These notes describe the new enhancements made to the SimpleAgentPro
since Version 10.0 (November, 2006)
The Topology Editor has been enhanced to include support for
switches and PCs. Now a network made up of routers, switches
and end stations can be drawn and their linkages will get
represented in MIB2 and BridgeMIB data supported by the
individual devices. A management application can then query
the individual devices to discover the connectivity.
It is also extensible to include additional "topology to MIB data"
conversion rules.
Added support for Scenarios, where map or device level scenarios
can be added and then invoked with a mouse click from the pop-up
menus associated with maps or devices.
Engineers in the pre-sales or engineering departments can create
scenarios that sales and marketing people can quickly and easily
use to create network events that showcase the capabilities of
your management application.
Test engineers can also run pre-created scenarios during regression
testing.
A new utility called "sappoll" has been added which takes multiple
snapshots of specific variables and records them in a file so that
they can be replayed later.
This is particularly useful in learning new device data from
customer sites, and then recreate customer environments in labs.
Added support for creating simulated devices without SNMP.
Added support for ssdiscover to get entity mib information.
Added support to get topologydata via tcl commands.
These notes describe the new enhancements made to the SimpleAgentPro
since Version 9.5 (April, 2006)
Management Applications
Added Wizard support to import managed devices from Network Management
applications.
Given a list of devices and their SNMP profiles, SimpleAgentPro can
quickly learn their SNMP variables and create maps that duplicate the
production network in your lab environment.
IPv6 DHCP/TFTP/TOD
Added support for DHCPv6 in the unrestricted Linux version of
SimpleAgentPro. You can now create both statically defined
IPV6 devices and have it make DHCPv6 requests to get addresses.
DHCP requests can be made both sequentially and in parallel.
Once the address is received, it can be followed up with TFTP
and TOD requests over IPv6.
Advanced DHCP Support
GUI support is now added for DHCPv6 option specification
Map Viewer
A graphical map viewer application is included that provides
a view into all the maps currently running on the system.
These include maps started by other users.
The map viewer only allows a "read-only" view of the maps.
You cannot stop a map started by others.
CastleRock SNMPc Wizard
Added support to work with CastleRock SNMPc to import device list
for simulation.
MIB complier interface
Added a new interface for MIB compilation. The user interface
has been changed to show a list of currently compiled MIBs
along with the Modules inside them.
The MIB compiler now supports auto resolution of imported
objects from MIB files present in specified directories.
Agent
Added support for AES as a SNMPv3 privacy protocol
in addition to DES. This support is available in the
US version.
Added support for parallel DHCP request to be sent
via Tcl commands.
Other Enhancements
Added support for SSH Directory specification to supprort
SCP on Windows.
Added support to optionally return NO_SUCH_NAME error when
doing sets with a read community.
Added a SA_checkstopflag Tcl command to stop forever loops.
SimpleAgentPro Ver 9.5 Release Notes
April 17, 2006
These notes describe the new enhancements made to the SimpleAgentPro
since Version 9.0 (July, 2005)
Traps
Added GUI support for a device to generate traps in bursts as
well as periodically.
Added GUI support for all devices in a map to generate traps in
bursts as well as periodically.
Previously this functionality was available via scripting but
not via a GUI interface.
IPv6
Added support for IPv6 in the Linux version of SimpleAgentPro.
You can now create statically defined IPV6 devices and have
them support SNMP. This capability is only available in the
unrestricted version.
You can learn SNMP variables from IPv6 devices, and the
simulated IPv6 devices can emit traps to IPv6 managers.
Advanced DHCP Support
GUI support is now added for DHCP option specification
as well as unicast/broadcast/relay capabilities, allowing
SimpleAgentPro to be more easily used in testing provisioning
applications.
The Cable Wizard is also now enhanced to provide these
capabilities.
Modeling File Editor
A graphical modeling file editor is provided to assist in the
creation of Tcl based modeling script files. Inclusion of
Tcl commands and their arguments can be carried out by filling
information in associated dialog boxes.
Template modeling files are also provided.
SAPro Name Server as a Windows Service
The sapns name server can now be installed as a windows
service facilitating the use of dongles in a remote desktop
environment.
CA Spectrum Wizard
Added support to work with CA Spectrum to import device list
for simulation.
Agent
Added support for context engine id based proxy scheme
in addition to the already supported context name based
proxies.
Added support for stopwatch style Tcl commands in the
modeling file.
Added support for additional telnet commands to get
userdata information.
Other Enhancements
Added support for associating a customized logo image with
each device.
Added support to sort displayed devices and maps in the GUI.
Added support to show "Total" in the statistics window.
Added support to sapwalk utility to limit number of instances
and rows learnt.
Added support to sapcnsl utility to add devices to a running
map and to start/stop/restart individual devices.
SimpleAgentPro Ver 9.0 Release Notes
July 15, 2005
These notes describe the new enhancements made to the SimpleAgentPro
since Version 8.5 (October, 2004)
TL1
Added support for TL1 learner to convert TL1 log files
into TL1 modeling files for use with the TL1 simulator.
Support was also added for many Tcl commands related to
TL1 like SA_TL1_setauto_atagformat to allow better
simulation.
An asynchronous UDP socket can also be opened within a
TL1 session to receive Tcl commands during a client
connection.
Telnet
Added support for additional Tcl commands to provide
default command action, disable processing, add delay,
skip processing, skip initialization sequence, and
deal with different types of input terminator sequences.
Added asynchronous UDP socket support to process Tcl
commands in a telnet session.
Made the max number of simultaneous sessions configurable.
Allowed support for multiple usernames and passwords.
Graphical Topology Editor
A graphical topology editor is provided to assist in the
creation of gateway files that are converted to corresponding
variable files with appropriate MIB2 data.
Workspace and maps can also be automatically generated.
Dynamic row templates
Rules file syntax has been enhanced to allow automatic
enabling of row status tables and making all columns
not required.
Agent
Added support for Tcl based commands to give provide
an aynchronous interface for handling message callbacks
on a specified UDP port.
Added support for short definite form encoding of SNMP
packets.
Other Enhancements
Added support for converting Concord's walk files in
sapw2var.
Added fix to resolve zombie process creation on Solaris 2.8
and incorrect packet tracing of report PDUs.
SimpleAgentPro Ver 8.5 Release Notes
October 15, 2004
These notes describe the new enhancements made to the SimpleAgentPro
since Version 8.0 (Feb, 2004).
Wizards
Added support for HP OpenView Discovery Wizard that
discovers, learns and creates simulation maps based on
information in HP OpenView database.
This greatly simplifies the tasks of duplicating existing
networks instead of just duplicating individual devices.
MIB Browser
The MIB Browser has been enhanced to show changes in
data as well as show results in multiple windows.
The preferences dialog allows the user to save these
settings for subsequent use.
MIB Compiler
A less stringent MIB compiler is now included with
the product. The older mibcompiler is also provided
for backwards compatibility if required. It uses a
best-effort approach to parsing the MIBs and extracts
as much information as possible from it.
DHCP
DHCP requests can now also be made in parallel instead
of sequentially as done in the past. This allows the
simulation to stress DHCP servers with many requests
coming all at once.
MIB Based Learning
In addition to doing snmp walks to learn all the variables
supported by an agent, learning can also be restricted to
learn only those variables that are present in a specified
MIB. Number of rows learnt from a specific table can also
be curtailed.
Agent
Added support for Tcl based commands to give current snmp
port information as well as currently processed object
identifier (which for getnext requests might be different
than the one in the request).
Added support for automatic mapping of $$MYMAINMACADDR$$
token in the variable file with the device's associated
MAC Address.
Command Line Utilities
Added support for carrying out learning on HP OpenView
machines that are not running SimpleAgentPro. These tools
can then be taken to customer sites to quickly build list
of devices to learn from.
SNMP Informs
Added support to provide SNMPv3 discovery based inform
generation and retransmission until response/ack is received
from the inform receipient.
SimpleAgentPro Ver 8.0 Release Notes
February 18, 2004
These notes describe the new enhancements made to the SimpleAgentPro
since Version 7.5 (July 28, 2003).
Wizards
Added support for Discovery Wizard that discovers, learns and creates
simulation maps based on seed router, subnets, and IP ranges.
This greatly simplifies the tasks of duplicating existing
networks instead of just duplicating devices one at a time.
SSH
The Telnet/CLI interface in SimpleAgentPro is now also
available via SSH, as today's secure devices increasingly
support SSH instead of Telnet. Users can now login into the
simulated devices using SSH and run CLI sessions.
Multiple SSH sessions are supported to the simulated devices
and pre-learnt CLI responses can be played back over SSH.
SSH support is currently only available on Solaris and Linux
within United States. It is not currently available for
export.
HTTP/HTTPs
Simulated devices now support HTTP/HTTPs in addition to
SNMP, SSH, Telnet/CLI, TL1, FTP and TFTP. Now, some management
data can be retrieved via SNMP while other data can be got via
HTTP/HTTPs.
SimpleAgentPro also includes a simple HTTP learner application
that allows you to learn from existing devices and save their
HTTP responses so that they can be replayed later.
Agent
Added support for Tcl based command to automatically add
trap recipients from the SNMPTargetAddrTable data.
Added support for manipulating the object ids returned
in SNMP Set responses.
Added support to specify additional varbinds in
enterprise specific traps when creating traps from MIBs.
Command Line Utilities
Added support for carrying out SNMP walks in parallel
to facilitate faster learning from existing networks
at customer sites.
Added support for discovery tools that can be taken at
customer sites to quickly build list of devices to
learn from.
Added support for learning traps for various trap logs.
User Interface
Added support for graphical display of maps using images.
Telnet Learning
Added support to handle cases where special input is
necessary before the login prompt is displayed.
SimpleAgentPro Ver 7.5 Release Notes
July 28, 2003
These notes describe the new enhancements made to the SimpleAgentPro
since Version 7.0 (March 2003).
Wizards
Added support for Cable Modem Wizard that takes information from
the user about different types of Cable Modem and Cable Modem with
MTA simulations, and translates that information into maps, modelling
files, variable files etc that are required by SimpleAgentPro to
support the specific simulation.
Different projects for CM and CM/MTA can be created that support
DHCP, TFTP, ToD, Informs, and downloading of TFTP files based on
SNMP set requests to recreate initialization packet flows as
specified in the PacketCable specifications.
User Interface
Added support for sequential starting of multiple maps,
instead of all at once as is currently supported, based
on config file option.
Added support for status update of stopping of maps based
on config file option.
Added the specification of Cache size and Dynamic instance
size per map instead of a global setting in the configuration
file.
Increased supported size of Topology Data field to 1000.
Increased supported size of User Data field to 1000.
Added support for viewing the files in addition to browsing
when specifiying properties of devices.
Added support to create v2Inform, v3notifications, and v3
informs in the createTraps from MIB interface.
Device Library
Added support for CMTS, CM and MTA devices from Motorola
and RCA.
Agent
Added support for automatic discovery of simulated subnets
by supporting a router agent on the machine on which the
simulation is running whose MIB-II data will point to the
various simulated devices.
Added support for adding tokens in the variable file which
are substituted with device specific information from the
Topology Data field on the Device. This allows you to
share one variable file with many devices and yet have
some specific data overwritten within it at runtime from
information that is associated with the device in the
map file.
Added support for specifiying end of line character sequences
in telnet for better integration with applications.
Added support for accepting v2 datatype keywords like Counter32,
Integer32, Gauge32 and Unsigned32. Support for the underlying
datatypes like Counter, Integer and Gauge was already present.
Flash Demo
Added support for flash tutorials that introduce the user
to the various aspects of SimpleAgentPro and help in quickly
getting them started. The audio-visual tours show GUI
interactions with annotated voice that guide the user in
carrying out the commonly required tasks.
Web Help
Added support for Web based help for the entire documentation.
The help system can now be searched much more easily.
SimpleAgentPro Ver 7.0 Release Notes
March 14, 2003
These notes describe the new enhancements made to the
SimpleAgentPro since Version 6.0 (August 2002).
User Interface
New user-interface introduces a notion of servers within
workspaces. Maps on remote servers can be started/stopped
supporting an enterprise level distributed simulation environment.
New user-interface adds a thumbnail view of the devices in the
list for easier identification of different vendor boxes.
Added support for user defined names for the simulated devices.
Added support to select different workspaces. Now different
users can have different workspaces that can be saved and loaded,
thus preserving different test configurations.
Added support to display trap and syslog statistics in addition
to get/set packets statistics in the device statistics window.
Added a TL1 modelling file editor that can assist in creating
TL1 modelling files for simulating TL1 supported devices.
Added support for SNMP debugging window to facilitate
examination of SNMP requests received and responses sent by
simulated devices.
Device Library
Added support for user defined devices to be added to the
device library. Vendors, device types and actual devices can be
easily added to the device library allowing users to create a
representation of all the different devices in their network.
Added support for associating vendor icons with the device
library for clearer identification of the devices in a map.
Traps/Syslog
Added support for generation of syslog events from the
simulated devices.
Added support to learn traps and syslog events from a real
network and to record the traps and syslog events with timing
information for subsequent playback of events from multiple
devices.
MIB Browser
Added support to include a MIB browser within the
SimpleAgentPro application to enable sending SNMP requests to the
simulated devices from within the SimleAgentPro itself.
MIB Browser supports gets/sets and displays tabular instances
in a table format based on the associated MIB information.
Support is also provided for adding rows to tables, multi
variable operations, and redoing past query.
Agent
Added support for DHCP relay and DHCP requests for additional
devices using new Tcl commands.
Added support for Diffie-Hellman kickstart initialization.
Added support for Diffie-Hellman key change via Tcl modelling
files.
Added support to restart a device and make it go through the
initialization once again.
SimpleAgentPro Ver 6.0 Release Notes
August 20, 2002
These notes describe the new enhancements made to the
SimpleAgentPro since Version 5.5 (March 2002).
User Interface
New user-interface introduces a notion of workspace and allows
multiple maps to be started and stopped through one GUI.
New device definition screen allows the different aspects of
device behavior like IP, SNMP, Telnet/CLI, TL1, TFTP and FTP to be
more easily defined.
Added support to choose from pre-learnt device library for the
selection of compiled mib file and variable files.
Added support to edit/view any file by invoking an editor of
your choice from the SimpleAgentPro menus.
Added support for graphical variable file editor that allows
you to add/delete/edit instances and their values and see them in
a MIB tree format.
Added support to associate starting interface numbers and setup
files during map definition itself.
Agent
Added support for dynamically mapping list of IP address tokens
specified in the variable file as $$MYIPADDRnnn$$ to a list of
addresses specified in the map. This allows topology relationships
to be maintained even when different simulated adddresses are
specified.
Added support for SA_telnet_getsnmpval function to provide
tighter integration between SNMP and Telnet.
Added support to display manager ip address in SNMP debug
messages.
Traps
Added support for trap learner application that can open up
port 162 and listen for traps and translate them to SimpleAgentPro
Trap tcl commands.
Added support to send traps via a GUI that shows a selection of
trap names that are read from a Trap tcl file.
Added support for SA_trapgetpdu, SA_v2ctrapgetpdu and
SA_sendtrappdu to allow faster generation of pre-built traps.
Help System
New HTML based help with dialog box pictures.
Contents are now searchable and displayed in a modeless,
re-sizeable dialog box.