2.1 Installation Considerations

When you upgrade from a previous version to Vivinet Assessor 4.0, the product runs in the demo mode. You need to register Vivinet Assessor 4.0 using a new authorization key to use the full functionality. Please contact the NetIQ Sales representative or login to the NetIQ Customer Center to get the authorization key.

To register Vivinet Assessor 4.0, see Section 2.3.2, Registering using a License Key.

Vivinet Assessor uses Microsoft SQL Server 2014 as its database engine.

Vivinet Assessor uses Windows authentication to install the SQL Server named instance. This ensures that anyone seeking access to the SQL Server database on your computer has to be logged in with administrator privileges, restricting access to the user or group who installed Vivinet Assessor. But you may still want to take the following steps to provide extra security:

You should install any subsequent security updates for this version of Microsoft SQL server as soon as they become available.

Vivinet Assessor installs the SQL Server named instance, VASSESSOR, to the location you specify during the Vivinet Assessor installation process. The default location is c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server. In this directory, the VASSESSOR instance is installed in a subfolder called MSSQL##.VASSESSOR\MSSQL\Binn. The database files are installed in the MSSQL##\MSSQL\Data subfolder. In both subfolders, ## is the major version of the version of Microsoft SQL Server of the VASSESSOR named instance.

One essential step in setting up the Utilization assessment and Network Inventory is providing SNMP permissions, the security information that allows Vivinet Assessor to contact and query devices on your network. The type of information you configure varies according to the version of SNMP that is implemented on a device. Vivinet Assessor supports SNMP versions 1, 2, and 3. For more information, see Section 3.1, Setting Up a Network Inventory.

For the latest information about supported software versions and the availability of module updates, visit the AppManager Supported Products page. Unless noted otherwise, Vivinet Assessor supports all updates, hotfixes, and service packs for the releases listed below.

Vivinet Assessor has the following system requirements:

The following guidelines suggest the maximum number of simultaneous two-way VoIP calls you can run per endpoint during the assessment of VoIP quality before the call load itself begins to induce impairments to the call-quality scores.

In internal testing, two Pentium 800 computers with 256 MB of RAM on Windows Server 2008 R2 served as the endpoints. Although the codec used is the most significant performance factor, the brand of NIC installed in the endpoints is also important. In NetIQ testing, an Intel PRO/100+ Server adapter was used.

Each assessment you create is stored as a separate database in the system. By default, these databases are all on the same hard drive where you installed Vivinet Assessor. However, you can specify another location for assessments, such as on another hard drive, by using the Assessment Location feature. For more information, see Section 10.2, Changing the Location of Your Assessment.

Some system-related databases will always reside on the hard drive where Vivinet Assessor is installed. Although most of these databases are negligible in size, one database may present disk-space issues. The system’s temporary database, tempdb.mdf, is used internally for processing, committing, and rolling back data in the database system. This database is initially about 3 MB in size, but grows based on activity. The space used by this database shrinks only when the database system is restarted.

The database system is restarted when the computer is restarted. Therefore, if you notice space problems due to the size of this database, you should save your work and restart the system, or restart the MSSQL$VASSESSOR system service.

When you perform a Network Inventory and assess Utilization and VoIP Quality, Vivinet Assessor sends SNMP queries or simulated VoIP traffic over your network. In addition, some TCP traffic is generated during endpoint discovery. And for each assessment task, some traffic necessarily passes from the Vivinet Assessor Console to your network devices.

For the Network Inventory, a small amount of traffic is generated for each network device to be discovered. Thus, if you enter a very broad address range for your discovery scan—or several medium-sized address ranges—and if a great many devices share the address ranges to be scanned, be aware of the SNMP traffic that will be generated.

Each time Vivinet Assessor attempts to discover a device at a specific IP address during the Network Inventory, it sends a 100-byte SNMP packet over the network. During inventory setup, you select the number of times this SNMP query will be sent. For more information, see Section 3.1.1, Editing SNMP Configuration Information. Once a device responds, a separate SNMP query of 100 bytes is sent to obtain each type of information Vivinet Assessor collects for each device type. Because of the comparatively large amount of data collected about routers, the maximum amount of data sent between the Console and a discovered device, approximately 3500 bytes, is sent when a router is discovered.

When you assess utilization, device and link measurements are collected using SNMP queries. To monitor a large number of devices, be sure the Console has a very fast connection to the network where monitoring is being performed.

Some assessment tasks may be performed simultaneously. Although you cannot perform a Utilization assessment while the Network Inventory is running, you can assess utilization and VoIP Quality simultaneously. And you can set up a Configuration assessment while a Utilization assessment is running, but you cannot run it until the Utilization assessment has completed.

In order for the Vivinet Assessor console to function properly on computers running recent versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems, you must change the User Account Control (UAC) settings from the default.