhatsUp Training, we strive to keep you up to date on the latest news, information and tidbits that affect you with WhatsUp Gold.

Our trainers will be periodically updating this blog. Who knows, they may add special “how to” videos, snippets of code they recommend or just give you ideas for best practices. In any case, this blog will help you with WhatsUp Gold.

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Thanks
The WhatsUp Training Team