NetBeez releases BeezKeeper version 12.0!

Greetings! and May The Fourth be With You!

Today we are happy to announce that we are releasing version 12.0 of the BeezKeeper server and agents that includes new product features and improvements, bug fixes, and multiple security updates.

Please read this entire message carefully, as there is important information that pertains to your installation. You may read the 12.0 Release Notes at our documentation site.

New Features

New Reports are out of Beta!

We have now completed the redesign of all four of our legacy reports. They will now be the default reports shown when you navigate to the reports tab.

The scheduled reports by email is the last feature we will be transitioning to the “New” reports with version 13.0, at which point the “Legacy” reports will become obsolete and we will be removing them completely a release after that - to give you the chance to move any scheduled reports you have going, to the new reports.

New Target Report

The new and redesigned target reports include all the metrics and graphs from the legacy report, with some added graphs to handle scalability, for target with more than 10 agents. Since the line graphs become illegible with too many lines, we replace them with some histograms that show the distribution of the agent averages per test type.

New Scheduled Tests Report

The new and redesigned scheduled tests reports include all the metrics and graphs from the legacy report, with some added graphs to show scalable results, for cases where more than 20 agents are involved. A scatterplot showing the averages of each agent over the selected time period, as well as a histogram showing the average performance of agents, distributed over a histogram on a per ISP basis. This way you’ll be able to understand and correlate user issues with specific ISPs.

New SAML SSO enterprise authentication option

We are also excited to announce the addition of a new SAML SSO enterprise authentication option. This feature allows users to securely authenticate their accounts using their existing enterprise credentials, providing an extra layer of security and convenience.

iPerf tests now show TCP retransmissions metric

This feature provides users with more detailed information on the performance of their network, particularly in situations where data packets are lost or delayed.

New Incidents API

Furthermore, we have introduced a new Incidents API, which enables users to programmatically access and manage network incidents, such as outages or performance issues. This API provides developers with greater flexibility and control over the way incidents are handled.

Role-based access for Agent Interactive Console

Lastly, we have added role-based access to the Agent Interactive Console, allowing admins to customize the level of access and permissions granted to each user. This feature provides greater control over the way users interact with the platform, allowing read-write and read-only users to also access the console, depending on your organization’s needs.
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Other Improvements

Here are some select improvements we have made during this release cycle:

  • Added Google Meet as an available SaaS target template.
  • Emails where multiple Contacts are provided now send an individual email per Contact instead of one email for all Contacts for improved privacy.
  • Public API: Added Last Result filter to Scheduled Test Result endpoint.
  • UI: Improved DateRange Picker for selecting a time range when using the historical Test graph.
  • UI: Improved the overall performance and responsiveness when selecting agents during Target, Scheduled Test, and Report creation and updates.
  • UI: User’s will now be displayed the Login page when their session expires instead of silently failing API requests.

Bug fixes

And of course lot’s of bug fixes; 40 to be exact. Here is a sample:

  • Agent: Resolved issue where missing setup files was preventing manual setup Docker Agent.
  • Agent: Resolved issue where Agent would send multiple wired interfaces which in some cases cause reporting of an inactive interface for the Agent instead of the active interface.
  • Agent: Resolved issue where Agent upgrade would fail.
  • Agent: Resolved some issues that would cause the MacOS Agent to crash.
  • Agent: Resolved issue where Path Analysis Test would fail when Agent is on a VPN.
  • API: Resolved issue where using the “Copy Invite Link” provided an invalid url, administrators can now generate new invitation links.
  • API: Resolved issue where disabling of TLS in the SMTP setting did not actually disable TLS when sending emails.
  • API: Resolved issue where Target status and alerts were not longer showing for users with Public dashboards.
  • API: Resolved issue where Weekly Status Report would fail send due to empty data.
  • API: Resolved rendering issues for the Weekly Summary Report email that are present when viewing the email in Microsoft Outlook.
  • Server: Resolved reported dependency CVEs in relation to the PagerDuty integration.
  • Server: Resolved issue where root CAs installed by customers would not be used causing servers to be unable to retrieve new NetBeez versions.
  • UI: Resolved issue where Weekly Status Reports, which currently don’t have a UI to display the report, were shown in Reports List.
  • UI: Resolved issue where the “My Reports” checkbox when viewing the Report List would not filter Report List to only the User’s Reports.
  • UI: Resolved issue where WiFi Incidents would not be displayed when viewing the WiFi list unless browser was refreshed.
  • UI: Resolved issue where Agent Report would report the wrong number of Incidents.

Updating Your Installation

Software Repositories and Firewall Dependencies

The BeezKeeper server will automatically upgrade to the latest release in two weeks, unless manually overridden. The upgrade will also cascade to agents. This upgrade process may take up to 30 minutes on the server side, so please DO NOT REBOOT the server during this time. Instead if you feel like the upgrade process encountered an issue please send an email to support@netbeez.net.

Ensure your network firewall is configured to allow the server to connect to NetBeez and third-party software repositories such as Ubuntu and Docker. Agents are authorized to access TCP/443 on the server. Learn more about the firewall rules required and the update process.

We hope you are getting the most out of your NetBeez deployment. As always, we are available at support@netbeez.net to answer any question or address any issue you might have.

Feel free to send us you feedback by replying to this announcement here. Let’s get the conversation going!

Cheers,
Panickos and the NetBeez team

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