InterMapper

Commercial; See text.

Current Version: 5.0.6 (November 20, 2008)

Dartware (the nucleus of which is comprised of former programmers from Dartmouth College) produces a heck of a lot of great Mac Internet software, and has some interesting commercial offerings. InterMapper is a an AppleTalk and IP network mapping and management tool that provides powerful Internet mapping and SNMP monitoring.

InterMapper is priced by the number of devices that you monitor. Every piece of network equipment (e.g., each router, switch, hub, etc) counts as a device. The total of the devices being monitored determines the license tier you will need. See the pricing page for more details.

Version 5.0 introduced a whole slew of enhancements:

• IPv6: InterMapper 5.0 tests devices that have IPv6 addresses, and supports IPv6 client connections. TCP- and UDP-based probes, and IPv6-based DNS queries are supported in the current download.
• InterMapper SQL Database: InterMapper Database is a component of InterMapper DataCenter. It acts as a central repository for data collected from one or more InterMapper servers. This data includes a snapshot of the current state of each server's managed elements (maps, devices, interfaces, etc), as well as historical readings from customer charts. InterMapper Database gathers this data efficiently, organizes it in a clear and logical schema, and provides means to respond to queries using industry standard SQL statements. InterMapper Database can be operated on its own or could be part of an organization's Configuration Management Database initiative (CMDB).
• Hierarchy in Map List: You can now organize your maps into folders, reducing clutter for those who have lots of maps.
• Acknowledgment filtering in device lists: There are two new buttons (at the top right of the window) that hide or show devices that have been acknowledged. This makes it easier to spot new trouble areas.
• Server-wide find on DNS name, IP address, or IMID: The "Find Devices..." menu item allows you to search either a map or the entire InterMapper Server for a given DNS name, IP address, or IMID. Searching by IMID can be helpful for relating a device in InterMapper Database to a device on the map.
• Enhanced Nagios Plugin Support: InterMapper has long supported command-line probes and has supplied a template specific to Nagios plug-ins. In Version 5.0, you can set a flag in your command-line probe to tell InterMapper to interpret the performance data (PERFDATA) supplied as part of the plugin's output and make it available for custom display. A newer template is also provided, and creates a nicely-formatted display from the output of NAGIOS plug-ins that provide perfdata.
• Server Discovery Preference: InterMapper RemoteAccess now implements a preference allowing you to turn off server discovery, so that the only servers which appear in the Map List window are those servers you have added yourself.

Version 5.0.6 is primarily a bugfix release.

InterMapper for Mac OS X requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer. Any computer that can run Mac OS X will easily handle large maps. A minimum of 50 MBytes of disk space is required, although 1 GB or more will allow historical data to be stored. The Mac OS X InterMapper Remote application automatically selects the proper Java VM.