1 Overview

This chapter provides a brief overview of the use of network and SLA monitoring with Oracle Communications IP Service Activator.

Introduction

IP Service Activator integrates with a wide range of third-party reporting systems and applications to offer network and SLA monitoring. To do this, network measurement parameters are first configured in IP Service Activator to generate network statistics from the devices. A third-party reporting tool is then set up to collect and process the performance data.

Note:

Measurement and SLA monitoring are currently supported on Cisco IOS-based devices only.

Measurement Types

IP Service Activator supports a range of measurement types that enable the measurement of point-to-point performance, or performance at a specific point in the network. The following measurement types are supported:

Service Assurance Agent (SAA): a Cisco technology that performs point-to-point measurement based on key SLA metrics such as response time, network resources, availability, jitter, connect time and packet loss.
CAR MIB statistics: report on performance of CAR-enabled interfaces. Used to monitor bandwidth usage.
MIB2 statistics: report on Management Information Bases (MIBs) in MIB2 format. Their variables indicate the basic state of the network, such as load, availability, discards, broadcast rate.
NetFlow: a Cisco technology that enables you to characterize and analyze an IP flow on an interface. It is often used as a metering base for other applications, including accounting and billing, network planning, and marketing.

SAA measurements can be collected for pairs of peer devices (CE to CE, or between Virtual CEs, or between a CE and Virtual CE) within a VPN, either an MPLS VPN or a measurement-only VPN, with no MPLS configuration applied. Measurement is applied by defining an SAA template that holds one or more SAA operations and applying the template to a VPN.

NetFlow and MIB-based measurements can be collected for any IP Service Activator policy target; that is, a domain, network, customer, VPN, site, device, interface, sub-interface or VC endpoint. Measurement is applied using a measurement template which can be selectively inherited to lower level policy targets using device and interface roles. This means that you can apply measurement at a high level, such as the network, and implement measurement only at selected points in the network.

External Systems

IP Service Activator uses external systems to model third-party applications in the user interface and object model. When setting up reporting and measurement, one or more external systems must be modelled through the IP Service Activator user interface.

The type and number of external systems that must be modelled depends on the reporting software used.

If Concord's eHealth Suite is used for reporting, a single eHealth suite must be modeled.

For complete information about modelling external systems, see "Modeling External Systems".

Configurable XML Exporter

The Configurable XML Exporter runs as a client of the OSS Integration Manager (OIM). Based on information contained in a local configuration file, the Configurable XML Exporter creates an export file that can be used by a third-party reporting tool to collect data for report purposes.

The local configuration file specifies the following information:

The IP Service Activator IP address
The data, including type and scope, to extract from the object model
The number of XSL style sheets to apply to the XML data
The name of the final export file

Integration with InfoVista

IP Service Activator's InfoVista Integration module enables InfoVista to monitor and report on IP Service Activator's IP services. The solution offers a range of monitoring techniques that support SLA monitoring of point-to-point services, such as VPNs, as well as performance of specific interfaces.

Integration between IP Service Activator and InfoVista occurs in the following way:

IP Service Activator's Configurable XML Exporter creates an export file that identifies which data to collect for the InfoVista reports
InfoVista uses Vista Provisioner to import the export file and generate the necessary reports

As shown in Figure 1-1, IP Service Activator uses the InfoVista Configurable XML Exporter utility to export object model data in XML format. The exported data is then transformed by one or more XSL style sheets into a format that can be imported by Vista Provisioner.

Figure 1-1 InfoVista and IP Service Activator Integration

This image is described in the surrounding text.

The export of data between IP Service Activator and InfoVista can occur on demand or can be scripted to occur on a scheduled basis using a cron task.

Integration with MicroMuse

IP Service Activator's Micromuse Integration Module enables Micromuse Netcool to monitor and report on IP Service Activator's IP services. The solution offers a range of monitoring techniques that support SLA monitoring of point-to-point services, such as VPNs, as well as performance of specific interfaces.

Integration between IP Service Activator and Micromuse occurs in the following way:

IP Service Activator's Configurable XML Exporter creates an export file that identifies which data to collect for the Micromuse reports
Micromuse Netcool Impact Server imports the exported XML file and generates the necessary reports

As shown in Figure 1-2, IP Service Activator uses the Micromuse Configurable XML Exporter utility to export object model data in XML format. The exported data is then transformed by one or more XSL style sheets into a format that can be imported by the Micromuse Netcool Impact Server.

Figure 1-2 Micromuse and IP Service Activator Integration

The export of data between IP Service Activator and Micromuse can occur on demand or can be scripted to occur on a scheduled basis using a cron task.

Getting Started

To set up network and SLA monitoring in IP Service Activator, you must first configure the devices in IP Service Activator to generate statistics for the various measurement types.

To do this, refer to the following chapters:

Once the devices are configured to generate statistics, you should then set up the third-party reporting tool to collect the statistics and generate reports.

Procedures on how to do this are covered in the following chapters: