InterMapper Newsletter - November 2007

In This Issue:

InterMapper Helps One Family Reduce its Carbon Footprint

Bill Doering is Director of Technology at the Gervitz Graduate School of Education, University of California at Santa Barbara. "I'm responsible to make sure that everything is up and running; servers and services. I've been using InterMapper for years to monitor IMAP, SMTP, LDAP, network switches, and of course, websites."

Bill also uses InterMapper network monitoring and mapping software to stay on top of an air conditioning issue that was heating up his server room. A few years later, monitoring temperature and humidity became important issues for Doering at home.

Doering was looking for a home that would accommodate his growing family. With the high price of real estate in Santa Barbara he and his wife decided to take her father's offer to swap houses. "We bought his and he bought ours." That left resources for adding space and leveraging the house's south-facing orientation for passive solar energy.

"We wanted to do more than save on energy bills," says Doering. "We wanted to create an affordable, easy to follow model for others which required … taking advantage of solar energy without heating the house too much." With the performance simulation model that Doering and his father created they wanted to see if the actual envelope performed to the standards set by their model. Doering recycled his work experience with InterMapper and EDS temperature sensors.

"We keep a constant check on temperature and humidity inside and outside the house," Bill explained. "We have EDS sensors in the living room, attic, and outside and report the data using InterMapper. We can see what each device is reporting. For example, if the building envelope is holding too much heat and making the house too hot or leaking heat and making the house cold." Outside, Doering is monitoring the temperatures in sun and shade to contrast them against the indoor and attic temperatures.

While InterMapper does include built-in EDS probes, Doering had to create custom probes for the specific devices he's using. "I started with InterMapper's EDS probe and made modifications so they would work for my devices. I found that to be a fairly straightforward process, and I'm not a programmer."

More network monitoring is on the way. "I need to keep track of the solar water heater and back-up on-demand water heater. When I can see how often the on-demand system is going on and off, I can tell how much free water heating we're getting."

Doering and his family have already done a lot to reduce their carbon footprint but he's looking forward to further gains. "The next step is to become carbon neutral," says Doering. "Maybe we'll install solar panels or buy some form of alternative 'green' energy. Until then, we'll continue to monitor current systems so that we can establish a baseline against which to compare future improvements. And we'll be able to tell if the envelope materials are continuing to perform over time."

InterMapper Database Enhancement

Dartware is working on a database add-on for InterMapper. With this new feature, InterMapper will collect and store data in an SQL database. This project is under active development now and we have assembled a small group of testers who are willing to work at testing the early versions. As it gets to be a stronger release we will make an announcement on the InterMapper-Talk mailing list.

Hardware Survey

We're curious to know about your InterMapper installation - what version you're using, how many devices you monitor, etc.

We've created a two-page survey to collect this information. You can take the survey at:

http://tinyurl.com/3c27gp

If you include your name and email address when you fill out the survey, we'll enter you in a raffle for a $100 gift card.

Training: Custom Probe Creation Class

Our training partner Intelek Technologies presents four-hour on-line classes that show how to design and create custom probes for InterMapper. These webinars are offered several times a month. Contact Intelek Technologies for more information.

Gallery of Map Screen Shots

We've received a number of screen shots of customer's maps, and placed them in an on-line gallery. You can see the contributions so far at:

http://gallery.dartware.com

We'd love to get more - please send us a note at info@dartware.com if you'd like to add your map(s).

New Knowledge Base

We have created a new Knowledge Base that lists various questions we've received from our customers. It's now available from this URL:

http://forums.dartware.com

You'll find items like these in the Knowledge Base:

Q. Is there an easy way to select a number of devices that are all connected?

You can progressively select a group of connected items (perhaps so you can move them to a separate part of the map) by alt-clicking (option-clicking on Macintosh). The first alt-click selects the leaf nodes, then next alt-click selects everything else that's connected to the selection. The next alt-click selects the leaf nodes again, etc. You can then drag the entire selection to a convenient location.

Q. I want to use the NT Services probe, but when I enter the username and password in the Probe Configuration window, I receive a login failure message indicating the account does not exist on the target machine. I know the account exists.

When configuring the NT Services probe, it is helpful to use an account that has administrative privileges on both the InterMapper server and the target machines that you want to probe, e.g. a domain administrator account.

Q. I deleted several interfaces that I don't want to monitor, but they reappear on the map. How can I permanently remove these interfaces?

InterMapper periodically scans routers and switches and displays newly discovered interfaces. If you delete an interface from the map, InterMapper rediscovers it and displays it again.

To hide these interfaces so they are not rediscovered, select the device, right-click and select the Interfaces Window from the contextual menu. You can uncheck the interfaces that you want to hide in this window.

Alternatively, you can select the interfaces you want to hide and use the Edit > Hide/Show > Hide Selection command

Have your own great tip? Send it to:

tips@dartware.com

About InterMapper:

InterMapper is network mapping, monitoring and alerting software. It'll monitor just about everything on your network and let you know (via audible alerts, e-mails, pages, text messages, etc.) about any problems. You can learn more about InterMapper from http://dartware.com/intermapper/

You can reach us at:

Dartware, LLC
10 Buck Road, PO Box 130
Hanover, NH USA
Toll Free: 877-276-6903