®

Basic Netcool Understanding – Day 2

© 2006 IBM Corporation

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Agenda

• Introduction
• Why we need netcool
• Netcool vs Other NMS tools
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• Netcool suite of products High level Overview
(OMNIBUS, WebGUI, Impact, ITNM, TBSM)
 IBM Software Group

Introduction
Traditionally, the IBM Netcool solution follows the CCAI methodology:
 C -> Collection Layer This layer is the one which is in actual contact with the Network, it
pulls or would get pushed the Fault events or Topology information or Performance
info. Typically the Probes, the Agents (which do the auto-discovery) in Precision Family
and the DataLoad in Proviso belong to this layer.

C -> Consolidation Layer This layer aggregates the information collected by the Collection
Layer and stores them. It also gives tools to manage this information, be it Fault,
Topology orIBM Software
Performance. Group
ObjectServer, | Lotus
Precision software
IP/TN Server(ITNM) and Datamart in
Proviso belong to this layer.

A -> Analysis Layer This layer processes the information gathered in the Consolidation
layer. Examples are, Impact which can be used to enrich the ObjectServer data or the
RCA (Root Cause Analysis) engine in Precision IP.

I -> Inform Layer This is the colorful layer which informs the user about the collected,
consolidated and analyzed Fault/Topology/Performance information. The information
could be passed on as Charts, Maps or Reports. WebGUI, Topoviz (part of the Precision
family) and Dataview in Proviso.
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IBM Netcool Architecture

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 IBM Software Group

Agenda

• Introduction
• Why we need netcool
• Netcool suite of products High level Overview
IBM Software Group | Lotus software
(OMNIBUS, WebGUI, Impact, ITNM, TBSM)
 IBM Software Group

Why We need Netcool

• Easy to Implement in any level of environment
• Highly Custom-able and easy to use
• Complete suite can use for Fault management and Network Management
• Netcool leverages a distributed, multi-layer approach to event correlation which
makes use of both inclusive and exclusive data paradigms rather than a single
monolithic correlation engine.
• IBM Software
Netcool/OMNIbus implementsGroup | Lotus
an exclusive software
data paradigm for event
consolidation and device-level containment based correlation. In other words,
things must be specifically excluded if events that they generate to OMNIbus
are not required to be managed, as all elements are monitored by default
without a pre-requisite for intermediate modeling.
 IBM Software Group

Agenda

• Introduction
• Why we need netcool
• Netcool suite of products High level Overview
IBM Software Group | Lotus software
(OMNIBUS, WebGUI, Impact, ITNM, TBSM)
 IBM Software Group

The list of important products from Netcool's stable are:

• OMNIbus
• WebGUI
• Impact
• ITNM
• IBM Software Group | Lotus software
Proviso
• TBSM
• Reporter
 IBM Software Group

Netcool Suite of products Integration

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 IBM Software Group

Introduction

The list of important products from Netcool's stable are:

• OMNIbus
• WebGUI
• Impact
• ITNM
IBM Software Group | Lotus software
• Proviso
• TBSM
• Reporter
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Netcool OMNIbus
Omnibus is the heart of Netcool Suite and is the core behind IBM Netcool Fault
Management solution.
Object Server is the repository for the Fault events collected from the network.

It is a memory resident database, which makes the event processing faster thus enabling
Netcool to provide robust, alarm storm tolerant Fault Management Solution.

Probe: IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Probe is a lightweight process/application who's primary responsibility is collection of Fault
information from the network and passes it to the ObjectServer to form alerts/events.

Gateway:
is a piece of software that enables the Object Server to interface with other 3rd party
applications / Object server. Thus giving the Object Server the capability to talk to other
NMSes / EMSes.
IBM Software Group

IBM Software Group | Lotus software

 IBM Software Group

Introduction

The list of important products from Netcool's stable are:

• OMNIbus
• WebGUI
• Impact
• ITNM
IBM Software Group | Lotus software
• Proviso
• TBSM
• Reporter
 IBM Software Group

WebGUI

• WebGUI web enables the Fault information stored in the ObjectServer. It is

the "beauty“ Netcool Suite.

• To put it brutally, Webtop represents the Fault data of the ObjectServer

using fancy charts, maps etc., through HTTP pages.
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• Webtop empowers Micromuse solution to be antime and anywhere
solution by giving access to the user to the get the Fault information about
his network over the internet.
 
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WebGUI Screenshots

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 IBM Software Group

WebGUI Screenshots

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 IBM Software Group

Introduction

The list of important products from Netcool's stable are:

• OMNIbus
• WebGUI
• Impact
• ITNM
IBM Software Group | Lotus software
• Proviso
• TBSM
• Reporter
 IBM Software Group

Netcool Impact

Impact is the "brain" of Netcool Suite.

User can use Impact to develop code called policy which can be used to enrich the
ObjectServer events. Impact can talk to an external database which could be
provisioning database or SLA database and derive additional information w.r.t the
alarm and populate it back into the ObjectServer event.
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Further, we can use these policies to find the Impact on the Services riding in th
Network and help the user prioritize his activities.
 IBM Software Group

Netcool Impact Architecture

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 IBM Software Group

Introduction

The list of important products from Netcool's stable are:

• OMNIbus
• WebGUI
• Impact
• ITNM
IBM Software Group | Lotus software
• TBSM
• Reporter
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ITNM
ITNM, would classify it as a product that does both Fault Management and to some extent
Configuration Management.
It is the product primarily used to Auto Discover the network and collect the Asset
information of the network elements.
Note that Precision doesn't have the capability to do Provisioning (sending commands
down to the Network element to change the behavior of the Network Element).
The main functionalities are:
Discovery: IBM Software Group | Lotus software
It automatically discovers the Layer 2 & 3 Network Elements, Models the collected
information and creates the Topological view of the Network. This is a pure Configuration
Management functionality.

Root Cause Analysis:

This a complex engine, which identifies the root of a problem from a storm of alarms
using the Topological information it has discovered earlier. Thus enabling the user to
quickly identify the root cause of the issue and resolve it instead of wasting precious time
in going over the load of events that are only the resultant alarm (or the secondary alarms)
caused by the root problem. This is a Fault Management functionality and is achieved in
conjunction with the ObjectServer which provides the fault data.
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ITNM Architecutre

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ITNM Screenshots

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 IBM Software Group

Introduction

The list of important products from Netcool's stable are:

• OMNIbus
• WebGUI
• Impact
• ITNM
IBM Software Group | Lotus software
• TBSM
• Reporter
 IBM Software Group

TBSM

TBSM is "the man" who knows the business!

It provides the business logic to the Network information collected by the

ObjectServer.
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RAD stands for Real-time Active Dashboard. RAD comes under the Business
Service Management domain in IBM Tivoli.
 
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TBSM Screenshots

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 IBM Software Group

Introduction

The list of important products from Netcool's stable are:

• OMNIbus
• WebGUI
• Impact
• ITNM
IBM Software Group | Lotus software
• TBSM
• Reporter
 IBM Software Group

Netcool Reporter

Reporter is the 'National Archive' of Netcool suite.

Reporter is the software that generates reports of ObjectServer events from a

disk resident database, be it Oracle or Sybase or SQL Server or even DB2.

Since ObjectServer is a memory resident DB, huge events can't be stored.

IBM Software Group | Lotus software
Reporter provides the user tools to generate different types of graphs/reports
and also schedule jobs.
 IBM Software Group

Netcool Reporter Screenshots

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Netcool Event flow

Netcool is a network outage event application

Netcool gives the agency real-time information on the status of
the network for IP services customers with color-coding for
quick at-a-glance network diagnostics.

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 IBM Software Group

Netcool Alarm Indicators

Purple
Red
Light
Orange
Green
Yellow–Blue
Critical
–––Clear
Indeterminate
Minor
Major
– Warning
alarm
event.
alarm
alarm - Service
-No
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–Service
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impacting
impacting
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that
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been
alarms
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All
BeforeNetcool we alarm
get too events
far into are color
Netcool,
This usually occurs when a problem has been resolved or cleared
Examples:
coded
let’s andby
look
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node
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CPU the
back
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(CPU
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normal. by
meanings status.that will be
to device)
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returned
(NMS
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displayed
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<= 20%
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available
route console.
available
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the importance or
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up
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(NMS
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query
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canLMI)
not query device)
urgency of the event, and the status indicates
Node
Bufferup
failure
(connectivity
alarm (buffer
restored
failures
to device)
have occurred on device)
Buffer is back to normal (alarm automatically clears after 4 hour waiting period)
whether the event has been acknowledged.
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Netcool Interface

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It is important to understand that the main Netcool screen is
presenting the same event information in four different
ways:
1. Network Status
2. Alarm Summary
3. GTA Region Status
4. Agency Status
By looking closer at each of these four sections, we can
determine just what each section represents.
 IBM Software Group

1. Network Status

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Network Status displays the total number of all alarm

events, along with the color of the most serious current
alarm event.

This means that there are 52 total events of different

severities, and the most severe is a Critical (red) event.
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Event Details List

Click the All Events icon to open a detailed description of all 52 events,
sorted from most serious to least serious.
Scroll down for details on the lesser alarms not visible.

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 IBM Software Group

Alarm Event Details

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

There are 9 fields in the information displayed once an object has been selected:
1. Event ID- a system generated unique identifier number
2. Remedy Ticket - The Remedy ticket number, once it is assigned (BellSouth ticketing system)
3. IBM Software Group | Lotus software
Node - The device name for the affected route or device
4. City – The city in which the device is located
5. ACK – Indicates whether the alarm has been acknowledged.
6. Summary – A brief summary of the alarm
7. First Occurrence – A Date/Time stamp of the alarm, indicating the time/date when the device first
went into alarm
8. Count – The number of times a device has alarmed since the initial alarm
9. Last Occurrence - Date/Time stamp of the last time the system indicated an alarm
 IBM Software Group

2. Alarm Summary

IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Of Click
the 52any
alarms
of thelisted in icons
alarm All Events,
listed inthe Alarm
Alarm Summary
Summary to
section
opendisplays only
a list with thethe events
details for that
thosefit alarm
into these parameters:
events.
Critical An outage affecting more than one site
Major Outage at an individual site
Last 30 Mins Events in the last 30 minutes
Count > 5 Error rate greater than 5% on a given interface
Minor Any error that does not cause an outage
 IBM Software Group

3. GTA Region Status

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Compare
If we compare
Each the orange
Region the redcolor
icon Athens
Rome icon to the alarm
corresponds alarm color
color
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alarm.
Click any ofthe
Remember thealarm
GTA color
Region alarm icons to open a list
codes?
with the details for those alarm events in that GTA Region.
This is the list generated by clicking the Rome icon.
 IBM Software Group
4. Agency Status

IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Similar toClick
the GTA
any of Region
the Agency
status,alarm
the Agency
icons to icons
openrepresent
a list the highest
status ofwith
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alarm.
 IBM Software Group

Netcool Summary
Netcool is a fault management tool.
It is important to remember that Netcool doesn’t measure performance; it
only indicates the presence or absence of traffic from network devices
and routes.
Similar to a ping command, as long as traffic is returned, it can be
demonstrated that the network devices and routes are still intact and
functioning.

IBM Software Group | Lotus software

When the traffic is not returned for a device or route, Netcool displays an
alert to indicate that lack of a returned message. So if you receive a call
reporting that the network is down, Netcool is your first verification
tool in diagnosing the issues at hand.

To measure metrics indicating network performance or slow-downs, and to

compare performance for select dates, select the InfoVista application
within the CNM Portal.
 IBM Software Group

Netcool Summary
Netcool is a fault management tool.
It is important to remember that Netcool doesn’t measure performance; it
only indicates the presence or absence of traffic from network devices
and routes.
Similar to a ping command, as long as traffic is returned, it can be
demonstrated that the network devices and routes are still intact and
functioning.

IBM Software Group | Lotus software

When the traffic is not returned for a device or route, Netcool displays an
alert to indicate that lack of a returned message. So if you receive a call
reporting that the network is down, Netcool is your first verification
tool in diagnosing the issues at hand.

To measure metrics indicating network performance or slow-downs, and to

compare performance for select dates, select the InfoVista application
within the CNM Portal.
IBM Software Group

IBM Software Group | Lotus software

IBM Software Group

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