We are very happy to announce that FrameFlow v2018.7 was released on December 19th and is available for download. If you haven't already upgraded, take a minute to do so soon so you can take advantage of the new features and functionality.

Syntax-Aware SQL Editing

Did you know that using FrameFlow's database event monitors, you can write your own SQL code to run queries, stored procedures or pretty much anything else? It's a great way to implement custom monitoring to make sure your database applications are healthy and responding. FrameFlow has built-in support for SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL. It also includes an ODBC event monitor that lets you do the same for any database that supports ODBC (and almost all of them do).

In v2018.7 we've enhanced the built-in code editor for your SQL scripts. Now, instead of entering your script in a generic text box, you can take advantage of line numbers, syntax highlighting and more.

Improved Interface Speed on IIS

If you're running FrameFlow on IIS, after upgrading to v2018.7 you will notice a significant improvement in the responsiveness of the interface, especially if you are taking advantage of our multi-site monitoring abilities. In this release, we reworked the components that let IIS communicate with the FrameFlow services, optimized some of the techniques used and eliminated a number of bottlenecks. The result is much faster navigation as you work within FrameFlow.

Optimizing SNMP Interface Monitoring

One of FrameFlow's strengths is scalability. When we give a demo, people are often astounded at how FrameFlow can monitor hundreds or thousands of systems all from a single server running on fairly modest hardware. That's not only true for keeping track of basic metrics like CPU, memory and disk space but also for SNMP monitoring.

One FrameFlow instance can monitor hundreds of switches, routers and other SNMP-enabled gear. It might seem that monitoring network gear is much the same as monitoring a server but in fact, it can be significantly more challenging. While a server might have a handful of disks and number of network interfaces, a stacked switch can have hundreds of interfaces and each interface can have ten, twenty or more counters to keep track of things like bandwidth, errors, discards, unicast packets, and queue lengths.

In FrameFlow 2018.7 we've added a new option our SNMP Interface event monitor to give you better control over which data points the event monitor will collect on each run. The event monitor currently has the ability to collect 11 different data points and by default, it will record each of them for each interface. The new data point option lets you tell the event monitor to only record the data points for which you have set thresholds.

For example, if you have an SNMP Interface event monitor and it set to alert based on interface error rates, set the data point option to "Record Results for Monitored Items Only". That way you'll get data points for error rates only. If error rates are all you are interested in, the result is reduced clutter and over the long run lots of space savings allowing you to collect other data over longer periods of time.