Nortel opens up on-line management

Nortel Networks this week will launch its on-line Router Management Labs, offering free software downloads and Web support to help owners of its BayRS routers.

The Web site, www.nortelnetworks.com/rml, has been open to the largest Nortel customers for more than a year, with about 1000 downloads a month from 1500 users. Now the site is available to anyone who needs to deploy, configure and manage routers.

Internet service providers are particularly interested in cutting the cost of router management because so many are expanding into network management, said Ron Sutherland, senior manager for Nortel. "Margins for basic service are dropping like a rock," he said. He cites figures from TeleChoice, showing basic margins now run from 10% to 15%, while those for managed services are in the 25% to 30% range.

Dusty Knutzen, a senior engineer with MCI WorldCom's network management division, deals with a customer base of about 3000 Bay routers. The RML site has helped his company reduce errors, cut cycle time and do mass configuration projects with resulting economies of scale. "It's saved us a lot of air fare and time, and that increases our customers' satisfaction," he said. "I've been a member of a Bay [Networks] users' group for a while, and this is something we should have come up with ourselves."

The site gives service providers fast, scalable, open, scripted solutions in source form, said Joe Marzot, one of the RML designers. One application lets users create a template from which thousands of individual router configurations can be generated quickly, changing only what differs from site to site. That automation lets technicians who once could configure 30 routers in a day handle hundreds of units, Sutherland said.

Other Nortel software translates ASCII router configurations into bootable binary files and copies those files onto flash cards for shipment to remote sites. A hardware inventory tool tracks customer premises equipment and can be used to store IP addresses or track Y2K upgrades, and a PERL application processing interface allows users to customize applications to monitor and diagnose their own routers.