Release Notes Syslink Xandria 7.3

Introduction

Syslink Xandria 7.3 is the latest deployment release replacing syslink Xandria 7.2, meaning patches for version 7.2 will be released as patches for 7.3 only.

The new release features new checks in the area of security, compliance and auditing. Also, starting from 7.3 every Syslink Xandria Agent can itself serve as a gateway, making stand-alone Syslink Xandria Gateways obsolete.

In the area of Public Cloud Integration there are two new major building blocks: Firstly, there is a certified integration with ServiceNow to allow Syslink Xandria create incidents in your ServiceNow instance. It also features a synchronization of the ServiceNow CMDB. Secondly, there is a new integration with Alibaba Cloud, enabling Start/Stop-Automation in the same way as for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Some of the new features are only available with the Syslink Xandria Pro Edition.

If you are currently running Syslink Xandria 7.1 and plan to upgrade to 7.3, please contact your sales representative or get in touch with us at sales@syslink-xandria.com concerning your choice of the Syslink Xandria edition:

Feature / Edition Syslink Xandria Syslink Xandria Pro

Monitoring

Native Monitoring (all types of objects)

Custom Checks

Security/Compliance Custom Checks

Automatic Change Detection

End-to-End Monitoring

Business Services

General

Dashboards

Ticketing

Solution Documents

Maintenance Windows

Notifications

Integration

Cloud Integration

Start/Stop Management

Web Services

SAML

Active Directory

Reporting

Service Level Reporting

Availability Overview

Predictive Resource Planning

What’s new in 7.3

Compliance & Security Monitoring

  • New Daily Checks: SAP_Gateway and TMS_UserCompliance to verify network security of the SAP Gateway and to assure that the importer of a transport is not the owner

  • New Custom Check SECURITY_AUDIT_LOG to monitor the security audit log in ABAP systems (only in Syslink Xandria Pro Edition)

  • New Custom Check USER_AUTHORIZATIONS to verify user authorizations in ABAP systems (only in Syslink Xandria Pro Edition)

  • New Custom Check USER_PROFILES to verify user profile assignments in ABAP systems (only in Syslink Xandria Pro Edition)

Note: For the three new custom checks to work properly you need to import the new customizing transport requests transports-for-avantra-7.3.zip as described in Importing the SAP Transport Request. It is not required but recommended to import the workbench request.

  • Certified Integration with ServiceNow to create incidents in ServiceNow by means of a dedicated Output Channel

  • Synchronization of severs from the ServiceNow CMDB into Syslink Xandria, ad-hoc and periodically in the background

  • IaaS integration with Alibaba Cloud

Simplified Network Connectivity

  • Every Agent can serve as a gateway ➞ dedicated Gateway component is deprecated.

  • There is a graphical configuration and testing facility.

  • While the old Syslink Xandria Gateways continue to work you are strongly encouraged to replace them with agents as soon as you updated to Syslink Xandria 7.3.

Other New Features and Improvements

  • New Custom Check RUN_JS based on JavaScript to execute RFC, DB, and OS commands in a safe Xandria Agent context (only in Syslink Xandria Pro Edition).

  • New Performance Counters HANA Backup Size and Backup Throughput, as well as Concurrent Users per SAP System

  • New Custom Monitoring Parameters for use with RUN_PROG, SQL_Query, and RUN_JS custom checks.

  • Improved security due to asymmetric password encryption in Syslink Xandria Agents that no longer requires shared secrets (was symmetric encryption before)

  • SAPControl users can be defined on a per-SAP Instance level.

  • Dashboard Titles can be configured.

  • Improved Documentation: larger document chunks improve linear reading. The PDF version is replaced by a stand-alone HTML documentation package.

  • Syslink Xandria Agent available as RPM for Linux

Important Notes

  • If you already have a license for Syslink Xandria 7.2 you need nothing to do. The license will continue to work with Syslink Xandria 7.3. If you are upgrading from Syslink Xandria 7.1, you will need a new license file for syslink Xandria Version 7.3. See Obtaining the License.

  • You need a Java Runtime Environment 8, 9, or 10 to run the Syslink Xandria Agent 7.3.x!
    For the Syslink Xandria Server you need a 64-bitJava Runtime Environment 8, 9, or 10.
    See also Xandria and Java.

  • There is no upgrade from syslink Xandria server 6.0 to Syslink Xandria server 7.3, you need to upgrade to syslink Xandria server 7.1(!) first.

  • For a seamless upgrade you need to run syslink Xandria server 7.1.n with n≥7 or any 7.2.x before you can upgrade to Syslink Xandria server 7.3.

  • The ServiceNow integration requires to install the Syslink Xandria integration app from the ServiceNow store.

Compatibility

Most important facts about compatibility between different versions of syslink Xandria components:

  1. Syslink Xandria Agents versions 6.0.31 or less are not compatible with Syslink Xandria Server 7.3 or higher. You must upgrade all operational Syslink Xandria Agents to a version 6.0.n with n≥32, or 7.1.x, or 7.2.x before you can upgrade the Syslink Xandria Server to version 7.3

  2. Syslink Xandria Agents 7.3.x are not compatible with syslink Xandria server components 7.2 or less. In other words: You must upgrade the Syslink Xandria Server to version 7.3 before you can upgrade the Syslink Xandria Agents to version 7.3.

See also the Upgrade Notes.