New Features in This Release

Active Directory Integration in Loupe Server

Loupe Server can be configured to use one or more external Active Directories to not only authenticate users but also to manage provisioning them.  Custom credentials can be provided for integration with AD so the Loupe Server infrastructure can be in a different domain or no domain.

• Authenticating Users with Active Directory: New users can be created from an Active Directory account and will automatically update their display information and email address from AD.  Authentication for these users is passed to AD so disabling, deleting, or locking out their account in AD will prevent them from logging into Loupe immediately.
• Provisioning Users with Active Directory:  Groups can be selected in Active Directory and mapped to a Repository in Loupe Server with a specific level of access.  This facilitates completely hands-off user administration for teams.
• Support Internal Users, Active Directory Users, or Both: A Loupe Repository can be configured to support AD users exclusively or a mix of AD and Internal users.  This makes it easy for each team to have a different administration model for their repository while sharing the same Loupe infrastructure.

Connect to Multiple Servers with Loupe Desktop

Loupe Desktop now supports multiple servers, each with their own local repository.  By default, server connections each get their own repository that's distinct from the User Repository. 

• Independent Synchronization: Each server connection has its own copy of session summary information and cache of session files.  If you delete a server repository all of the local disk space is freed.
• Work Between Servers: You can open sessions from each server, view live sessions and analyze data for each connected server without having to reconfigure Loupe Desktop or restart it. 

New Loupe Desktop Authentication with Server Users

Previously, Loupe Desktop used a shared secret to set up synchronization with a Loupe Server which then used public/private keys to authenticate for each session.  This lead to confusion with people wanting to use their Loupe Server credentials to set up synchronization and a concern with administrators that it was difficult to know who was downloading data from their Loupe Server.

As of version 3.7, Loupe Desktop uses the same credentials as Loupe Server to authenticate.  This simplifies administration, increases security, and reduces confusion.  Future releases of Loupe Desktop will build on this to incorporate capabilities currently only available on the Loupe Server Web UI.

Faster Loupe Desktop Startup

With the addition of the new Server Repositories Loupe Desktop has been enhanced to defer more work from application startup to when it's first accessed.  This reduces startup time significantly for large repositories and reduces memory consumption.

Loupe Server Navigate Back to Last Activity View When Completing an Action

Previously, when reviewing a list of application events or issues if you took an action (such as suppressing the event or closing the issue) you would have to select the activity you're working on (such as Events Review) from the left-hand navigation to continue with the next item.  Now Loupe Server keeps track of which activity list you most recently navigated through and will send you back to that page when you complete an action on an Issue or Application Event.  This makes it much easier to continue with the task that had you modify the Issue or Event in the first place.

Loupe Server Split Issue

Application Events can now be split from an existing issue to create a new issue.  This enables scenarios where application events are initially combined into a common issue but after further investigation they are distinct defects.  Simply select a subset of the application events on the issue and click New Issue to separate them.

New Server Connection Options for Enterprise Edition

To make it easier to configure communication from Agents to Loupe Server Enterprise edition a new option to specify the repository by name has been added to the Loupe Agent and Loupe Packager.  This removes the need to manually determine the relative path to the repository on the cluster and enter it as an Application Base Path (which is still supported as well).

Compatibility

Loupe 3.7.0 is generally backwards compatible with 3.0 with the following notes:

• Agent: Compatible with Server & Desktop versions 3.0 and later.
• Server: Fully backwards compatible with older Agents and Loupe Desktops, any version.
• Desktop: Compatible with Server versions 3.7.0 and later.  Compatible with any version of Agent.

Agent API Changes

There are minor additions to the Agent API in version 3.7.0.  Accordingly, the Gibraltar Agent has a new assembly version (3.7.0.0).  The changes are:

• New: Gibraltar.Agent.Log.ApplyConsent: This method improves auto-send consent scenarios by allowing background processes to respect the consent settings of a different UI application in the same product.
• Modified: Gibraltar.Agent.Packager.SendToServer: To support the new Enterprise Server better a new repository option has been added to certain overloads.
• Modified: Gibraltar.Agent.Packager.SendToServerAsync: To support the new Enterprise Server better a new repository option has been added to certain overloads.

Review Loupe 3.6 Notes

Since this is an update release you should read Getting Started - What's New - Version 3.6 for a more complete picture of the new capabilities since version 3.0.

Defects Fixed In This Release

Agent

• Fixed: May never prune log files for short lived applications.
• Fixed: Processes with AutoSendConsent enabled may never enable auto send.
• Fixed: Auto Send on Error has no effect if there are no subscribers to the MessageAlert event.
• Fixed: Live Sessions Save doesn't do anything if no server is configured or the server isn't available.

Desktop

• Fixed: Can bombard server with requests when loading large groups of session summaries.

Server

• Fixed: Can repeatedly rebuild the Issue full text search index and attempt multiple simultaneous rebuilds, consuming server analysis resources.
• Fixed: Session analysis jobs can fail to ever be run if the analysis thread is aborted.
• Fixed: Loupe Desktop subscriptions don't accurately reflect last contact timestamp.
• Fixed: Usage charts can display NaN for date elements.
• Fixed: Unable to create new issue from application event already associated with an issue.
• Fixed: Issue Management view incorrectly ignores issues exactly matching versions for some version numbers.
• Fixed: Users may get prompted for credentials repeatedly in IE for Enterprise servers.