IP Explorer

E2E Management of IP services

for Enterprises and Telecommunication Service Providers of all size

 

In today's ever-increasing competitive environment, the use of management tools to support the progressively more complex management of IP-based networks is becoming crucial in enterprise and telecommunications environments.

 

Users and applications gain access to network services through IP network technologies both in enterprise and telecommunications environments. Increasing quality demands of IP-based services mean that more reliable IP services are required.

 

The above conditions are making the management of services provided on IP platforms ever more complex, traditional IP management systems are unable to cope adequately with these new challenges.

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Benefits

• IP Explorer supports L1/L2/L3 level discovery of inhomogeneous IP/MPLS networks
• IP Explorer supports activation of inhomogeneous IP/MPLS networks.
• Easy to use WEB GUI
• Robust, scalable and fault tolerant
• Due to all functions of IP Explorer are accessible through its northbound  interface it can easily be integrated into the different management workflows
• Full feature open application interface enables development of new managed equipments by third party companies
• The sophisticated authorization system can be fine tuned

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Requirements for modern IP management systems

• What availability does the IP network service provide?
• Is there any free capacity available?
• Which services are affected by the specific problem?
• Which customers are affected by the specific problem?
• Which SLA should be followed when responding?

The above expectations can only be met if suitable conditions exist that enable End-To-End (E2E) management. There are two approaches to implementing E2E management:

• Horizontal approach
• Vertical approach

The horizontal approach is based on geographical location, which requires information on the physical paths of IP-based services. The vertical approach includes a hierarchical layer structure of network entities ranging from the physical level to the service level.

 

In an IP environment both horizontal and vertical structures can change dynamically. A technical inventory is needed to keep track of the changes and to supply up-to-date information on the structure of the IP network. Traditional technical inventories typically cover databases controlled by deployment processes and manually managed by operators, the data accuracy of which, in the long run, may decrease significantly due to human resource limitations. This means that they are not suitable for accurately tracking fast network changes.

 

An IP model-based dynamic technical inventory offers a solution to the above problem. The static systems based on traditional telecommunications models (ATM, PDH, SDH) are not sufficiently flexible to maintain inventories of IP networks.

 

The key to the success of IP model-based technical inventories is accurate and adequate storage of L1, L2, L3 and L4 layers in the model most suitable for the IP environment, which is crucial to capacity management. In addition, the model should also be vendor independent, i.e. it should not depend on proprietary manufacturer solutions. The model developed in accordance with the above principles is expected to answer the following questions:

• What components does a service have?

• Where do we have free capacities?

The model should always reflect the actual condition of the IP network infrastructure. The dynamic environment requires the implementation of Auto Discovery (i.e. the mapping of IP network components). A model-based technical inventory completed with the Auto Discovery function allows for service design; E2E provisioning and activation; alarm and performance management integration; and an updated, real-time traditional technical inventory based on actual network data reconciliation.

 

This latter functionality requires that automatic L2, L3 and L4-level discovery be enabled. Discovery can be performed on the basis of inventory data collected from the NMS and EMS systems, or through direct connections of network devices. The data collected in this way provides real-time information on any network changes. This internal inventory can be updated through comparison of the discovered data and information from the IP model-based technical inventory. Naturally, in addition to the above automatic process, the technical inventory can also be manually expanded with data including

• Undiscovered data
• Organizational data

These supplementary data can also be stored in the unified model.

 

An IP model-based inventory is also essential for service design, since information on available free capacity enables the allocation of network resources. The design process itself may be based on pre-defined rules, templates, human decisions (wizard) and their combinations using technical inventory data.

 

Service deployment and activation can also be carried out using the accurate technical inventory data. This is how E2E deployment of the IP service network can be performed. During the deployment phase the process is broken down into specific tasks. These tasks will define the sequence in which individual network components are configured, i.e. activated. This process requires transaction security, meaning that should any error occur during activation, the system should be restored to an earlier, properly functioning state, and the operator should be informed about the location of the problem by an error message. Logically, deployments take place through network configuration managing systems (EMS, NMS) or, if no such systems are available, through direct configuration of the devices. The configuration of the individual management systems and/or network devices requires suitable, vendor-specific interface modules.

 

IP Explorer System

 

IP Explorer, the off-the-shelf software developed by NETvisor is an IP network manager solution with a graphical interface, designed for the topological discovery and display of detected network components. It is able to display the complete IP backbone network on its graphical interface.

 

The range of devices managed by IP Explorer is continuously expanding. IP Explorer is updated each time a new device is connected into the IP backbone network.

 

The IP Explorer system also includes automatic topological discovery function. It performs L1 topological discovery on the network made up of the device types listed above.

 

The IP Explorer has a graphical interface. The interface offers the following functions:

• Ordering of device topology
• Display of device parameters
• Display of device cards
• Display of device interfaces
• Display of device configuration parameters

The network topology determined by automatic topological discovery is graphically displayed on the screen. The network components can be freely reorganized (drag and drop). The system stores network component organization by users. When users log in, they always see their personal view. Network topology can be exported or printed for later use.

 

VLAN sub module

The VLAN sub module is based on the IP Explorer framework. The sub module's task is to manage VLANs defined in the IP backbone network.

 

Capacity management of VLAN identifiers

The VLAN identifiers in the L2 networks below the primer networks have to be unique. The identifier is registered as a scarce resource and triggers the VLAN sub module to provide VLAN identifier capacity management.

 

VLAN discovery / look-up

The topological discovery of the network foundation enables discovery of the VLANs previously defined on the network and their parameters. The result of the process is then compared with the VLAN sub module's data.

 

If the discovery process detects a VLAN not registered in the management system, it is automatically registered. This resolves the problem of initial data entry. As the module responsible for the capacity management of VLAN identifiers is informed of the discovered VLAN identifiers, these identifiers will not be allocated again when defining new VLANs.

 

If the data resulting from discovery is in conflict with the data stored in the management system, the operator has to decide whether the data in the network or that in the management system is correct. Depending on their decision, either the data in the management system or the network device configuration will be overwritten.

 

Inventory interface

The system has a northbound inventory interface. The interface allows the following functions:

• Device query
• Card query
• Interface query
• Physical connection query
• VLAN query
• EoMPLS connection query

Through the inventory interface all information ever needed in an external technical inventory system can be extracted.

 

User management

In the user management system various access rights can be defined enabling control over functions available to specific users. In the case of the IP Explorer system the following roles can be defined:

• Operator
• Administrator
• Root

Naturally, the user management system offers the option of further adjustment of the roles.

 

Operating environment

The IP Explorer system is scalable as per the network size. In the initial configuration capable of managing the current network, the core of the system will be the jboss application server running on the central server, and the application included in the offer. Users can handle the system through a WEB GUI. Consequently, the application can be used on any platform supporting WEB browsers. For this reason, the following platforms are always supported:

• Windows
• UNIX
• Linux