Fault Management & Quality of Service Router

OidView by ByteSphere Technologies gives a holistic view into the key components of the network infrastructure. By using OidView we are able to not only trouble shoot the issues in the network, but also check the configurations of the devices.

By using iGRID we are able to easily check configurations which have been pushed out to our routers. Specifically, we are using iGRID to check configurations of our customer VLANS and new services we roll out. We do this by setting the customers name in the alias field of the router, and then correlate the customer name to the VLAN. By using iGRID we can easily see through the grid display which customer is configured on which VLAN. This also allows our operation center to simply identify which VLAN a customer is on if they call in with a connection issue. By using iGRID we have simplified our QA process of rolling out services and customers on the routers and cut the troubleshooting time down, by using the OidView’s iGRID technology.

The other powerful tool in OidView which we use regularly is the Cisco CBQ module. This component of OidView allows us to check the configuration of our Cisco routers QoS policies. As anyone who configures QoS on routers can tell you, it is always best to double check the configuration before passing customer traffic. Using the Class-Based-QoS module in OidView we are able to check different aspects of the QoS configurations on the routers. In today’s world or voice, video, and data, ensuring the proper classes are configured correctly, is the difference in whether or not a phone call goes through or your video comes through in a consistent stream. Using the CBQ module built into OidView allows us to ensure our customers are getting the appropriate services they have subscribed to in an easy to use GUI.

Between the iGRID and CBQ modules in OidView we are able to better service our customers by allowing our staff to graphically see the changes they are making on the routers. Being able to see the settings being pushed out to the routers in a simple and easy to navigate GUI has made our staff more productive and in result provided our customers with the best possible service.

OidView MIB Browser

ByteSphere Technologies OidView Professional allows its users to browse the supported MIBs of a specific device in the network. OidView has allowed us to identify which performance metrics we need to be monitoring in the infrastructure.

By using the main console in OidView we are able to view each individual SNMP metric the device supports. It is from the easy to navigate layout in OidView we can pinpoint on specific devices which metrics need to be monitored for our capacity planning of the network. Once the metrics have been identified, they can be verified by our internal planning teams and then monitored by our NMS products.

Also, we use the easy to view layout for working with our vendors to compile a list of what we call engineering design limits. These limits are specific to each vendor’s platform. By using OidView we are able to quickly search for items which have been identified for us by the vendor to look at for these limits. These limits vary from the capacity planning ones as they are designed to watch for performance limits of the device, rather than predict growth. It is this list of limits, which helps us decide when to replace and/or upgrade a device in the network for reasons other than capacity.

OidView has not only allowed our staff to save time in identifying these important metrics for our environment, but it has allowed them to look at devices from a new perspective. We have made changes to the way we monitor particular devices from the information we have seen in OidView and in result we are not only saving the company money by being able to better predict when we need to upgrade a box, but also making money by not spending on unnecessary hardware.

One of the most powerful, versatile Fault Management tools offered today is just a few clicks away, downloadable from ByteSphere’s website. They recently released an easy to use SNMP Trap console that is capable of acting like a central fault management system, a trap forwarding node, or even as a development tool. Traps, notifications, and informs can be processed and recorded with ease as it supports SNMPv1, SNMPv2c, and SNMPv3. The system is capable of receiving thousands of traps each second, as well as recording millions of events. These events are stored in a database, allowing the user to manage them at any time. For display, events are listed in a grid, easily sorted by many different parameters like source IP address, severity, acknowledged or cleared status, community string, SNMP version, generic and specific type, Trap OID, etc.

OidView Trap Manager has powerful de-duplication technology, silencing excess noise generated by a single device or from a specific set of events; in some instances thousands of traps can be displayed as a single event (the receive count will be incremented and displayed in the grid). This type of technology previously could only be found on incredibly expensive fault management solutions but now it is available in an affordable, “off the shelf”, easy to use software package.

OidView has hundreds of pre-defined filters based on generic traps and custom traps from several large, popular vendors. These “out-of-the-box” vendor definitions include Cisco, Juniper, and some IBM devices. OidView Trap Manager also comes with an intuitive tree-based GUI that allows the user to easily create custom filters based on a variety of different values that can be pulled out of the SNMP trap (e.g. trap address, variable bindings, community string, etc.). Each filter can be defined with a default severity (i.e. is this a minor, major, critical event?), and a default bucket (e.g. is this trap from my edge routers or from the core?). The system allows multiple “conditions” to be created for each filter, allowing for incredibly complex trap matching. In addition, each condition has the ability to change the severity of a trap or even clear it altogether.

Overall, the OidView Trap Manager is a feature-rich, powerful and cost-effective fault management solution, with an affordable licensing model based on the number of IPs in the network to be monitored. Check out OidView today.