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Introduction to PRTG 7 for IPCheck 5 users - What's new? What's different?

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This article summarizes the differences between PRTG Network Monitor 7 and its part-predecessor IPCheck 5 - from the perspective of an IPCheck 5 user.

The new version 7 of PRTG brings together the functionalities of PRTG 6 and IPCheck 5 into one concise network monitoring application and adds a number of new features, especially some functions to ease and automate management for larger networks.

The new software has been completely rewritten from the ground up. We have taken our experiences from more than 10 years of creating network monitoring software and the feedback from more than 100,000 users worldwide to create a completely new architecture which is able to provide bandwidth and usage monitoring, as well as uptime monitoring and alerting for all sizes of networks - small to large.


Besides the new architecture the biggest change is that PRTG7 now adds almost the full functionality of PRTG6 to the features of IPCheck5.


Please have a look at the following list for a detailed comparison:


Most Noticeable Changes Between IPCheck version 5 and PRTG Network Monitor 7

 

  • PRTG7's new user interface is completely web based and is used for configuration and data review
  • IPCheck5 included a Web GUI for configuration and data review (a Windows GUI and a system tray icon tool will be available for PRTG 7 at a later time)

 

  • PRTG7 offers more than 30 new sensor types for monitoring of many different protocols and services (e.g. HTTP, WMI, FTP, SMTP, RDP, etc)  plus a complete feature set for in-depth bandwidth monitoring using SNMP, NetFlow and Packet Sniffing
  • IPCheck5 was an availability monitoring tool and only had limited bandwidth monitoring capabilities

 

  • PRTG7's new monitoring engine and internal architecture is much faster and more powerful and is now able to support several 10,000 sensors for one installation
  • For IPCheck5 we recommended to monitor no more than 3,000 sensors per installation

 

  • PRTG7's new automatic network discovery finds devices, analyzes the device type and creates the appropriate set of sensors for the device. And it can be re-run to discover devices added to the network later.
  • IPCheck5's auto discovery was, in comparison, rather limited.

 

  • PRTG7's offers a new packet sniffer that can optionally look into the network packets' payload data to find out what kind of data they contain (e.g. HTTP, Mail protocols, NETBIOS, etc.)
  • IPCheck5 did not include packet sniffing capabilities.

 

  • PRTG7 works with "NetFlow Sensors" to monitor traffic on switches (e.g. from Cisco)
  • IPCheck5 did not include NetFlow monitoring capabilities.

 

  • PRTG7 Freeware offers up to 10 sensors with a minimum interval of 1 minute
  • IPCheck5 Freeware offered up to 5 sensors with a minimum interval of 15 minutes

 

  • PRTG7 offers a "Map" feature that can be used to create web pages with current monitoring results and custom layout
  • IPCheck5 also offered a "Map" functionality albeit with less layout and content options

 

  • PRTG7 has a built-in mail server that delivers emails to the recipient using "MX records" (using an SMTP relay is optional)
  • IPCheck5 always required the use of an SMTP relay server

 

  • PRTG7 includes an advanced reporting engine, allowing to select from various templates, define detailed schedules, generate tables and charts, and allowing to save the information as a PDF file
  • IPCheck5’s reports were limited to one simple uptime/downtime report per account

 

  • In PRTG7 probes continue monitoring for some time in the case the connection to the core has been interrupted.
  • In IPCheck5 monitoring was stopped completely in case the connection between probe and core was lost.

 

  • In PRTG7 the connection between core and remote probe is initiated by the probe meaning that firewall/NAT settings need only be configured once on the core server side.
  • In IPCheck5 the connection was initiated by the core and firewall/NAT settings had to be configured for each individual Remote Probe.

 

  • In PRTG7 sensors are assigned to a single remote probe. To monitor sensors from multiple probes you must re-create the sensor for each probe.
  • In IPCheck5 multiple probes could be assigned to one sensor

 

  • In PRTG7 groups can hierarchically contain other groups within a theoretically boundless “boxing” principle
  • In IPCheck5 groups on the first level could only contain servers and sensors, but not other groups.

 

  • PRTG7 includes extended filtering and sorting functions for the display modes of tabular information of objects
  • IPCheck5 only allowed to sort objects in the tree view, plus filtering based on tags

 

  • PRTG7 shows up-to-the-minute tables and charts for live data, the last 48 hours, last 30 days and last 365 days for all sensors, devices and groups
  • IPCheck5 could not show such instant graphs, they had to be requested on demand.

 

  • PRTG7 includes a “ToDo“ list where PRTG shows a list of issues the administrator should take care of (e.g. acknolewdge new sensors discovered by the auto discovery functionality).
  • IPCheck5 did not include a “ToDo” list.

 

  • PRTG7 includes definitions for “favorites” and “priorities”, allowing to sort sensors quickly.
  • IPCheck did not include the possibility to mark sensors by priority or as “favorites”

 

  • PRTG7 introduces new notification triggering parameters (speed, volume, threshold)
  • IPCheck5 could not trigger notifications based on these parameters

 

  • PRTG7 includes a global search functionality
  • IPCheck7 did not allow to search in a global manner

 

  • PRTG7 allows to work with an unlimited number of users organized into multiple user groups with varying levels of read / write access rights.
  • IPCheck5 required additional licenses for multi-user setup. Users could only be managed individually, not in groups.

 

  • PRTG7 introduces a new "unusual" state. This state alerts the user whenever a sensor shows unusual behavior (e.g. higher traffic than usual, slower answers than usual).
  • IPCheck5 did not yet include the “unusual” state


IPCheck5 Functionality Not Included in PRTG7


The following features from IPCheck5 are not included in PRTG7 yet and will be added with version 7.1 or later this year:

 

  • System tray icon tool (a successor to the Windows GUI)
  • Mobile access (a successor to the Mobile GUI)
  • PRTG 7 is not available in other languages than English (more language will be available soon)
  • The OnChange state trigger still needs to be implemented
  • Server duplication will be added at a later period
  • Manual rearrangement of sensors
  • Some special features of the ISP edition
  • Monitoring data export into CSV files


The following features from IPCheck5 have been entirely removed:

 

  • Non-WMI system sensors. The old system sensors had too many limitations, especially when more than a few of these sensors were used. WMI sensors are faster, more reliable, and more universal.
  • Data storage in the Firebird database (configuration is now stored in a XML file)
  • TCP Script sensor type


Do you have questions or requirements regarding this list? Please contact us!

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