July 29, 2005 — Tactical Software today began shipping version 4.4 of the TacServe COM Port Server software for the Windows operating system. The new version is a free update for version 4 users and adds many new features important to small business and large enterprise users alike.
The TacServe server software now allows the administrator to create named "port groups" (called "dial-out modem pools" in modem applications), each with its own access, security, and control settings for one or more shared COM ports that are members of the group. Port groups allow TacServe to provide on one server the functions of multiple PC-based modem servers or serial servers.
Each port group has its own settings for hunt group behavior, TCP port access, user authentication, modem dialing restrictions, timeouts, and encryption. One PC running TacServe can now meet the needs of multiple applications that have have differing security policies and/or use different types of modems or devices.
Each port group has its own rules for allowed and denied telephone numbers for modem calls. When an application uses a TacServe shared port to make a modem call, the TacServe server applies the dialing restriction rules that have been defined for the port group used by the application.
Allowed/denied numbers can include "*" (multi-digit) and "?" (single-digit) matching characters to make it easy to use a few rules to manage access to a large range of telephone numbers. Default processing can be set to "allow" or "deny" for numbers that do not match any rule.
Dialing rules are managed in a simple graphical user interface that supports in-place editing and reordering with drag-and-drop gestures.
Both the call log and the activity log data are now stored in a database with an ODBC interface, allowing the use of numerous third-party ODBC-enabled tools to manage and report all TacServe log data in real-time.
Microsoft Office applications (such as Excel and Query) and numerous other third-party tools (such as Crystal Reports) can be used to create reports for selected ranges of log data. By redefining the TacServe ODBC data source, an administrator can use other databases to hold the TacServe data.
If TacServe version 4.4 is applied as an upgrade, previous log data is automatically imported to the log database.
For all shared COM ports:
For port groups:
