Network Management Center Blog : Software Universe

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.

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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

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