Portal: Central Management Now “Free” to AppResponse Customers

With the latest release of Portal version 3.3, central management workflows such as managing Host Groups and application definitions are now available to all AppResponse customers without having to purchase a Portal license. However, using Portal’s “dashboard” capabilities to show performance data from any data source(s) still requires a valid Portal license.

Let’s dig into this in a little more detail. There are currently two main parts of Portal:

1. Dashboards, that allows you to bring data from AppResponse, NetProfiler, NetIM, Aternity End User Experience Monitoring, Aternity Application Performance Monitoring and/or third-parties into a single, curated view that can be shared with executives, line of business, app owners, etc.
2. Central management, which makes managing large numbers of AppResponse appliances easier

So what specifically does Central Management do? It streamlines the management of distributed AppResponse appliances with features such as:

• Software upgrade orchestration: Allows you to remotely update connected AppResponse appliances (virtual, physical or cloud appliances). Just upload a valid AppResponse update ISO obtained from the Riverbed support site and Portal pushes it out to the selected AppResponse appliances during the remote update procedure.
• System & traffic health status: Lets you monitor system and traffic health metrics for connected AppResponse appliances. These metrics include disk health, chassis health, monitoring interface drops, time sync, and power supply. Typical red-yellow-green LED status values come directly from the AppResponse System Health info while tool tips provide the status reason. Clicking any LED indicator takes you to the corresponding page on the appliance for more info.
• Users & roles management: Using an existing AppResponse centrally managed by Portal, you can clone that system and all roles and users. You can add, edit, or remove a role or user, just like you would on a local AppResponse, and these changes will be pushed to any remote systems. The distribution column tells you how many AppResponse systems the role or user is distributed to.

• App & host group definitions: You can also centrally manage your host group and app definitions. Apps definitions include general, URL, and Web apps. You can create, edit and delete apps within Central Manager; push, remove and import apps on remote appliances; and apply tags to the apps and host groups.

Portal Central Management simplifies the process of managing remote AppResponse environments. If you don’t already have it, and you have several AppResponse appliances, you need to get it! It will take the hassle out of upgrading, monitoring, and managing your AppResponse appliances.

To get started, you simple download Portal 3.3 from the Riverbed support site.”