Author: Argent Admin

Version Argent Advanced Technology 5.1A-1610-A and later Date Monday, 14 November 2016 Summary Most ISPs (Internet Service Provider) provide SMTP and POP3 services supporting SSL/TLS protocols only The typical examples include Gmail and Yahoo Argent AT 5.1A-1610-A has been enhanced to support such protocols Click For Full Size Besides the typical mail server address and […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1407-A and later Date Friday, 22 July 2016 Summary To generate bandwidth usage report using NetFlow data Technical Background Using Argent for SNMP, it is possible generate bandwidth usage report using NetFlow data Configure the Router to send NetFlow data to Argent server License the Router in Argent for SNMP GUI […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology all versions Date Thursday, 12 March 2015 Summary Occasionally Performance Rules, System Rules and WMI Script Rules cannot give the required data from a remote machine, because the required Performance Counter has not been defined by Microsoft For example, a remote machine is not accepting TCP connections and it is found […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1410-A or earlier Date Wednesday, 31 Dec 2014 Summary When Argent Console Engine is sending batches of SMS Alerts, Alerts of newly incoming Events will be significantly delayed The issue is addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1501-A Technical Background Argent Console Engine put incoming Event requests in a FIFO queue An Event […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1410-A or earlier Date Monday, 22 Dec 2014 Summary Argent AT can use email gateway to send SMS messages The SMS email gateway can be used as a backup for SMS modem, or the sole mechanism sending SMS messages when SMS modem is not used Customer may find some phone numbers […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1501-A and later Date Monday, 22 Dec 2014 Summary Argent AT uses SMS Alert to notify critical issues It is important to make sure SMS modem working all the time Just like other hardware issues, SMS Modem may suddenly stop functioning for various reasons To name a few, power outage, lost […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1501-A and later Date Friday, 19 Dec 2014 Summary Argent Alert Executor can be used to send and receive SMS messages in following scenarios: Argent AT is implemented in virtual infrastructure such as popular VMware and XenServer It is difficult to attach SMS modems to a VM Cellular signal strength is […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1501-A and later Date Friday, 19 Dec 2014 Summary Argent AT version 3.1A-1501-A greatly improves SMS modem performance The time sending a message is reduced from 30 seconds to 4 or 5 seconds Technical Background The serial communication between server and modem is generally slow Modem initialization includes hardware initialization and […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1501-A and later Date Tuesday, 16 Dec 2014 Thursday, 22 Feb 2018: updated with default values in 1710-A Friday, 6 Apr 2018: updated with new default values for 1804-A Summary Argent AT products have some SQL and TCP related registries In versions earlier than 3.1A-1501-A, the registries reside in product-specific registry […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1407-A and later Date Tuesday, 29 July 2014 Summary SMS Macro is a list of SMS phone numbers It is used in SMS Alert so that SMS phone numbers can be reused and easily managed Click For Full Size When customer defines a SMS Alert, he can either directly enter one […]

Version Added to Argent for Compliance 3.1A-1401-T5 and later Date Wednesday, 9 Apr 2014 Summary Argent for Compliance 3.1A-1401-T5 and later allow customer to monitor various activities and settings of Windows Network Share It also provides reports that list existing shares as well as changes Technical Background Argent for Compliance uses WMI to retrieve Network […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1310-A or below Date Monday, 9 Dec 2013 Summary When license expires, both the Argent AT Mother and Daughter Engines shut down After a new license is applied to the Mother Engine and this license is automatically exported to the Daughter Engine, the Daughter Engine still cannot start due to the […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 3.1A-1308-A and above Date Monday, 29 Jul 2013 Summary Customers can specify the bytes-to-send limit of an SMS message Technical Background The SMS message byte limit is controlled by the customer’s cellular service provider, 128 bytes for most telephone companies, 160 bytes for some others. In Argent XT, it is specified […]

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1307-A or above Date Tue, 25 Jun 2013 Summary After a customer deletes a node from the CMDB-X, after the GUI restarts, the node seems to magically re-appear in the CMDB-X. Technical Background The CMDB-X is shared among all AT products. Argent AT checks if the node is licensed […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule category ‘Free Space In Database Log File Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to calculate the percentage of free space remaining in log file of each database in an SQL Server Click […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule category ‘Data Size In TempDB Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to calculate the percentage of data size in tempdb Click For Full Size Example 1: Rule ‘TEMPDB_SIZE_SQL2008_AT_LIMIT‘ is broken if the […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule category ‘Free Space In Database Data Files Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to calculate the percentage of free space remaining in data file in database Click For Full Size Example 1: […]

Version All Argent Advanced Technology versions prior to 1304-L Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Monitor for Oracle fails to connect to Oracle database Technical Background A DLL named OCI.DLL was included in previous versions of Argent for Oracle which caused connectivity issue with Oracle Database server Resolution The issue has been addressed from […]

Version All Argent Advanced Technology versions prior to 1304-L Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent for SharePoint fails to identify SharePoint Installation Technical Background N/A Resolution The issue has been addressed from Argent Advanced Technology version 1304-L onwards

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule ‘Powershell Script Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to check regularly for any cluster failover Click For Full Size Technical Background If a cluster is unbalanced, instances can contend for memory and […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new set of Rules called ‘Database Settings Best Practices‘ in Argent for SQL Server which check database areas for performance improvement Click For Full Size Technical Background These are checks which should generally be […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule ‘Database Statistics Updating Due Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to ensure the statistics across all tables are updated at least once in a week and reports back any indexes which have […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule ‘Log Shipping Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to calculate the frequency of transactions log shipping Click For Full Size Example 1: Rule ‘LOG_SHIPPING_SQL2008_APPROACHING_LIMIT‘ is broken if the transaction log shipping latency […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced by modifying default wait interval in ‘Query Blocked Process Rules‘ to 5 seconds in Argent for SQL Server Click For Full Size Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule category ‘SQL Compilation Ratio Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to calculate the ratio between ‘SQL Compilations/sec‘ and ‘Batch Requests/sec‘ Click For Full Size Example 1: ‘SQL Compilation Ratio Rules‘ calculate the […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule category ‘SQL Re-Compilation Ratio Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to calculate the ratio between ‘SQL Re-Compilations/sec‘ and ‘Batch Requests/sec‘ Click For Full Size Example 1: ‘SQL Re-Compilation Ratio Rules‘ calculate the […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule ‘SECURITY_SQL2008_CHECK‘ in Argent for SQL Server to check the execution of security related SQL statements Click For Full Size Technical Background This Rule checks and alerts on execution of the following commands […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with reconfiguring the ‘Instant Best Practice Rules‘ more realistically and precisely in Argent for SQL Server Click For Full Size Technical Background Enhanced Argent for SQL Server by reconfiguring the Instant Best Practice values more realistically […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new set of Rules called ‘Best Practice Configuration Checks‘ in Argent for SQL Server which check areas for performance improvement Click For Full Size Technical Background Best Practice Configuration Checks Contains The Following Rules […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule ‘Log Send Queue Rule‘ in Argent for SQL Server to calculate the total kilobytes of log that have not yet been sent to the mirror server Click For Full Size Example 1: […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule ‘Average Latch Wait Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to calculate average latch wait time in milliseconds Click For Full Size Example 1: ‘Average Latch Wait Rules‘ calculate average latch wait time […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule category ‘Average Fragmentation In Percent Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to identify the percentage of fragmentation for indexes Click For Full Size Example 1: ‘Average Fragmentation In Percent Rules‘ check SQL […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with a new Rule category ‘Average Disk Second Per Write Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to find the Average Disk sec/Write Click For Full Size Example 1: ‘Average Disk Second Per Write Rules‘ measure average […]

Version Argent Advanced Technology 1304-L and above Date Friday, 3 May 2013 Summary Argent Advanced Technology has been enhanced with ‘SQL Server Instance Failover Rules‘ in Argent for SQL Server to check SQL Server instance failover Click For Full Size Example Rule ‘SQL_SERVER_INSTANCE_FAILOVER_CHECK‘ returns an error when SQL Server is engaged in some activity other […]

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where automatic correction does not work due to very long OIDs in Argent For SNMP The OID is saved as the comparison “COMPARE” field in the alert record By default the event record can only hold up to […]

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where automatic correction does not work due to internal file corruption Argent previously kept all events to be processed in memory, and wrote information out periodically as a single file to the file system. If the file is […]

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where Argent spawns a huge number Of CONHOST.EXE processes for each Rule executed This issue occurs only in Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Argent Engines Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed exception errors that would be generated when selecting multiple nodes in the License Manager, and changing the “Use Other Credentials” property Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where a corrupted KB.XML file would cause Daughter Engines to shut down unexpectedly Daughter Engines will now regenerate KB.XML from the downloaded DAT file and try again. Technical Background The KB.XML file holds Argent’s Best Practice Rules and […]

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed. While the name of the location may have different names, when the CITY/STATE/REGION is exactly the same as another location definition, this would cause the database table holding all location definitions to become corrupted, due to “unique row” constraints on […]

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where a new node scan changes the Network Group for existing nodes in the CMDB-X The network group of the existing node is now preserved Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed a memory leak in Argent for Compliance This issue is caused by a coding error when writing compressed Event Log archive data to the file system. Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed a memory leak that occurred due to Argent’s database library This issue affects all Argent AT products. The issue is caused by the DAL library (Database Access Layer). Reading one record can lose about 256 bytes. It can add up […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary When {Dynamic} is used as the Monitoring Engine, Argent AT uses the ‘Default Monitoring Engine’ setting in the Network Group the node belongs under to determine which Monitoring Engine is responsible for monitoring the node If the Network Group does not specify the ‘Default […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary The grid-width can be adjusted in the Console Appearance Settings, and enabled using the right-click menu ‘Use Grid’ Click For Full Size Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary The operation types for the parameter “Operation” can be ‘File Deleted’, ‘File Modified’ or ‘File Attributes Changed’ Click For Full Size Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary This is accomplished by optimizing the algorithm to compute the Monitoring Group contents. For some Monitoring Groups, reading time can exceed 60 seconds when Monitoring Groups use ODBC-queries or embed nested Monitoring Groups. Click For Full Size Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary The reports are backward compatible Customers can set the parameter {USER] to ‘*’ or simply not specify it to get reports on ALL logon/logoff users. Click For Full Size Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary This feature is useful for customers who aren’t monitoring machines on the same domain as the target machine, and access to the target machines require the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) For example, instead of saving the node as “PEGASUS”, it would save the node […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary With this option, customers can specify alerts to be fired from the Main Engine, a node-specific Alert Executor, or an explicitly-specified Alert Executor. Click For Full Size Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Argent for Compliance now filters the events first with an Event ID before composing the event log message. This is especially significant for Rules that monitor Security Logs for a few Event IDs. The security log for Domain Controllers can be massive, and composing […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Expired maintenance schedules refer to one-time schedules such as ‘(Special) From 21 Mar 2013 10:00 To 22 Mar 2013 11:59’. These schedules are only meaningful before 22 Mar 2013. Expired maintenance schedules can accumulate over time to exceed the 10 slots reserved in the […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary The reason for this change can be referenced in KBI 310332 Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary By using the ‘Suspend’ mode in Argent AT, customers can suspend monitoring altogether (default), or continue monitoring without alerting (same as the behavior in Argent XT) Customers may want to do continuous monitoring, as they want to continue capturing Argent Predictor data during the […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Argent Non-Stop Motors provide load balancing and failover naturally. But there is an assumption that all motors are configured in the same way. In case of SMS configurations, it assumes all motors have the same GSM modem attaching to the same COM port etc. […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary SMS trace log have been implemented. The log shows the internal steps when an SMS alert is fired by the Argent Console Engine. The native SMS library debug log ‘MCORE.LOG’ is now also enabled. (The log file can be found under ARGENT\ArgentConsole\Logs) MCORE.LOG logs […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary This option is useful when the target Linux/Unix machine has metrics that require monitoring from another machine. For example, if the Target machine is a DNS server, customers may needs to know whether the DNS is functioning by resolving a name from a different […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary The system up/down status can now be checked by connecting to the Remote Desktop service of the remote machine. Customers can define whether the server is up or down by if Remote Desktop successfully connects Due to Microsoft restrictions, this option does NOT work […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary The system up/down status can now be checked by connecting to the WMI service of the remote machine. Note: This method is NOT lightweight, but it is a very reliable method to detect if system is available. Of course, remote WMI access must be […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary The ‘Application View’ component is implemented as BV_APPVIEW.DLL The sample screen can show the sessions of running terminal service sessions (remote desktop) and PuTTY sessions Click For Full Size Click For Full Size Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where automatic correction does not work for auto-started Windows services Technical Background When Argent AT Service Rules check auto-started Windows services, it correctly detects any services that are not running, but the engine does not report the status […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Use the format: %DefaultNode%+backup_email_address Place this in the To or CC field in the Email Alert. The node-specific email address is the contact email address in the node’s CMDB-X property. Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where users cannot replay a recorded session in Argent Defender This occurs when customers have a very long script or recorded session. The log shows ODBC errors of ‘Data Truncation’ Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where users could not export control information in Argent Defender This occurs when customers have a very long script or recorded session. The log shows ODBC errors of ‘Data Truncation’ Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where Argent Defender cannot set Argent Predictor ‘Day Limit For Keeping Argent Predictor Data’ to more than 99 All other products allow three digits — this was a minor GUI issue Note: Customers should analyze and forecast their […]

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where Argent For Compliance cannot parse File Audit Events in Windows 2008 R2 Argent has updated the parsing code for Windows 2008 R2 Object Access Event ID 4656 Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where SQL bulk insert fails in Argent for Compliance when the SQL Server is separate from Main Engine Bulk insert writes insertion statements into a flat file and submits the data as a batch, instead of one-by-one When […]

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where SQL Alerts with insertion queries only inserts for the first row of query results This applies to Argent for SQL Server And Argent for Oracle Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where automatic correction does not use Email/Pager/SMS addresses for Alert Escalation When the registry HKLM\Software\Argent\ARGENT_CONSOLE\SERVER\SEND_CORRECT_NOTIFY_TO_ESCALATED_ONLY is set to 1, automatic correction is sent to users that have been notified for the event. In previous versions, it only sends […]

Version Issue Addressed in Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Addressed an issue where Network Groups in Argent for SNMP were unable to specify ‘{Product Main Engine’] as an option for the “Default Monitoring Engine” of the Network Group Click For Full Size Technical Background N/A Resolution N/A

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Customers have the ultimate flexibility to define how System up/down status should be checked. The primary aim is to reduce false positives and to get a ‘second opinion’ from another check. Note: The overhead with the additional checks is definitely significant compared to ordinary […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary The automatic backup can backup product control information according to the specified schedule. The backup is stored in the SQL Table ARGSOFT_AT_BACKUP. Customers can restore or rollback by exporting the data in the database to an ordinary backup file via the ‘Export To Backup […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary All common options are implemented. Nodes in the CMDB-X tab and Licensed Node lists are filtered by the same logic. To reduce confusion, when nodes are filtered and not listed in the Licensed Node list, a red text ‘filtered’ is displayed on top of […]

Version Argent AT 3.1A-1304-L or above Date 28 Apr 2013 Summary Server up/down status monitoring using System Down Rule and SLA Rule can account for a large share of Argent AT monitoring. For busy systems, the late/skipped task rate can spike from time to time. It is generally caused by I/O bottlenecks when handling a […]