Astaro 8.100 Beta Begins

With the success of the ASG V8.000 launch, we will begin today the open Beta program for users which want to test the upcoming 8.100 release. The main focus of this version is to introduce the Wireless functionality of Astaro Access Points and Wifi controller into the V8 platform, along with other features and improvements. You are invited to test this version in your environement, and participate in our dedicated 8.100 Beta Forums to share your feedback, impressions, and report any bugs. Several Astaro staff will closely monitor and interact with the participants of this forum to ensure the best possible polish and quality of 8.100 for the GA release.

With the success of the ASG V8.000 launch, we will begin today the open Beta program for users which want to test the upcoming 8.100 release. The main focus of this version is to introduce the Wireless functionality of Astaro Access Points and Wifi controller into the V8 platform, along with other features and improvements. You are invited to test this version in your environement, and participate in our dedicated 8.100 Beta Forums to share your feedback, impressions, and report any bugs. Several Astaro staff will closely monitor and interact with the participants of this forum to ensure the best possible polish and quality of 8.100 for the GA release.

Several of the top contributers and testers will receive prizes for their efforts! You can win your own access point, Astaro RED device, or even an ASG appliance for personal home use. For all the details of the 8.100 Beta program, and information on the release itself, read on!

General Beta Information
Why Participate?
To try the latest features and new things before they are generally available! By installing our Beta software, you get the chance to see upcoming features and test new functionality a bit earlier than the general customer-base. In return, we gain valuable insight into various areas of the release which might not otherwise be uncovered during normal QA lab testing or via our own private test installations. This lets us offer releases with the quality you have come to expect from Astaro, and also lets us hear your impressions of our latest offerings so that we can continue to build the best products which our customers want to buy.

How to be a Beta tester:
It’s simple. Just download the latest Beta ISO image via our continually updated forums post, burn it to a CD and install it to your ASG software installation or appliance. Please be sure to download the appropriate ISO. Once you are using the 8.100 Beta, you can continue to use Up2Date and install the next Beta releases for 8.100 without needing to re-install again. Just restore your backup file and you are up and running! We also plan to release a final Up2Date package at the end of the 8.100 Beta which will take your installation to the GA release of 8.100 without having to re-install again.

How you can contribute:
During the period of the Beta for 8.100, which will run until approximately late November, we would encourage you to post your impressions, feedback, bug reports, and all the associated things you like (or don’t like!) in our offical 8.100 Beta forums. We will closely monitor and reply to threads and comments in this forum for the duration of the Beta. At the end of the Beta, we will reward our most active contributors; there are great prizes and rewards to be had!

 

Astaro Beta 8.100 Download Information:
For the first release of the Beta, version 8.050 is being made available. Future updates and releases will be communicated soley through the forums, so check there often for updates and news around the 8.100 release! You will find many answers to early questions, test license downloads, and general Beta information can be found in the launch overview for 8.100 here.

Links:
ASG ISO for Software/Virtual appliance installation:
ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ASG/v8/beta/asg-8.050-36.1.iso
ISO size: 398M (416995328 bytes)
ISO md5sum: 37bb40b4a0673eeb18fab4496e4268d3
ISO sha1sum: ccbf74256a52e331ad21de6807a2f4c0f646b283

SSI ISO for Hardware appliance installation:
ftp://ftp.astaro.de/pub/ASG/v8/beta/ssi-8.050-36.1.iso
ISO size: 408M (427395072 bytes)
ISO md5sum: 8ca84673484f17bd8555dbc036637baa
ISO sha1sum: f6f20f428ec66cab1d932b41362001d4883df9f4

 

Feature Details:
Wireless
The Astaro Access Points (Astaro Access Points) are now supported in V8. There are no major differences in functionality between V7 and V8 in this area.

RED Transparent/Split Modes
RED Appliances now support a third operating mode: "Transparent / Split". In this mode, the ASG is not responsible as the gateway for the remote network behind the RED device (eg. it does not provide a DHCP server and is not the default gateway). Instead, all traffic per default goes transparently through RED through the existing Internet connection at the branch; only traffic for the destined for the networks at the main office behind the ASG (remote networks) will be redirected to the ASG. At RED Managment >> Deployment helper you can find a setup form for RED devices which gives a bit more context and help instead of the standard Add RED form, in a wizard-style approach.

Various Usability Improvements:

  • Improved Object Tables: Certain actions (delete, enable, and disable) can now be applied to multiple selected objects. Also, object tables can now be sorted by different attributes of objects.
  • Dashboard Links: Various parts of the Dashboard now allow you to directly jump to the relevant page in WebAdmin via the green arrows in the head lines. Also all the topics in "Current system configuration" are now linked to the respective page.
  • SMTP Profiles Redesign: SMTP profile configuration has been redesigned to be more in line with the rest of WebAdmin.
  • Streamlined Interface Setup: When creating or editing an interface object, per default not all the options are shown anymore. Some of the more advanced settings or rarely-used options are hidden by default.
  • Uplink Balancing Mixed Mode: In uplink balancing you don’t have to choose anymore between either full multipath or failover. You can now define a default set of multipath interfaces and still define one or more fail over interfaces which will be activated if all the default interfaces fail. This can be useful if you have one line that is much slower or expensive than the others and should only be used as a very last resort.
  • HTTP Parent Proxy Routing: You can now define more than one parent proxy for the HTTP proxy at Web Security>>HTTP/S Profiles>>Parent Proxies. Each parent proxy can be limited to a list of hosts. At Web Security>>HTTP/S>>Advanced you can define the list of enabled parent proxies and the order in which they should be matched. This feature is useful if various destinations require different upstream proxy points, such as in Schools or Government environments.

Enjoy the 8.100 Beta!

Angelo Comazzetto
Astaro Product Manager

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