"Most Easily Administered CMDB" in 2011 CMDB Radar Report
FireScope Analytics Gives Decision Support in Real Time
CIO Update - 14 BSM Service Providers to Watch
FireScope Delivers Converged Management and Automation for FlexPod for VMware
Appliance Deployment Solution Provider FireScope Earns the Title as 'Most Easily Administered CMDB' in EMA Radar
Forrester Research - Who's Hot in Business Service Management
Rated "Vendor to Watch" in 2010 BSM Radar Report
CRN - 25 Coolest Emerging Vendors Of 2009
Rated "Strong Value" in 2010 BSM Radar Report
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- Next Steps
- Download Unify Trial
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FireScope Workbench 3.0
$195 for Professional-Edition
FireScope Workbench provides quick and convenient access to a well-stocked collection of tools designed to make your life easier. Available in both a free and paid version, FireScope Workbench hammers home great IT with its myriad of diagnostic, discovery and cataloging tools. And as new features are developed they're automatically delivered to you via single-click installation. View screen shots of FireScope Workbench in action.
In addition to using FireScope Workbench as an independent application, it can connect with the FireScope Business Service Management (BSM) or FireScope Configuration Management (CMDB) solution to simplify configuration for rapid time to value.
Download Your Copy of Workbench
Click the Begin Download link to the right to get your free copy of FireScope Workbench. The download should only take a few minutes, depending on your connection speed. This download contains the Professional-Edition, which can be activated by purchasing a license key on our online store.
System Requirements
- Microsoft Windows XP and above (32-bit)
- 256 MB RAM
- 75 MB Disk Space
The FireScope Workbench installation package contains all of the required dependencies needed to collect SNMP information and perform discovery. Java 6 Standard-Edition is required by FireScope Workbench, but if you don't already have it, the installation package will offer you the option to download and install it for you.
Note - FireScope Workbench is intended for use as an application for IT professionals to model and monitor IT assets, and as such should not be installed on a production server.
Installation Steps
- Click the Begin Download button above and download the installer to your computer.
- If you are running Microsoft Windows Vista, right-click the installer and select "Run as Administrator." Otherwise, simply double-click the installer.
- Follow the installation wizard. If any pre-requisites are missing, such as Sun Java 6, the installer will prompt you with the option to automatically download and install it.
- Once installation is complete, launch FireScope Workbench through your start menu.
- The first time FireScope Workbench is launched, you will be prompted to apply a full license of FireScope Workbench, or you can cancel the prompt to use the free Community-Edition.
- Enjoy!
Vista Users
FireScope Workbench is an administrative application, and therefore you may need to disable User Access Control, or select 'Run as Administrator' when launching the program. For help on disabling User Access Control, click here. For instructions on how to run a program as Administrator in Microsoft Vista, click here.
1) General
What is FireScope Workbench?
Workbench is a collection of essential tools for IT professionals, ranging from SNMP tools such as the MIB Walk/Browse/Import plugins, to catalog and discovery tools such as a Service Modeler and Service Catalog Builder, as well as diagnostic tools such as Ping Sweep and User Experience Checker - all integrated into a single application.
Do you offer other products?
In addition, FireScope offers an award-winning Business Service Management solution and other products. To learn more about our other offerings, please visit www.firescope.com.
What are the minimum requirements?
FireScope Workbench requires Microsoft Windows XP and above. Your system will need a minimum of 256 megabytes of RAM and 75 megabytes of drive space. Java 6 Standard-Edition is required to run Workbench, but if you don't already have it, the installation package will offer you the option to download and install it for you.
Are other plugins in the works?
Yep! Our developers are constantly working on new features for Workbench. It even includes an automatic update feature, so when new features are made available, you will be prompted to download and automatically install them.
How much does it cost?
FireScope Workbench retails for $295.
2) Techno Jargon
What is SNMP?
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) – is a component of the Internet Protocol Suite as defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). SNMP is used in network management systems to monitor network-attached devices for conditions that warrant administrative attention. It consists of a set of standards for network management, including an application layer protocol, a database schema, and a set of data objects.l)
What is a MIB?
MIB (
What is a Service Catalog?
According to ITIL v3, a Service Catalog is a database or structured Document with information about all Live IT Services, including those available for Deployment. The Service Catalogue is the only part of the Service Portfolio published to Customers, and is used to support the sale and delivery of IT Services. The Service Catalogue includes information about deliverables, prices, contact points, ordering and request Processes.
3) SNMP Features
What SNMP features does it have?
FireScope Workbench includes a MIB walk, MIB browser and MIB importer.
What does MIB Walker do?
MIB Walker will query your SNMP-enabled devices, such as routers, switches, printers, power and air equipment, and request all of the information they expose via SNMP (or you can filter to specific sections of OID's if you like). This may be thousands of pieces of information, ranging from software versions, up time, bandwidth utilization, processor utilization and more. Once FireScope Workbench has all of this information, it will attempt to translate this raw data into english using its built-in MIB database, and the results will be displayed for you in an easy to navigate table, sortable and searchable. Clicking on any OID will display details, including current values. You can even generate a real-time chart of an OID's values with the click of a button.
How long does it take to walk a device?
Some devices, such as routers and switches can have literally thousands and thousands of OID's with valuable information, and can take minutes to fully walk. Others may just need seconds. Additionally, FireScope's unique caching abilities will make subsequent walks of a device faster and faster.
Can I expand FireScope Workbench's MIB database?
Certainly! The included MIB Importer can import any properly formatted MIB file. You can download MIB files from the manufacturer of the device, or from your favorite MIB directory site (such as Cisco's MIB directory, Mib Depot, Mib Search) and import directly into FireScope Workbench. Once imported, this data is instantly available using the MIB Walker or MIB Browser plugins.
What does the MIB Browser do?
The MIB Browser plugin lets you browse your MIB files in one of three ways, by individual MIB file, by OID tree or by in a table view where you can sort or search by any aspect of your MIB files. You can build an export list of your favorite OID's and export to a universal XML format for easy use in your monitoring and management solutions. Additionally, you can quickly test an OID against a device by selecting an OID and entering an IP address and community string.
How is FireScope different from all those other SNMP tools out there?
Most often, SNMP applications are collections of different applications that don't share information between each other. FireScope Workbench is built as a single, integrated application to make it easier to get your work done. Additionally, FireScope Workbench is designed to maximize your options, view your data however you like, universal exports for easy integration with third-party apps - all while delivering a highly intuitive and very attractive interface.
How many MIB files does FireScope Workbench come with?
Out of the box, FireScope Workbench includes over 500 MIB files.
4) Service Modeler
What is Service Modeler?
The Service Modeler plugin enables you to organize your systems and equipment by the critical services they deliver to users. This simple, 5-step process walks you through defining your services and performing service-level discovery on your network to identify the systems that contribute to these critical services.
Why is this important?
No system on your network operates in isolation. Knowing what systems are contributing to which critical services opens the door to a wide range of possibilities, such as accurate prioritization of work, more accurate analysis of what services are costing you, better impact analysis of change and more.
5) Discovery
What is Enhanced Discovery?
The Professional-Edition of Workbench includes a Discovery plugin that expands greatly on the service discovery available in the Service Modeler in the free edition. Identifying database servers, custom port scans and SNMP querying are just the beginning of the enhancements available to Professional-Edition users.
What kinds of things can I discover with it?
In short, any device on your network. Additionally, the discovery plugin can identify model names of equipment, operating systems on servers, open ports, running applications and more.
How does this compare with those discovery tools that charge thousands of dollars?
The cost. It's that simple. Don't believe us? Download your copy and dare to compare.
What can I do with the information Workbench discovers?
Results of Discovery in FireScope Workbench can be exported into an open XML or CSV format, making it easily usable for most monitoring and management solutions. Or, you can open in Excel or similar programs to enhance your spreadsheets and documentation.
6) User Experience Checker
What does User Experience Checker do?
The user experience checker simulates a user on your website or web application and performs steps that you define to complete common tasks. For example, if you have an e-commerce website, FireScope Workbench can test the home page, adding products to a shopping cart and complete a test transaction.
What does the User Experience Checker monitor?
As the UEC completes each step you define, it monitors HTTP status codes (such as 200 for Success, 500 for server errors) and it can check for specific phrases on a page that would only appear if the step were successful (such as Login Successful or Transaction Complete). Additionally, with each step, FireScope Workbench monitors response time and download speeds of these pages, displayed in real-time graphs, so you can see which pages are performing poorly and may be preventing users from completing tasks.
Why should I care?
Simply knowing that your website is up and running isn't enough any more. A single bad line of code on the third page of a checkout process, or a slow loading search page can be just as damaging for your business. What you need is visibility into how your users perceive their experience, which is where FireScope Workbench's User Experience Checker comes in.
Community-Edition Feature Set
Walks Like A Charm
The MIB (Management Information Base) Walk Tool quickly collects information about your SNMP-enabled networked devices by walking the SNMP tree for a target device and polling the current value of every OID (Object Identifier) the device supports. Check out some screen shots and see MIB Walker in action!
Once you've walked a device, you can create real-time graphs of the value of any OID or even export the walk to an XML file. This file can then be uploaded to FireScope BSM to be added as a managed asset.
What makes FireScope Workbench unique, is its ability to import MIB files on the fly as a device is walked. Simply download a MIB file from your vendor or third party website, and FireScope will automatically identify the correct MIB file to use. Additionally, each MIB is cached, making successive walks of similar devices faster and faster.
Easily Organize Your MIBs
There's no better way to keep your MIB files in line than with Workbench's MIB Importer. The Importer gathers MIB files into FireScope, where they are then accessible by other Workbench plug-ins, such as the MIB Walker.
By default, Workbench comes with over 500 MIB files to cover the most commonly used devices. MIB Importer enables you to grab MIB files from your vendors or MIB repositories and import them into FireScope to use in MIB Walker, MIB Browser and more.
- Import once and have access to it's OID data in MIB Walker, MIB Browser and any forthcoming SNMP plugins.
- Over 500 MIB files included to cover the most commonly used devices.
- Streamlined interface, one-step import.
- Able to reset to default MIB library with a single click.
- Any properly formatted MIB file can be imported.
Is There Any Body Out There?
Workbench's Ping Sweep function is the fastest and easiest way to see what is running on your network. The rapid scan offers complete visibility, returning the name, IP of what was found, and its response time (which is useful for identifying whether the network is running slow). The results can be exported to XML or CSV formats, so you can load the results into FireScope, Excel, or other third-party tools.
- Scan a class-c subnet in mere minutes, including DNS lookup of each responding host.
- Instant filtering, sorting and searching of results at the click of the mouse.
- Export results into FireScope Universal XML format or CSV, for easy portability to your other programs.
Service Modeler You Can Dependency On
The Service Modeler feature of FireScope Workbench lets you model your IT Services in a user-friendly interface with discovery capabilities to do all the legwork. Simply create your Service Group containers and scan your network to begin mapping IT Services and their dependent networked assets.
Once you've built your service model, an export to XML function provides a standards-compliant format for importing into Visio or any other network visualization tool, or into any monitoring and management solution that supports XML import, which includes FireScope BSM and CMDB products.
- Five-step process from start to finish, accessible for any level of user.
- Service discovery scans of your network to identify service dependencies.
- Export your service model to XML for massive portability.
Take It Up A Notch
While the Community-Edition makes things dramatically easier for IT operators, our free version only nicks the surface of Workbench's full capabilities. In addition to the tools covered above, the Pro-Edition also features a MIB Browser (with import option), Service Catalog Builder, Discovery, and User Experience Checker. In-depth explanations of each feature are available below.
Professional-Edition Feature Set
Design With Ease
The FireScope Service Catalog Builder enables you to design your entire service catalog, from the catalog containers, down through their dependent systems and applications, all with point and click ease.
Source catalogs are an essential tool for any organization that embraces ITIL, and Workbench's catalogs can be exported to universal XML for use in FireScope products, as well as third-party applications.
- Build multiple Service Catalogs for each location, department or user group.
- Highly intuitive interface walks you through every step.
- Advanced discovery helps you link dependencies to the critical services offered in each catalog.
MIBs At Your Fingertips
FireScope Workbench's MIB Browser provides you with an encyclopedic knowledge of your MIBs. The user-friendly interface lets you browse all of your MIB's - including third-party or vendor created files - either by OID, MIB File, or tree view.
To make the browsing process even easier, FireScope offers a search function, which scans the OID, title and description. MIB Browser also gives you the ability to add individual OID's to an export list that can be saved as an XML file for faster configuration of FireScope.
- Browse your MIB data by individual MIB file, OID tree or search by any column.
- Pick an OID and test against your SNMP-enabled assets with real-time charting of values.
- Over 500 MIB files included to cover the most commonly used devices.
- Build your own export list of individual OID's, saved as XML for maximum portability to your favorite apps.
Discovery Made Easy, Fast and Inexpensive
The advanced discovery capabilities in Workbench's Professional-Edition take the Community-Edition's service discovery to the next level, offering features traditionally found only in discovery products costing six figures. No other product offers such powerful Discovery capabilities at FireScope's affordable rate. Workbench Pro-Edition scans a network to find active devices and identify the model (in the case of network equipment or printers), operating system, applications and more. Highly configurable, you're able to scan by network range, ports to investigate, and can even perform SNMP queries.
- Powerful features that rival competitors charging 100x FireScope Workbench's price.
- Choose from any combination of pre-defined port scans, SNMP queries or custom service scans.
- Extremely intuitive interface, masterable by users of every experience-level.
Diagnose and Monitor Even the Most Complex Web App
Workbench's User Experience Checker simulates commonly performed tasks on a web application, such as adding items to a shopping cart, completing transactions, logging in, running reports and more.
At each step, Workbench verifies that the step is completed, either by http return code or by checking for specific words or phrases in the output. Also, response time and download speeds are measured for each step, helping you identify performance bottlenecks that might be causing customers to abandon your site.
The User Experience Checker supports all web technologies - ASP, CGI, .NET, Java Server Pages, PHP, etc, and will submit POST and GET data at each step. And to give you the big picture, it also creates real-time graphs that measure the performance of each step over time.
| Community | Professional | |
| Service Modeler |  |
|
| MIB Walker | |
|
| MIB Importer | |
|
| Ping Sweep | |
|
| MIB Browser | |
|
| Enhanced Discovery | |
|
| Service Catalog Builder | |
|
| User Experience Checker | |
The following table outlines the differences between the free Community-Edition of FireScope Workbench and the Professional-Edition. Additional features are always being developed for Professional-Edition, and are delivered via automatic updates.
Requirements
The FireScope Workbench installation package contains all of the required dependencies needed to collect SNMP information and execute a discovery scan.
- Requirements
- Windows XP and above (32-bit)
- 256 MB RAM
- 75 MB Disk Space
Note - FireScope Workbench is intended for use as an application for engineers to model and monitor IT assets, and as such should not be installed on a production server.
