IMP Centralized Management
The Intelligent Message Processor Centralized Management (IMP-CM) platform administrative interface and infrastructure simplify the management of distributed IMP clusters. In this role, the platform offers consolidated cluster configuration capabilities that provide users with an easy-to-use interface to handle complex configuration tasks. Such capabilities include configuration pushes, backups, centralized statistics and log management, versioning and rollback.
Benefits
- Simplified view of an aggregated cluster or individual or groups of systems in a cluster with drill-down options
- Generated reports using a combination of raw or correlated data collected from the cluster
- Simplified access to complex cluster configuration
- Consolidated cluster configuration options
- Combined systems console for all IMP systems in the cluster
- Controlled access by assigning different privilege and visibility levels
- Simplified adding or removing individual systems to and from clusters
- Multiplied cluster management from one console including geographically distributed clusters
Features
The IMP Centralized Management Platform is a special purpose deployment of the IMP. IMP-CM provides reports, forensics and real-time visibility of IMP clusters and their components to the lowest available information. Users can cluster IMP-CM to offer customers geographically distributed management capabilities for multiple clusters with different policies and “identities.”
The IMP-CM Platform is an element management system that manages the IMP's telecommunications network element. In the FCAPS model, it primarily supplies the following:
- Configuration management
- Accounting management
- Performance management
- Security management
IMP-CM provides fault management, but does not accept or generate alarms. In this role, it configures the clustered IMP's respective network elements for generating and delivering alarms to the relevant network management system.
Unlike standard EMS systems, IMP-CM does not act as the sole repository of management information for the respective clusters it manages. Instead, it centrally configures the way these clusters communicate their respective management information, alerts and SNMP traps to a central network management system. In so doing, IMP-CM does not need to be running for full operation of the clusters it manages.
Working with the relevant modules within each IMP, the IMP-CM Platform offers full FCAPS capability through one of the following:
- Built-in Web-based administration/management console.
- Integration with a network management platform using SNMP: Recommended for fault and performance management.
- Web Services using REST/SOAP: Recommended for fault, performance, accounting, configuration and security management.
Bizanga is set up for off-the-shelf integration with Tivoli Netcool for the aforementioned features. The company can facilitate integration with other vendors’ network and element management systems.
The IMP-CM extends the cluster configuration replication capability in version 2.5 of the IMP firmware OvernetOS (OOS) to include:
- Cluster-wide configuration push
- Backup
- Version control
- Rollback (both on a complete cluster basis and for individual cluster members)
This feature gives it the capability to synchronize the application of new policies or configuration parameters affecting the flow of messages across a cluster. It can also automatically add new IMP systems to running clusters while replicating relevant information. This simplifies removing IMP systems from or adding them to running clusters for maintenance, upgrades or other reasons.
The IMP-CM manages firmware revision levels for sequentially updating cluster elements. It groups with the latest firmware and module versions to ensure smooth operations within the cluster without interruption. The firmware management feature can rollback to previous releases of the firmware and other modules. Moreover, it can ensure full compatibility of the releases of third-party application modules.
The stand-alone IMP already has various levels of historical and real-time information for monitoring, statistical post-processing and reporting. The IMP-CM Platform enhances these features by consolidating and centralizing them and including detailed post-processing options. Operators, administrators and managers can analyze the applications, policies, systems and vital stats of a cluster or individual cluster elements.
Centralization gives operations, customer support and abuse management teams a means to do the following activities:
- Search the consolidated information
- Correlate relevant raw or aggregated data to isolate problem areas
- Investigate attack sources and methodology
- Identify possible malicious systems
- Evaluate detailed message paths
Users can use regular expressions and other search capabilities for searching aggregated log and statistics data to isolate relevant events. The platform can export all statistics and logs in relevant formats or CSV, depending on the type of data exported.
The IMP-CM Platform contains real-time graphs with configurable time windows of all available statistics, both from the IMP and third party applications. These graphs can show consolidated views across the cluster and isolated information from individual IMPs or groups of IMPs. With these, operators can review cluster health and do a detailed analysis of cluster performance. The dashboards visually show real-time ratios calculated across the cluster to help users quickly identify trends and other events and to take the right actions.
The extended reporting package — part of the IMP-CM Platform — incorporates default reports allowing administrators and operators to analyze the data from the cluster. Users can configure alert handling and policies for a cluster so each element of the cluster sends alerts to the relevant network management systems through the correct protocol based on its configuration.
The IMP-CM Platform supports administration and screen level privileges to assign read, write and visibility access based on user types such as operations, customer support and billing. It also supports full audit trails by individual user.
The IMP Centralized Management platform provides for all the automated access capabilities of the individual IMP Base Platform. Therefore, integration of the management front-end using its REST/XML/SOAP infrastructure into other management systems is easily doable. Collecting aggregated statistics from automated systems is possible through simple SCP/SFTP access or by using the REST/XML/SOAP interface to the management front-end.
System Requirements
The IMP Centralized Management Platform requires — at a minimum — each managed IMP in a cluster running OOS firmware version 2.5 or greater with the following modules:
- IMP Enhanced Alert Module
- IMP SNMP Module
E-series IMPs do not contain the full feature set of the IMP-CM Platform. To deploy redundant IMP-CM-managed platforms, clusters require common underlying single systems, IMP O550s or greater — at a minimum.
The IMP-CM Platform itself requires IMP O550 or greater.
IMPs in a cluster managed through the IMP Centralized Management Platform are self-contained and do not require the IMP-CM Platform to be accessible or available for operation.
The IMP-CM Platform as an Element Management System