IP management at work

Network management systems once were built in-house, but because of multiple market changes, carriers now are using off-the-shelf packages to monitor their existing networks.

CrossKeys Systems and Micromuse have made significant advances in their product packages during the last few months. Although both have network management strategies, they target different markets with similar missions. Each wants to lead its carrier customers into a rich new world of IP services.

Firmly entrenched in the traditional telecom space, CrossKeys has spent the last three months field testing Resolve Ni. The software helps service providers understand network performance through multilayer views of traffic, availability, inventory and capacity.

"Our customers want a scalable, performance management tool that cuts across multiple technologies and will help them deploy new Internet services," said Steve Adams, vice president of marketing at CrossKeys. "They are looking for a range of views that allows them to provide increasing levels of detail to analyze and diagnose problems. And, they want the tools to reach across multiple technologies and multiple vendors so that they can have a complete picture of their IP, ATM, frame relay and Sonet networks."

As CrossKeys announced the general availability of Resolve Ni, Micromuse introduced its Netcool/Impact. After substantial success in the enterprise market, Micromuse's Netcool products have begun to migrate into carriers' IP networks. Several carriers, such as Cable & Wireless, ScottishTelecom, France Telecom and Allegiance Telecom, use Netcool products to manage their IP networks or services. Micromuse also has found support from network equipment providers. Cisco Systems uses Netcool to power its Cisco Service Management system.

Netcool/Impact uses object-oriented, in-memory database technology that allows service providers to isolate network problems using customer, business and network data. With Netcool/Impact, operators can discover how network problems pertain to the business and prioritize which ones should be corrected first.

"When operators see an event, they see it from a technical point of view, but they don't understand the impact it has on the customer's business," said Andy Ormsby, product manager for Netcool/Impact. "Our product ties the customer information with the real-time events that come into the network operations center."

Netcool/Impact gathers and analyzes data from provisioning systems, LDAP directories and Sybase and Informix databases.

Analysts are responding favorably to Micromuse's and CrossKeys' expanded suites, but one of the larger problems analysts see on the horizon for management tools is combining the data gathered by the monitoring tools with billing systems.

"Service providers expect broad, all-encompassing management platforms that they can use for fault management, provisioning, billing, security management and more," said John Morency, vice president of IT consulting services at Renaissance Worldwide. "As new services are developed, service providers aren't in a position to overhaul their entire system. There needs to be some means of exchanging data."

To achieve this higher level of data exchange, systems must begin interoperating at the application level rather than at the protocol level, Morency said.

Jeff Coltrupe, senior analyst for the network management systems track at RHK, agrees. "There will always be propriety protocols in systems, the key is to have systems that can talk to each proprietary device in its native language and communicate the information upwards to the higher levels."

Until the industry decides on IP billing standards, CrossKeys and Micromuse are keeping their system flexible and open so that they can interoperate with proprietary or open metering applications that carriers install within their networks.