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Release InformationBig Brother 4.0New Features in Big Brother Professional Edition 4.00 Flash-based display - A Flash-based alternate display is available for Big Brother. Use the classic HTML-based display or this new display mode or even both!
Database connectivity - If your infrastructure allows it, you can also use a database back-end to store incoming status logs or other Big Brother data. The current file-based system for storing BB data is still used but you can specify to also use a supported ODBC-based database back-end (Oracle, mySQL or SQL Server).
GUI Modifications
You have more control over how the displayed pages appear in the browser. Most of the display features are now defined with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) such as font size, color, backgrounds, etc. You only need to change the CSS attribute file(s) and your modifications will appear the next time you refresh your web page. By default, BB retains the look and feel of the previous version but the font sizes have been reduced to increase the amount of information available in the opened browser window. New features have been added such as hiding entire rows or single row. column, and removing certain columns from a table in the main display. Improved UNIX Based Web Page Generation
The creation of the various web pages for the UNIX version have been improved by using compiled executables instead of scripts. This in turn improves the scalability of the Unix version and thus the interval between refreshes has been reduced to 2 minutes instead of the previous version’s 5 minutes. Notification Changes
Big Brother can now send SNMP trap messages natively under both Windows and UNIX based versions. Also, notification rules can now specify which color will trigger them. The page levels token now defines the default colors for the rules. Notification Disabling Form
With Big Brother 4.0, you can disable notification requests using a web entry form. This allows you to temporarily disable notifications for an event or multiple events for a defined duration. Status Logs Aggregation
In Big Brother terminology, synthetic rules. You can combine results from multiple status logs to create a new status log using logical operators. User Defined Message Size
In previous versions, the message size was fixed at 8192 characters and could not be changed. It is now a user definable value that can be adjusted to your environment. Supported Platforms
The Big Brother UNIX Server and UNIX Client software are supported on these operating systems: - Red Hat Enterprise Server 3.0/4.0
- SUSE Enterprise Linux 9.0/10.0
- Sun Solaris 6 or greater
- HP-UX 11.0 or 11i
- AIX 5.1, 5.2 or 5.3
The Big Brother Windows Server and Windows Client software are supported on these operating systems: - Windows 2000 Server or Professional
- Windows 2003 Server
- Windows XP
Installing or Upgrading
These Release Notes do not include installation or upgrade instructions. Please refer to the appropriate Getting Started Guide for complete installation and upgrade information. You can download the Getting Started Guides as well as the Big Brother software from the Big Brother Web site: www.bb4.com Documentation
In addition to the release notes, the documentation consists of: - Four Big Brother Getting Started Guides: one each for the UNIX Server, the Windows Server, the UNIX Client, and the Windows Client. These guides describe how to install, start, and perform the initial configuration for the indicated part of the Big Brother software. The installation instructions include procedures for updating from an earlier version of Big Brother without losing your customized settings. The Getting Started Guides are provided as PDF files.
- An online help system covering both the UNIX server and the UNIX client. This includes complete configuration information for all aspects of Big Brother, including defining hosts and servers, setting up notification, and more. It also includes instructions for using the features available while viewing the Big Brother status display Web page. You can access this file by clicking the Help icon on the Big Brother Web page while connected to a Big Brother UNIX server.
- An online help system covering the Windows server. This includes complete configuration information for all aspects of the Big Brother server, including defining hosts and servers, setting up notification, and more. It also includes instructions for using the features available while viewing the Big Brother status display Web page. It does not include information on configuring a Big Brother Windows client host.
- Access to the Windows server help file by clicking the Help icon on the Big Brother Web page while connected to a Big Brother Windows server. You can also access the help from the Windows Start menu on the Big Brother server by selecting Programs, Quest Software, Big Brother Professional Edition, Server, Help.
- An online help system covering the Windows client. This includes only information about the various options and settings available on Windows client hosts. You can access the help from the Windows Start menu on the Big Brother client by selecting Programs, Quest Software, Big Brother Professional Edition, Client, Help. Also, the appendix at the end of this document describes how to integrate Big Brother 3.20 with Quest Software’s Foglight product. In the future, this information will be in the Foglight documentation.
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