Dynamic Drivers support has been introduced in this release. Certain data classes use Dynamic Drivers to acquire data. Dynamic Drivers are essentially standalone binary executables which adhere to the SysInfo Dynamic Drivers command line protocol. The primary benefit of Dynamic Drivers is to allow for expansion of support for new data sources for a given class without having to build, test, and distribute an entire new SysInfo™ product. Instead, new drivers can be distributed in a Feature Pack which overlays an existing product release. Dynamic Drivers also provide fault and dependency isolation between the main SysInfo Engine (SIE) and data discovery sources.

The Storage System class has been introduced in this release. This new class provides data on Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Network (SAN) systems known to a host computer. This release supports EMC Symmetrix and Clariion systems, and Network Appliance Filers. See the User Guide for further details. Support for other storage systems will be added in the future. This data class uses Dynamic Drivers.

The Storage Volume class has been introduced in this release. This new class provides data on local storage volumes (disks) managed by volume management software, otherwise known as Logical Volume Managers (LVM). This release supports Veritas Volume Manager, HP HP-UX Logical Volume Manager (LVM), IBM AIX Logical Volume Manager (LVM), Linux MD Software RAID software, and Sun Solaris Volume Manager (formerly known as DiskSuite). This data class uses Dynamic Drivers.

The Filesystem class is new in this release. It provides details of all mounted filesystems (local, NFS, psuedo, etc) similiar to the df command included with most versions of UNIX and Linux. This much requested feature provides its data in the normal SysInfo™ platform independent manner.

The Site Info class has been introduced in this release. This new class allows customers to set arbitrary, site specific data on a computer and have it reported in the Site Info class. This frequently requested feature can be used to allow a customer to store and display data such as a company specific asset tag, owner of a computer, and physical location. See the mcsysinfositeinfo(5) manual for details.

Solaris hardware detection has improved. SysInfo™ uses the Solaris libdevinfo(3) API on Solaris 8 and later systems to discovery primary hardware information about a system. This interfaces provides improveded hardware data.

The Primary User of a system is now reported in the General class data. This value is calculated based on who has logged into the system the most number of times.

The Timezone of a system is now reported in the General class data.

The CPU Model of a system is now reported in the General class data.

The number of CPUs currently online and offline are now reported in the General class data. This data is useful on those platforms where individual CPUs can be present, but offline.

The documentation has been improved and re-written in DocBook format.