Network Management Center Blog : NNMi Advanced

Fault and Performance management webinar with Analyst, Customer and HP

aruna13 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:18:00 GMT

Hello,

Listen to an on-demand webinar where leading consumer customer, analyst Jim Metzler, and HP discuss integration of fault and performance management, discuss some of the relevant best practices, while identifying some of the key features in Hp's integrated fault and performance management solution. The panelists on the Webcast present three different perspectives – that of an industry analyst, a senior IT manager and HP's view on network management solutions.

Webinar recording:

· http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/cli_NMCBlog/7/50673494/

Thanks
Aruna Ravichandran

Register for HP IP Telephony Lifecycle Management Technical Webinar - Live - Oct 20th

aruna13 — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:37:00 GMT

Hello,

Are you looking for a network management solution to manage your IPT Infrastructure? An increasing number of enterprises are faced with the challenge of supporting and maintaining IP telephony systems from multiple IP-PBX vendors.In this live webinar session you will learn the key challeges faced by enterprises, along with technical use cases on how HP's Smart Plug-in (iSPI) for IP Telephony along with Clarus Systems can help you in the IP Telephony lifecycle including plan, design, implement, operate and optimze. This is technical webinar geared towards usecases to help you understand how you can solve your IP Telephony challenges with HP's solution.

You can pre-register for the webinar at:

http://hpbroadband.com/program.aspx?key=5831Telephony20Oct09

Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Length: 60 minutes

Time: 8:00 PDT /11:00 EDT/17:00 CET

Speakers:

        Aruna Ravichandran, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, HP Network Management Center, HP Software
        Anil Kuriakose, Product Manager, HP Network Management Center, HP Software
        David Roberts, Director for Product Management, Clarus Systems.

Thanks,

Aruna

ROI webinar on NNMi Upgrade - True Customer story

aruna13 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:13:00 GMT

Are you currently a legacy NNM (7.x/6.x) customer and are looking to upgrade to NNMi? If so, listen to this on-demand webinar with a customer working for a leading $15 Billion consumer manufacturing company. You will get the complete scoop on his upgrade to NNMi and the ROI he was able to demonstrate to his management in terms of making a justification for spending the time and resources to go through the upgrade.
In summary, this customer was able to:

Increase network availability from 97.5% to 99.98%
Reduce capital and operating costs by consolidating 5 servers down to 1
Increase operator efficiency and productivity by decreasing the time spent on L2/L3 escalations from 8 hours to 2 hours/day through automation
Enhance its disaster recovery solution with automated application synchronization
More.....

Here is the link to the webinar recording.

Thanks,
Aruna Ravichadran
NMC Product Marketing

NOCStar/NNMi goes Social media - Twitter and Facebook

aruna13 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:05:00 GMT

Last week I did a posting announcing our HP NOC Star campaging for NNMi customers. We have now setup Facebook and Twitter accounts for the NOC Star/NNMi campaign. You can follow our updaes now on Facebook and Twitter...

NOCStar page: http://www.hp.com/go/nocstar

Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/business/dashboard/#/pages/HP-NNMiSoftware/98948954292

Twitter
http://www.twitter.com/hpnnmi

Thanks,
Aruna Ravichandran
Sr. Product Marketing Manager,
Network Management Center,
HP Software

Network Management at HP Software Universe

Michael_Procopio — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:46:00 GMT

by Michael Procopio

HP Software Universe is next week, 16-18 June, in Las Vegas. Network Management will be well represented.

Aruna Ravichandran is speaking in three sessions, you can see information on those at her post HPSoftware Universe/HP Technology Forum (HPTF) - Network Management sessions.

Here is the list of sessions, I have marked Aruna’s with an –A next to the session number:

Session ID	Title	Presenting company
1028	Deploying HP Performance Insight in large scale environments	HP
1076	HP Network Node Manager-i SPI for performance: become a power user in less than an hour	HP
1081-A	HP Network Node Manager 7 to 8i: a migration story	Melillo Consulting
1092	Melillo: how to deploy data center infrastructure monitoring in small and medium business environments	Melillo Consulting
1299	Integrating voice and video management into network operations	EMA
1345	NetScout: unified service-delivery management for improving application performance in the modern IP network	NetScout Systems
1353	Automated network lifecycle management: transforming network management to a fully integrated and automated approach with breakthrough ROI	HP
1354	HP Performance Insight: techniques to drive performance management productivity	HP
1403-A	HP Network Node Manager-i: a review of functionality that can yield significant ROI to your network management operations	HP
1404-A	Network Node Manager-i 8.11 Smart Plug-Ins: adding value to your network and fault management operations when deploying NNMi	HP
1410	HP Network Node Manager-i upgrade tips and tricks	HP
1411	HP Network Node Manager-i deployment by example	HP
1488	HP Network Node Manager-i upgrade tips and tricks	HP

You can get the details of all the Network Management sessions at the HP Software Universe Track Session Catalog.

I hope to see you there, but if you can’t make it we will be doing follow-up posts. You can also follow on Twitter, the hashtag is #HPSU09. There are already a number of Tweets and the show hasn’t started yet. The Twitter account for the show is HPSU09, if you’d like to follow us. Or visit the HP Software Universe Facebook page.

HPSoftware Universe/HP Technology Forum (HPTF) - Network Management sessions

aruna13 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:30:00 GMT

I will be presenting the following 3 sessions at HP Software Universe, which runs in 2 weeks from June 16th - 18th, at Venetian in Las Vegas. The overall theme of the conference is “focusing on initiatives that can deliver immediate improvements and rapid ROI.” All of my sessions fit very well into that theme. Here are the three sessions I will be presenting:

Session 1081 - HP Network Node Manager 7 to 8i: a Migration story - Thursday, June 18 09:00am - 10:00am Speaker(s):
Keith Wilson, Director, Melillo Consulting
Ken Herold, Principal Architect, Melillo Consulting
Aruna Ravichandran HP

Abstract:
Attend this session and hear how, at a time when most IT organizations were taking a wait-and-see approach to HP Network Node Manager-i version 8 (NNM 8i), a global consumer products company made the commitment to migrate NNM 7 to 8i in its production network management infrastructure. Presenters will explain how they migrated from NNM 7.5, running on three distributed Solaris servers and a DR server, to NNM 8i on a single primary server with one DR server. They’ll describe the project from proof of concept to 24 x 7 monitoring of nearly 6,000 nodes to eliminate two servers and client software, reduce the number of hardware vendors, simplify the management of NNM, and provide a complete disaster-recovery solution. They’ll cover the cultural and technical challenges of moving from UNIX to Windows, the training required to bring staff up to speed on NNM 8i, and the need to migrate custom action shell scripts to Windows without rewriting them. And you’ll come away with detailed knowledge that can make your migration to NNM 8i a success.

Session 1403 HP Network Node Manager-i: a review of functionality that can yield significant ROI to your network management operations
Speaker(s):
Aruna Ravichandran

Schedule
Tuesday, June 16
03:00pm - 04:00pm

Abstract:
This session will go into detail about the key features of HP Network Node Manager-i (NNMi) 8.11. Specific topics will include spiral L2/L3 discovery, advanced scalability, advanced root-cause analysis, the intuitive GUI with advanced map management, and the n-tier architecture. You will also learn how the innovative NNMi technology with the intuitive design, intelligent automation, and immense scalability delivered breakthrough ROI for one our NNMi customers.

Session - 1404 Network Node Manager-i 8.11 Smart Plug-Ins: adding value to your network and fault management operations when deploying NNMi
Speaker(s):
Aruna Ravichandran

Schedule
Wednesday, June 17
10:30am - 11:30am

Abstract:
The session will focus on the Smart Plug-ins (iSPI) that add value to NNMi. It will cover the features, capabilities, integrations, and benefits of the iSPI for Performance, iSPI for Network Engineering Toolset, iSPI for Multicast, iSPI for MPLS, and iSPI for IP Telephony.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are planning to attend HP Technology Forum which runs at the same time at Mandalay Bay, I will be presenting an ANLM (Automated Network Lifecycle Management) session along with the Product Manager, Pete Zwetkof. Here are the details to the HPTF session.

Session - 3780 - Automating Network Management

Speaker(s):
Aruna Ravichandran, Pete Zwetkof

Schedule
Wednesday, June 17
2:30pm - 3:30pm
Room: Surf F

Abstract:
This session will show how daily operational tasks around fault, performance, and configuration management can be automated, human errors reduced, and network availability improved with detailed usecases. A demonstration of integrated network management tools applied to common real-life network problems will visualize the concepts discussed. This session will provide you with a thorough understanding of the capabilities of automated network management. You’ll also understand the concepts of map-based management, continuous spiral discovery, causal engine and management by exception, and how to apply them to increase the efficiency of your network department. Through this session, you will gain insights into the use of automation to move beyond labor-intensive approaches to network management. Today labor accounts for 70 percent of IT costs. Networks continue to grow in size and complexity but IT staffs do not. The challenge is to increase IT staff productivity. The traditional silo approach of deploying point tools to address network management is inefficient. Manual processes used to manage the network are prone to human error.

Hoping to meet see you all soon !

Aruna

NNMi Technical Vivit Webinars Recording now available on the NNMi Portal

Michael_Procopio — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:26:00 GMT

by Aruna Ravichandran

The much awaited Webinar recording of : NNMi Upgrade; Tricks, Tips and Best Practices is now available on the NNMi portal at: http://www.hp.com/go/nnmi. This live webinar was held on April 13th and was done by our lead deployment engineer, Kevin Smith who has a lot of experience in migrating and deploying NNMi at customer sites world-wide. A lot of you have sent me emails asking for this recording as this live webinar was held unfortunately during the Easter/Spring Break week. We had some “hiccups” in terms of getting the recording posted on the portal, but finally have it up.

The other technical webinars done through Vivit are also available. Once you reach the main NNMi Portal, click on the “Web events” link on the left frame and scroll down to the bottom of the page to get a listing of ALL webinars.

HP Software Network Management goes to Interop, Las Vegas with ProCurve Networking next week

Michael_Procopio — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:16:00 GMT

by Aruna Ravichandran

HP's Network Management Center (NMC) products, Network Node Manager i software (NNMi) along with Network Automation, will be showcased on the exposition floor at Interop, happening next week from May 18 – 22nd in Las Vegas, Nevada. We will be showcased at the HP booth (booth # 1319) along with Procurve Networking. We would love for you to stop by and give us an opportunity to demo our NMC products.

The Interop conference URL is http://www.interop.com/lasvegas , or visit the fun HP-ProCurve microsite for Interop at http://tinyurl.com/dcxy32 .

The HP Software Network Management center crew (Aruna, Darren, Doug, Stelio, Darren) would love to chat with you, so please stop by!

8.x Spiral Discovery Explained – Feature, Benefits, How is it different from 7.x discovery

Michael_Procopio — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:30:00 GMT

HP Network Node Manager i software offers continuous Layer-2 and Layer-3 network discovery as a feature known as Spiral Discovery. This feature avoids episodic loads on the network for management purposes, and allows NNMi to track dynamic changes in near real time. Spiral Discovery uses a variety of MIBs and protocols to reduce overhead and manage multivendor environments. This means that NNMi can discover network topology changes, and use that information, much sooner than previous versions or competitor products. The new architecture improves the CPU and Memory performance of NNMi, so your management system has ample capacity to monitor larger networks and more interfaces.

In Spiral Discovery, discovery and inventory data collection occur in stages where each stage provides information that is used to drive subsequent stages. This figure illustrates the process:

You define the starting points for discovery, and your NNMi configuration settings flexibly control address ranges and system object ID ranges, exceptions, and limits to be added to the NNMi database. When a device is identified, Spiral Discovery collects the basic information to understand what kind of device it is. That information, in turn, tells it what additional device inventory information is available and details are then collected, augmenting the inventory with additional information and connections that continue the process.

NNMi gathers information about neighboring devices using ARP cache, DNS, discovery protocols and other protocols including BGP, EIGRP and OSPF. In Wide Area Networks such as ATM, Frame Relay, and Point-to-Point (where ARP cache is not available), the optional Ping Sweep feature locates nodes for Spiral Discovery to use when gathering neighbor information and evaluating connections. A new system for modeling proprietary MIBs lets NNMi define device-specific collections that are incorporated into Spiral Discovery, capturing proprietary inventory information and correctly representing devices in both OSI layer 2 and OSI layer 3 topology. Further, if the device is found to support virtual network services like VPNs, VLANs, routing systems such as multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) and other technologies, then NNMi will develop and maintain the topology of that logical network overlay so it can be depicted for the operator and used in root cause analysis.

In addition to automatic discovery, NNMi also allows for connection editing and subnet connection rules to override the link-level discovery protocol information when needed. A higher precedence connection overwrites a lower precedence one if both data are available and conflict with each other. Discovery protocols employed by Spiral Discovery include CDP (Cisco), EDP (Extreme), NDP (SONMP-Nortel), FDP (Foundry), EnDP (Enterasys), and LLDP (link-level discovery protocol). You can also configure when you would like NNMi to proactively look for new devices and connections.

Benefits of this new technology in NNMi:

Spiral discovery is dynamic. It continuously discovers the existence of network devices —so network changes are quickly detected and incorporated into topology automatically. The topology is always up-to-date, enabling NNMi operators to identify and troubleshoot problems in real-time as they happen.
Spiral Discovery is extensive. It collects detailed information about each device, including component health such as CPU, memory, fans, and maintains the detailed inventory information in the NNMi database. Spiral Discovery determines how devices are related to each other in network topology and topology overlays like virtual private networks (VPNs) and virtual LANs (VLANs). It also discovers and understands routing cluster protocols (HSRP, VRRP) and Port Aggregation (NNMi Advanced feature only)
Spiral Discovery is automatically incorporated into Root Cause Analysis -- When things change in your environment, your topology accurately reflects those changes in near real-time, and the NNMi casual engine reacts to topology changes as they occur for quick analysis of root cause for incidents. In older causal analysis technologies such as codebook approaches, topology changes require a recompile of rules.
Spiral Discovery is extensible—designed so that HP can easily support new devices with NNMi as they become a part of your network in the future.
Spiral Discovery benefits not only the core NNMi product, but also all the associated iSPI products which add content, performance, and analysis detail.

Spiral Discovery with NNMi 8.x differs in many ways from the discovery engine which came with NNM 7.x. The NNM 7.x releases used an episodic discovery technology known as Extended Topology (ET) to find and create L2 connections. ET technology depended upon device-specific agents that used a device’s SNMP MIBs to acquire device information. The technology was not easily extensible, and changes were not discovered in real-time.

NNMi’s Spiral Discovery has dropped the outdated ET technology, as all connectivity logic has been rewritten using updated algorithms written exclusively in Java. Major benefits of refreshing the discovery technology are a reduction in technology complexity, superior node discovery rates and L2 connection creation performance. Moreover, NNMi L2 connection discovery also becomes dynamic and continuous. With properly configured state poll monitoring or via LinkDown/LinkUp traps, the L2 connection are updated instantly to accurately present up-to-date network topology. Competitive offerings still require batch or episodic processing of layer 2 connections.

In summary, NNMi Spiral Discovery is a key new technology that brings unique efficiency and depth to HP’s network management solution. HP has a 20-year legacy of commitment and success in this domain. Instead of resting on its laurels, HP has dedicated extensive development resources into NNMi’s java-based architecture and components, building an extensible platform to ensure HP will continue its leadership role for the next 20 years.

How does Discovery with NNMi differ from NNM 7.x discovery?

NNMi has just one consolidated discovery engine and one SNMP stack for both L2 and L3discovery that is easy to configure. NNM 7.x uses netmon and ET technology and 2 SNMP stack for L2 and L3 discovery.
Discovery is continuous and spiral with NNMi. The NNMi Spiral Discovery process provides ongoing updates to the topology information as changes occur in your network. Topology changes (both inventory and Layer 2) can be discovered more frequently than the scheduled rediscovery interval. Discovery is episodic and batch oriented with NNM 7.x
NNMi stores all the inventory and discovery information in one relational database – the built-in PostgreSQL database or Oracle database. Having a single relational database for holding all the inventory and discovery information, makes it faster, more reliable and more maintainable and very easy to do an online backup. NNM 7.x stores the data in Topology database, Object database, Map database, ET database which could be proprietary/Solid/oracle/MSSQL. Having different databases, makes it less reliable, and hard to maintain.
In NNMi, all discovered nodes are counted against the license limit regardless of the management mode ( managed , unmanaged , or out of service ). You cannot discover nodes beyond the license limit. With NNM 7.x, you could discover any number of nodes, and license only the nodes you managed.
NNMi Spiral discovery discovers device component health such as CPU, Memory, Buffers (needs iSPI for Performance) and Sensors such temperature, voltage and fan. This was not discovered in NNM 7.
Spiral discovery with NNMi Advanced automatically discovers and understands routing cluster protocols (HSRP, VRRP) and Port Aggregation (NNMi Advanced feature only). This feature in 7.x was available with ET discovery

Why do you need to set a discovery period if discovery runs ALL the time?

Continuous Spiral discovery uses "hints", such as the various boot traps, that appear in the network. These traps indicate possible changes in the network and trigger investigation by the discovery engine. If the network is very quiet, or if traps have been disabled, or if there is a trap consolidator, then spiral discovery might be handicapped. To prevent this possibility and to ensure accurate topology, a discovery period is established. Sort of like wearing a belt and suspenders to hold one's pants up.

Is there a way to throttle the discovery with NNMi?

With netmon (NNM 7.x discovery engine) if you set a discovery period to be once per week, netmon would spread that discovery over a 7 day period, thus we could "throttle" discovery to minimize SNMP traffic. There is no way to throttle the discovery with NNMi; it discovers "like crazy" until it completes the discovery and then goes into "hint mode" until the next discovery is triggered. Point here is that we don't have a throttle mechanism in NNMi but neither is SNMP a "heavy" protocol.

Is the Licensing for discovered nodes different than for Managed Nodes?

Yes. In NNMi, all discovered and managed nodes are counted against the license limit regardless of the state of the management mode ( managed , unmanaged , or out of service ). You cannot discover nodes beyond the license limit. With NNM 7.x, only managed nodes are counted against the license limit. NNM 7.x customer could discover any no. of nodes, and only license the nodes that are managed. Hence, if any of the 7.x customers are using the discovered nodes in their database, (i.e beyond the number of licensed/ managed nodes), they will not be able to now have access to all their discovered nodes unless they buy additional licenses for the discovered nodes as well.

Questions: Contact : Aruna Ravichandran – aru [at] hp.com

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13 April event: Network Node Manager i software Upgrade: Tricks, Tips and Best Practices

Michael_Procopio — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:43:00 GMT

On Monday, April 13th, HP Software Network Management Center is hosting a free educational webinar titled: HP Network Node Manager i software Upgrade: Tricks, Tips and Best Practices

DATE: Monday, April 13th, 2009

TIME:
Location Date and Time
California, USA April 13 8:30 – 10:00 am
New York, USA April 13 11:30 am – 1:00 pm
London, England April 13 4:30 – 6:00 pm
Sydney, Australia April 14 1:30 – 3:00 am

Looking to upgrade to NNMi 8.x? Want to find out how to make the upgrade path from the older NNM 6.x/7.x to the new NNMi 8.x even easier? If you are looking to find answers to these questions, then attend the next webinar series hosted by HP’s Network Management team. Kevin Smith, Lead Deployment Engineer at HP will share with you various upgrade Tricks, Tips and Best Practices which will help make your upgrade path much easier. Kevin has a lot experience in helping customers upgrading to the new NNMi and will share his rich experience with you on this webinar.

Register now for the upcoming NNMi Upgrade: Tricks, Tips and Best Practices presentation at: http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/us/en/promo/nnmi/webinars/index.html

Visit the NNMi Portal : http://www.hp.com/go/nnmi to get information on anything NNMi

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Aruna Ravichandran

Sr. Product Marketing Manager, NNMi/NNM/iSPI

aru [at] hp.com

Launching the NNMi Portal - your one stop portal for anything NNMi

Michael_Procopio — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:16:00 GMT

We have invested heavily in Network Node Manager i (NNMi) making it more cost effective for you to run and integrate with other products in the BSM portfolio. If you are an NNM customer and are thinking about upgrading to the new NNMi-series, this is the right time! To help ensure a smooth upgrade from your NNM 6.x/7.x version to the enhanced, innovative NNMi-series product line, we have created the NNMi Portal.

The portal contains everything you would need to upgrade to NNMi including white papers, webinars, upgrade tools, and license key step-by-step guidance. It can help you do a self-upgrade to NNMi or provide information on Services (HP SW Professional Services/ HP Software partners) to help with the upgrade.

The NNMi portal contains information and resources on:

» Top 10 reasons to upgrade to NNMi

» Links for recorded Webinars and whitepapers - e.g. NNMi Ready for Primetime: A deep dive presentation

» NNMi ROI Migration Handbook whitepaper

» License migration process information and links

» Do-it-yourself technical migration information

» Services information for NNMi upgrades for HP Professional Services Organization and HP Partners

Our goal is to create a one-stop experience for anything NNMi, and so this NNMi portal will be frequently updated with new goodies, so check back in here frequently, or sign up to receive updates on the portal.

Here is a quote from newly upgraded NNMi customer

"The transition from NNM 7.51 to NNM 8.1x was seamless and the results were better than expected. With virtually no loss of functionality and an increase in productivity, NNM 8.1x was an upgrade well worth undertaking. The increased stability and the ease of use have made NNM 8.1x a blessing for out department."

Frank Snyder, Network Engineer, INTERLINE BRANDS, INC.

So get started on the upgrade, and use our promotion which allows you to run your existing 6.x/7.x NNM version in parallel with the new NNMi 8.X until December 31, 2009 at no additional charge to you!

If you have any questions, suggestions, or want to share your upgrade experience, you can blog your request or reach me at:

Aruna Ravichandran

Sr. Product Marketing Manager, NNMi/NNM/iSPI

aru [at] hp.com

NNMi / NNMi Advanced / NNM iSPI Performance patch available has new functionality

Michael_Procopio — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 03:58:00 GMT

Network Node Manager i (NNMi) 8.11 is now available. This applies to NNMi, NNMi Advanced and NNM iSPI Performance. In addition to a variety of defect fixes, we have included some new functionality. All of the new functionality is turned off by default, so check the docs to see how to turn on what you want.

Some of this functionality may have been discussed before but for completeness…

• Custom poller collection (NNMi NNMi Advanced) – this allows you to pick an OID you would like to poll and set a threshold. You can also define the state of the OID based on a returned value and have that state reflected on the node and/or create incidents. This is useful if you have some special metric you want to monitor and be alerted when it goes off your norm.

We had many requests for this functionality. There is a new doc just for this called - Online Help: Custom Poller for Administrators. In addition, a whitepaper called - NNMi Step-by-Step Guide to Using the NNMi Custom Poller White Paper. You can find these at the same place as all the manuals at the Selfsolve site.

• Application Level Failover (NNMi, NNMi Advanced) – this is the ability to have a backup NNMi system monitor the primary and assume polling et al if the primary is unavailable. This is useful when your organization doesn’t use a cluster technology for failover. Read the post on Application Level Failover

• Enhanced Network Automation Integration (NNMi, NNMi Advanced) – this includes a variety of integration capabilities but there is one I think is really cool – automated duplex mismatch detection. (Note this requires the iSPI Network Engineering Tool Kit).

• MyBSM Integration (NNMi, NNMi Advanced, NNM iSPI for Performance). What is MyBSM? It is portal in our BAC (Business Availability Center) product. NNMi and iSPI Performance windows are now also portlets that are usable by the MyBSM portal. In addition, you can create new portlets.

• Enhanced Performance Insight integration (NNM iSPI for Performance) – this is near and dear to my heart as I was previously the product manager for both these products. In NNMi 8.10, device metrics were added to iSPI Performance. However, the existing Datapipe that brings information from iSPI Performance to Performance Insight only brought interface data over. Now device metrics move to Performance Insight and are shown in the Device Resources reports.

• LDAP support - Support for users, passwords and roles from an enterprise directory service through Active Directory.

• Alcatel Device Support

• Migration tools to help you migrate from 6.x/7.x to 8.x

nnmmigration.ovpl - Runs on the NNM 6.x/7.x system and calls several other migration tools
nnmtrapdload.ovpl - Imports NNM 6.x/7.x trapd.conf definitions as Incident configurations. See the nnmtrapdload.ovpl reference page
nnmmibmigration.ovpl - Imports the MIB definitions from the NNM 7.x snmpmib file.
snmpCapture.ovpl - Lists the NNM 6.x/7.x community strings.
nnmmapmigration.ovpl - Runs on the NNM 6.x/7.x system to gather node group and background information about the NNM 6.x/7.x location submaps for one OVW map

You can find the patches at http://support.openview.hp.com/selfsolve/patches - Search for NNM810W_00002 (updated)

For the Network Management Center Michael Procopio, LinkedIn.com/in/mjprocopio

Join the other conversations

Operations - hp.com/go/ITOpsBlog

Business Service Management - hp.com/go/BSMblog

Application Failover Support Feature – 8.11

Michael_Procopio — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 03:41:00 GMT

NNMi Application Failover is a new feature introduced with NNMi/NNMi Advanced 8.11. NNMi Application Failover functionality gives you the ability to setup two NNMi management stations, namely Primary/Active node and a Standby/Backup node. If the Primary management server crashes, the Backup server will automatically startup and resume NNMi functions (trap handling, analysis, discovery, polling, etc.). The two NNMi systems (Active and Standby) monitor each other using a “heartbeat” signal over the network. If the Active node fails (loss of heartbeat), the Standby node will automatically start NNMi. The Active as well as the Standby server instance uses the embedded Postgres database by default.

Note: Application Failover feature monitors system availability, not the availability of NNMi instance itself; i.e. if NNMi instance crashes or is killed, but the system remains online, Application Failover will not detect this.

How does this work?

The Active node performs periodic database backups
These backups are sent to the Standby node.
Between backups, periodic database transaction logs are created and immediately sent to the Standby node.
If the Active node crashes or is shutdown, Standby becomes the New-Active node
The New-Active node starts NNMi, including the database server.
The database server imports all the transaction logs and is available to NNMi for requests.

Does the Application Failover Support WAN?

The 8.11 release only supports LAN (same subnet). Going across a router is not supported at this time. Future releases will look into adding support for WAN.

What is the compatibility matrix for the active server and the standby server?

OS-consistency across the active and standby server is enforced. Both server need to be HPUX-to-HPUX, Linux-to-Linux, etc. Mix mode OS configuration such as Windows-to-Linux is not supported.
NNMi version and patch level needs to be the same across both servers
Licensing needs to consistent. If license (capacity or features) on Standby is less than Active, nodes will get unmanaged on failover. Eg. if the Standby node has lower node count and/or a subset of features (iSPI-NET, iAdvance, etc.) then when that node becomes Active, those features will be disabled and/or nodes will become unmanaged.
Both servers need to have the same “system” password

How are the 2 servers licensed?

The main Active server will need to have a production license equivalent to the number of nodes that it needs to managed. Standby uses non-production license. The node counts for the Active server and Stand

What if I want to use another external database such as Oracle instead of Postgres?

Application failover is not supported on any external database like Oracle and is only supported with the internal Postgres Database. If there is a need to use an external database such as Oracle, other supported clustering technologies such as MC ServiceGuard for HPUX or Microsoft Clusters (MSCS) for Windows or Veritas for Linux can be used.

Is the application level failover supported for NNM iSPI products?

All the iSPIs (except iSPI Performance) get “free” support to the Application Failover feature as long as they follow the following two conditions:

They use NNM’s Postgres database (then their data is replicated along with NNM’s data)
They use ovstart/ovstop to start/stop their services

iSPI NET as well as the iSPI for Performance do not support Application Failover feature.

In order to avail the Application Failover support of NNMi with iSPI Performance, the following could done:

iSPI Performance must be installed on a 3^rd node (same subnet), without NNMi (cannot co-exist on the same server)
The two NNM nodes both run the script “nnmenableiSPI Performance.ovpl” to point to iSPI Performance station
iSPI Performance is (initially) configured to point to currently-Active node
iSPI Performance detects an NNM Cluster environment, and periodically polls “who-is-current-Active?” using a special command.
When the Active node changes, iSPI Performance reconfigures itself to point to the new-Active node.

Do we support Oracle RAC?

Oracle RAC support is not available at this time.

I am Aruna Ravichandran, the Product Marketing Manager for NNM/NNMi/iSPI products within the Network Management Center for HP Software. I have been with HP for 13 years. I started my career as an engineer in the HP-UX kernel lab, moved on to do application development and was an architect in the High Availability/Clustering lab for couple of years. I then wanted to experiment the “darker” side of the business and moved to product management/Product marketing 5 years ago and marketed Storage products – high end disk arrays (XP) followed by Security Marketing where I created a secure appliance solution for enterprise log management and took it to market. I recently joined the Business Service Management (BSM) organization of HP Software. I have to say that I am still a “techy” at heart, though I totally love the “darker” side of the business.

We have to other conversations you can join. For Operations ITOpsBlog and for Business Service Management the BSMblog.

Interview on NNMi Advanced announcement with the product manager

Michael_Procopio — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:21:00 GMT

With the announcement of NNMi Advanced last week we felt readers might be interested in hearing from the product manager, Dom Ruffatto. This interview covers new features of NNMi Advanced and some of the add-on iSPIs. We also ask him about migration from older versions of NNM to NNMi 8.10.

Listen to the short (<10 minute) interview on NNMi Advanced.

For the Network Management Center - Michael Procopio

HP Software Universe and the big announcements

Michael_Procopio — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:49:00 GMT

HP Software Universe is in Vienna, Austria this week.

We have a number of announcements we will make there this week in Business Availability Center, Business Service Automation, Operations Center, Service Center and uCMDB. The title of the news advisory is HP Unveils New Software Solutions for Better IT Operations Management.

Announcements

The Network Management Center (NMC) is announcing version 8.10 of NNMi, NNMi Advanced, a set of Smart Plug-ins and a number of new integrations. NMC is also part of the Better Business Service Management announcement.

NNMi v8.10 adds a number of features:

Advanced map support - hierarchical container views built from node groups
Thresholding on device metrics such as CPU and memory. Also checking status on items such as fans and power supplies
iSPI Performance also adds reporting on device metrics
Path View is enhanced to support integration (NNMi Advanced only) with HP Route Analytics software (RAMS). This shows directional equal cost multi-paths
Support for application level failover. This adds to the high availability support using cluster technology.
A new version of AlarmPoint, 4.0, is shipping in the box with NNMi 8.10
And an advanced version of NNMi with the creative name NNMi Advanced - which adds HP RAMS integration and support for virtualized networks: HSRP, VRRP and aggregated ports

Also announced are a set of new add-ons called Smart Plug-ins or iSPIs:

iSPI Network Engineering Toolkit - provides troubleshooting help. An embedded run time version of Operations Orchestration with run-books we wrote. A Find command to 1/ find where a host is connected to the network given an IP address, host name or MAC address and 2/ find all hosts connected to a switch. Trap analytics to help tune the management environment.
iSPI IP Telephony - discovery and management of Cisco and Nortel IP Telephony
iSPI Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) - discovery and management of MPLS including L3 VPNs, L2 VPNs and Traffic Engineered (TE) tunnels
iSPI IP Multicast - discovery and management of IP Multicast networks

And new integrations:

With HP RAMS for alerts and Path View in NNMi Advanced only
With HP Network Automation - synch of community strings, Access Control Lists (ACLs) and the like. Notification of maintenance windows so that NNMi won't send alerts during scheduled downtime.
With uCMDB - first NNMi becomes the authoritative source of network CIs. Also, NNMi can query uCMDB to find out which services the selected object rely on. This allows the operator to know, prior to taking a device offline, which important services might be impacted.
With Operations Manager - bidirectional sync of incidents. This and the uCMDB integration together allow all for complete ITIL closed loop incident process
With Real User Monitor (RUM) - to determine if an application slowdown RUM detected is more likely to be the network or not

All of this together is what we are calling Automated Network Lifecycle Management that I covered in the last post.

The connection with RUM is a part of Application Aware Network Management (AANM). Our integration with NetScout's nGenius is also part of AANM.

For more information on all of the above, go to the Automated Network Management Lifecycle page.

Vienna

The Network Management Center is also on the demo floor at HP Software Universe Vienna. The NMC training sessions are:

Tuesday, December 9^th

TS-TU-1700/2 HP Network Node Manager i-series: Ready for Primetime, a deep dive presentation

- Pete Zwetkof, Product Manager NNMi

- Larry Besaw, R&D Architect NNMi

Wednesday, December 10^th

TS-WE-1015/5 Automated Network Lifecycle Management Technical Blueprint

- Pete Zwetkof, Product Manager NNMi

TS-WE-1515/A HP Network Management Center Advanced Workshop

- Pete Zwetkof, Product Manager NNMi

Thursday, December 11^th

TS-TH-0900/8 HP Network Node Manager i-series: deployment, migration and optimization

- Kevin Smith, R&D Engineer NNMi

BS-TH-1500/1 Users like simplicity; serve them through automated operations

- Thomas Edberg, HP

- Lars Erik Gjervan, NetCom, Norway

This post is getting long so I will end for now but I'll have additional posts on Vienna and the products later.

For the Network Management Center - Michael Procopio