Products

Device Auto Discovery

The FTMS provides auto discovery of the E-Series chassis and deep discovery of all key system components including:

• Line cards and interfaces
• Route Processor Modules (RPMs)
• Switch Fabric Modules (SFMs)
• Power Supplies
• Fan Trays
• Processor on cards
• Software modules running on processors

The system allows users to configure deep discovery process for desired intervals. After discovery is complete, FTMS performs periodic verification of objects in the database. FTMS polls all cards in the system for a health check. During this poll, if a new card is added to the E-Series or an existing card is removed from the E-Series, appropriate changes are made to the display indicating addition, removal or status check of all cards.

In addition to periodic polling, a new card insertion or removal is also detected via SNMP traps sent to the FTMS system by the SNMP Agent on the E-Series system. On receipt of this event, FTMS performs an audit on the E-Series system that issued the event and updates its database. This process thereby discovers new cards added to the E-Series or removes existing cards from the E-Series system.

Network Maps

The Network Map displays all network devices known to the FTMS via the discovery process. Network Maps support a color-coded status display of nodes on the network denoting the status of the node:

The system supports flexibility to group devices together based on multiple criterion such as node type (E1200, E600, E300), geographic location and more. Clicking on a group displays devices belong to this group. Multiple groups can be created in a hierarchy to manage large networks.

Fault Management

The Fault Management module collects, stores, manipulates and displays management information related to the overall health of the Force10 equipment and network.

SNMP traps received from the E-Series systems, user configurable event notifications and FTMS generated events are logged as events by the FTMS. These events are forwarded in the form of color-coded alarms on the FTMS GUI. Functions such as sorting, filtering, reporting and sending alerts via email/page are supported on alarms.

Node Manager

The Node Manager is a GUI-based interface that enables network administrators to manage E-Series devices down to a port level. Based on an intuitive Java interface, the Node Manager supports fault, configuration and performance monitoring functions on a per node basis. The Node Manager can also be installed separately as a standalone application or integrated on to a third party application such as HP Openview for maximum flexibility.

Performance Management

FTMS supports highly flexible and customizable data collection, threshold configuration and performance reporting mechanisms. The system supports data collection of the following predefined elements for user configurable polling intervals:

• Interface counters (Packets in/out and Bytes in/out)
• CPU utilization

In addition to predefined data elements, the system also allows data collection on any SNMP MIB object.

Along with data collection, the system also allows users to configure thresholds and corresponding alarms when the thresholds are crossed. There are two thresholds for each collected data. If the first threshold is crossed, a minor alarm will be generated. If the second threshold is crossed, a major alarm will be generated. The tool also allows ultimate flexibility to enable multiple thresholds on a user-defined basis to denote Critical, Major, Minor, Warning, and Clear events.

Finally the performance management module supports summary & detailed reporting capability of collected statistics. Statistics collected can be stored locally on the MySQL server or exported to external databases such as Oracle, SQL server, Informix, and Sybase.

Inventory Database

All objects discovered by FTMS during discovery are populated in an inventory database. Inventory database supports serial number tracking of physical items such as chassis, line cards, SFMs, fan trays and other hardware. It also gives users an easy way to track software and firmware revisions loaded on various network elements.

Secure Management

Security Management has two main functional components:

• Secure administration of the FTMS
• Secure access to E-Series devices

FTMS supports secure administration by multiple users simultaneously. The system supports group based authorization in which users belonging to specific groups are allowed access to modules/tasks authorized for that group. User access to FTMS is authenticated against local database. By default the system supports three different access levels to which users can be assigned.

In addition to predefined groups, the system also supports capability to create additional groups to which users can be assigned. Within a group users can be included or excluded from certain operations or restricted to manage specific nodes or groups of nodes.

All user access to the system is captured via audit log. Secure access to E-Series devices via SSH is planned in future releases of FTMS.

Configuration Management

The current FTMS release supports batch configuration of a large number of devices by use of templates. Node manager also supports individual device configuration via CLI. An audit log detailing the type of tasks performed on individual network elements is also maintained by the system.

Future releases of FTMS will be enhanced to include capabilities such as FTOS download, configuration file management and provisioning.

specifications

 

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