BE Pro MRD

8/14/2019 BE Pro MRD

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Proteligent BirdsEye Pro Marketing Requirements Document2/15/05

Javed Mohammed, [email protected]

Background

Proteligents vision is to develop smart and simple monitoring software. The target market isSmall to Medium Enterprises (SMEs). SMEs have limited resources but need a reliable ITinfrastructure. Regardless of the type of business or non-profit, communication and IT aremission critical applications, where a system down event can have serious consequences.BirdsEye is a first generation Monitoring software that proactively monitors servers,workstations and network devices and can prevent costly downtime or track and manageperformance.

BirdsEye is an easy-to-use, Windows based system-monitoring tool that helps prevent

system downtime. BirdsEye monitors the seven vital signs of any IT infrastructure: Local andRemote Network Applications, System Log files, Network connectivity, Disk Space usage,Memory usage, and CPU usage. A System administrator does not have to go to each andevery system to look at its resources or log files. All of this is provided by a small clientsoftware which brings all this information together on one easy to view system.

BirdsEye's unique layered web interface gives an instant access to the current system status.With each click you can drill down to the next level of detail. Historic information of up to oneyear allows you to project increases in future usage and plan system upgrades early. Colorcoded "traffic-light" alerts indicate problems, allow the Admin to intervene early and preventdowntime. A proactive alert system notifies via email or SMS.

In summary BirdsEye does the following:

AutoDetect BirdsEye automatically detects the systems on the local network.Monitors Proactively. BirdsEye monitors the network and system resources quickly. Thisincludes servers, workstations, and network devices. You can also monitor the resourcesremotely via the web.Notification If there is a potential problem with a server or eg network application you canlearn about it wherever you are, by email and SMS cell phone.Reporting Simple reporting provides history from one day to one year.

As with any first generation product there are inherent limitations, customer feedback,competitor moves, and lessons learnt. The following MRD builds on BirdsEye to come outwith a competitive and upscale BirdsEye Pro.

PROTELIGENT CONFIDENTIAL 1


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Marketing Requirements Overview

BirdsEye Pro (BEP) is defined as a monitoring and management tool forSMEs. The sweet-spot for this product is the Mid-market which has companies with 25-500 employees andrevenues of $5M to $50M. There are 640,000 Mid-market businesses according to AberdeenGroup. Compared to the first generation BirdsEye, BEP is required to be a Swiss Army knifean all in one tool. BEP must be scalable to reach the mid-tier market and have the capabilitythrough APIs to allow plug-ins and features it does not directly support.

The target end-user is either the IT Sys Admin or the IT Solution provider who will use BEP toprovide value added services eg by becoming a Managed Service Provider (MSP).

The competitive landscape, consists of the mid-tier companies like Concord, Mercury

Interactive, Heroix and others.

Schedule Requirements, necessitate that the alpha product be ready in 6-7 months and abeta version be available in 9 months from project start. The Release should be by the oneyear limit.

Enhancements from BirdsEye to BirdsEyePro

BE Pro builds of the experience gained with the first generation product BirdsEye.BirdsEye. BE auto-Detects Clients, Monitors 6 Vital Signs, has history and limited reportingand notification.

It differs as follows:

Birdseye Birdseye ProMonitoring Monitoring, Fault Diagnosis, Management &

Detailed reporting

Network protocol applications Internal applications & services and Networkprotocols

Networking Bandwidth (In & Out traffic)1. IP protocol

2. VPN & remote



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Terminology and Block Diagram

Backup & Recovery

Dashboard

BirdsEyePro

Engine

BirdsEyePro

HTML

Presentation

Console

Database

Redhat Linux

Network Device

Unix Server

Windows Server



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Dashboard, Console and other software design considerations

The original BirdsEye was designed to be an easy to install, configure and use software.Although BEP will add many more capabilities the goal should still be a software that masksthe complexity from the end-user without compromising the needs of the more advanceduser.

From an end-user perspective the software should do the following.

1. The out-of-the box experience to download and install/configure BEP should beintuitive, fast, error-free and safe from harming other applications.

2. The Installation and Configuration of BEP should be through Wizards, with optionalmanual configuration capability (just as it is for current BirdsEye). Auto-discoveryshould also be a part of the Configuration Wizard. A End-user should see visible

results of monitoring at the end of the configuration process. For novice users, BEPshould default to certain settings and for power users have the capability to set thethresholds where warning and error message notifications are sent.

3. Both the Console (for configuration) and the Dashboard should use Icons, machinenames and appropriate color-code to designate the status of a system. The latterreferring to the Green is OK, Yellow is Warning and Red is Panic with additionalcolors to signify other status.

4. The look and feel of the Console should be different and apparent to the end user, sothere is no confusion about the purpose of each.

5. The MRD does not specify how many levels of Zoom-In / Zoom-Out capability BEP

will have. BE had four levels. It is preferable that BEP have less, ideally just two.

6. The Level 1 overview screen should provide a Network and System Topology view.To get there BEP must provide a Discovery & Mapping tool in the console. A wellthought out Level 1 screen is better than having four different options. From theoriginal BirdsEye the Matrix view is a good backup view.

7. The Level 2 view should provides the details and history on the selected system.Reporting should be fast and provide detailed reports including graphing capabilitiesfor 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, to 1 year. For detailed reporting it may be better to usean interface to an existing reporting program like Crystal Reports.

8. The dashboard of BEP should show updates without the user seeing intolerabledelays. The request is not to use Frames as BE does. This can speed up pageswhen they are loaded.

From a back-end perspective, BEP should do the following



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Store all relevant monitoring data for display, reporting, and backup-recovery purposes in aRDBMS database. The number of entries in the database and disk space should allow for 1

year of 500 clients sampling at an average of 5 minutes and monitoring 25 variables (Actual #TBD)

Although this is not an architecture document, it is preferred that the monitoring wherepossible should be all agent-less. The current BE has three level-one views and four drill-down levels. This should be simplified to not only offer more flexibility but also reduce thenumber of steps to get to the required screen.

Versions of BirdsEye ProThe following are the different versions that we will need of BirdsEye Pro.

1. Trial (10 monitors) for 10 or 30 days2. Personal Edition (3 monitors)3. Small Business Edition (10 monitors)

4. Unlimited Edition (Maximum capability)-

Need to be able to upgrade easily and seamlessly from 1. to 4 using license key

PlatformsBEP must operate on the following software and hardware platforms.

SoftwareWindows XP Professional, 2000, and aboveRed Hat Linux 7.2 and aboveSun Solaris 8.0 (Both Intel & Sparc Editions)

HardwareIntel Pentium 3 and 4 for Windows on windows2000 Server and ProfessionalIntel Pentium3 for Solaris on Solaris7 Intel version and Sparc for Solaris8

BirdsEyePro System Monitoring Capabilities

BirdsEyePro must build on the existing six groups of parameters that can be monitored oneach client. The existing System monitors are:

1. Remote and Local Network Applications(DNS, HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, LDAP, TELNET, IMAP, PING )

2. System Logs (SysLogs), Application and Security Logs3. Network connectivity4. Hard Disk Usage5. Physical and Virtual Memory Usage6. CPU Usage



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Functional Requirements

BEP is an all in one utility, which can monitor Applications, System and Network resources.

Application ManagementMonitoring and diagnosing problems with packaged (and Web)applications, databases, for analyzing and improving the performance of applications, and forroutine administration of applications, including configuration changes. Specific examples ofapplications would include MS Exchange, and SQL Server.

System Management Monitoring server availability and performance, reduce down time,address CPU usage and availability of disk resources and recovery. The main functionalitycenters around real-time or near real time monitoring, fault diagnosis, and management.

Network Management Monitors network availability and performance. Checks network

components for failure, or performance degradation against specified baseline metricssuppresses downstream alarms and performs root cause analysis to isolate the cause of thefailure

Detailed reporting across all three levels provides history, which includes trend analysis,which can be used for capacity planning.

Monitoring and management capabilities should with authentication be both internal as wellas remote. This capability is not only important for branch office IT management but also forthe Service Provider market

BirdsEye-Pro Monitoring and Management

Application Level Management

DatabaseManagement

System Level Management

Network Level Management

ApplicationManagement

PerformanceManagement

FaultManagement

Availability &Performance

ConfigurationManagement



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Whats New

The following is a non-prioritized list of features that need to be added or changed in additionto the monitors covered later.

General1. Real time monitoring & notification2. 500 systems performance3. Problem assessment & solving4. Notification using Modem/phone line (if email does not work)5. "Smart Diagnostics" (Knowledge base)6. DB support/Root Cause Analysis7. Security and Virus warningsGUI8. Open for programming/script Graphical representation

9. Browser GUI for server configuration w/login10. Graphs without need for JAVA browser plug-in11. Network Topology Discovery & Mapping12. Switch able look & feel (rich instrument look & printer friendly)13. Full Reporting, Graph and Analysis14. On demand reporting15. Custom reports by date range (on-demand graph)Flexibility & Power Users16. Dynamic IP addressing17. Security users & administrators (double layer of security)18. Clustering19. Linux server Birdseye20. Possibility for plug-ins / customer scripts

21. API for customization22. Solaris, Redhat & Mandrike Linux support for monitoringAdditional Monitoring23. More detailed apps monitoring, customizable24. More detailed network monitoring eg routers25. Remote monitoring26. Patch monitoring27. Back-up monitoring28. Network Performance Monitoring (Bandwidth)29. Network Traffic monitoring30. Intrusion detection



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BEP will monitor the following categories:

System MonitorsApplication MonitorsWeb/URL MonitorsNetwork Service Monitors

SYSTEM MONITORS

CPU Utilization MonitorReports CPU usage and warns if it is overloaded.

DHCP Monitor

Determines if an IP address can be obtained from a DHCP server.

Directory MonitorMonitor file count and size within a directory.

Disk Space MonitorReports Disk usage and warns if it starts getting full.

File MonitorMonitor file system parameters such as the size, age, and content of a file, and receivenotification of any changes.

IPMI Monitor (Nice to have, TBD if required)

Monitor hardware parameters such as temperature, voltage, fan speed, etc. on IntelligentPlatform Management Interface (IPMI) enabled servers.

LDAP MonitorVerify that an LDAP server is working correctly by connecting to it and performing a simpleauthentication. Optionally, it can check the result for expected content.

Log File MonitorGenerate warnings and errors based upon data in an application's log file. For example,many applications write error messages to a log file. This monitor can scan those log files,looking for error messages and generating alerts when it finds them.

Memory MonitorMeasure virtual memory usage and receive proactive notification of problems.

Network MonitorTrack network statistics for your server. Information provided by the network monitor can helpyou track down performance problems related to network interfaces on your servers.



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NT Dial-up Monitor

Dial into an ISP or Remote Access server and confirm that a connection can be made. Onceconnected, it can execute user-defined commands and measure performance.

NT Event Log MonitorWatch one of the Windows NT Event Logs (System, Application, or Security) and triggeralerts when entries are added.

NT Performance Counter Monitor (Not sure if this is required)Retrieve the value of any Windows NT Performance Counter and send alert if this value isout of a specified range.

Service MonitorVerify that specified processes are running, including Web, Mail, FTP, News, Gopher, Telnet,

and DNS.

APPLICATION MONITORSAllows monitoring of web servers, application servers, middleware and other applications.

Apache Web ServerMonitor Apache server statistics such as bytes per second, requests per second, and CPUload.

CheckPoint FireWall-1Monitor Checkpoint firewall parameters such as fwEvent, fwRejected, and fwLogged.

Cisco WorksMonitor Cisco Works server parameters.

MAPI (TBD)Test Microsoft Exchange server by sending a message via MAPI.

Microsoft ApplicationsMonitor performance for most Microsoft applications including:

Active Directory ASP Exchange IIS

SQL .Net Windows Media Player and Server



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Database MonitorVerify database queries.

NetScape Enterprise/iPlanetMonitor key performance statistics for NetScape Enterprise/iPlanet web servers.

Oracle9i Application ServerMonitor server statistics for Oracle9i Application Servers.

Oracle JDBC (TBD)Test an Oracle database by connecting to it and performing a query using JDBC.

WEB/URL MONITORS (All except URL Monitor TBD)These monitors are used specifically for monitoring web site performance or web related

processes including web services.

eBusiness Chain MonitorVerify that a complete chain of actions is completed as intended including front-end Webservers, e-mail notifications, back-end databases and more.

Link Check MonitorMonitor all internal and external Web site links for link integrity.

URL MonitorVerify availability and access time for specified URLs to ensure Web pages are availablewithin an acceptable time frame. On Windows NT, BEP takes advantage of the platform'sintegrated support to monitor secure HTTPS URLs in addition to HTTP URLs.

URL Content MonitorRetrieve a selected URL, checking for multiple strings of text within the page.

URL List MonitorMonitor an entire list of URLs, rather than defining several separate URL monitors.

URL Sequence MonitorVerify a session that includes multiple pages. An example of this would be entering anaccount name via a Web form and checking an account status for the page that is returned.

Web Server MonitorReport data recorded by the Web server log such as hits, bytes, errors, hits per minutes andbytes per minute.



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Netscape Enterprise & FastTrac Microsoft IIS Apache

Web Service MonitorSend SOAP requests to a Web Service enabled application to verify availability.

NETWORK SERVICE MONITORSThe following monitors are used for monitoring network services and network relatedprocesses/operations.

DNS MonitorVerify that the Domain Name Server (DNS) is accepting requests. Verify that the address fora specific domain name can be found.

Formula (Bandwidth) CompositeCreate a measurement based on an arithmetic calculation of the results from two othermonitors.

FTP MonitorVerify that a file can be retrieved from a file transfer protocol (FTP) server.

Mail Monitor (SMTP, POP3, IMAP)Verify that the mail server is accepting requests, and that messages can be sent andretrieved.

Ping MonitorVerify that specified hosts are available via the network to ensure continuous availability of

critical connections.

Port MonitorDetermine whether a service on a port can be connected to.

Real Streaming MonitorMeasure the availability and quality of a Real stream from a client-side perspective.

RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) MonitorDetermine the availability of real time media streams. Monitor real time media streams.

SNMP MonitorUse industry-standard Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to monitor networkdevices.

SNMP Trap MonitorSearch through SNMP traps for specific values. Together with BEP native SNMP listener, thismonitor lets BEP act as an SNMP management console.



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APPENDIX A

Various documents still needed and to be developed with the following hierarchy:

BirdsEye Pro PRD / Business Case

PRD - Product Requirements (TBD Later)-

Screen Mockups-Report Templates-What the user sees and gets.Business Case -Justification, Revenues-Costs, ROI, Market Share.

Engineering Deliverables to PM:

Functional Spec, Design & Schedule for, Beta and GA:

1. Func Spec: Response to MRD, what Engr. Can deliver, when and how. Detaileddocument w/ responses to the MRD and/or PRD.PM and Engr. Need to agree onFunc Spec meeting the MRD/PRD and the Business case requirements.

2. Design: Engr. Develops Design to meet Func Spec. PM does not approve, thisis included in the PM schedule since it is a deliverable for the ARB meeting. PMexpects that the Func Spec will be updated after the Design, so detaileddocuments (Fact Sheets, Sales Pres, etc.) will be done after the Design Doc.

3. Schedule: Engr. Provides the schedule with the Design. PM needs to approvethe schedule since it impacts the Business case.

4. Internal (Architectural) (SRS)

5. Feature Des. Spec

6. Des Doc / Eng Detailed design description



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APPENDIX BThe Following are more detailed notes based on Engineering feedback on BirdsEye for

BEP1) Modularity Each object to have protocol defined or indicated to communicate with other objects /modules Each module to run as stand alone

2) Notification Selection, e-mail, etc. Provide: To a group By particular device

3) Push to server limited due to Firewall Change to server pop/pull Evaluate performance Impact / benchmark. Over predetermined port / fixed port

Replace static HTML pages with dynamic HTML pages ask Nicole4) Omni features avoid duplication w/Omni provided features5) Writing file all the time Change to system file under WIN326) GUI provide utility for change / configure facility to id physical device (e.g. asprovided by product Nanny)7) Client INSTALL / Initialization do it in parallel mode thru MULTIPLE Threadingconcept (50K threads!)8) Linux / Unix install Provide thru ftp in the background (instead of telnet)9) Cleanup playback file to be smaller & compact loaded by # of items

2) Display of Top Down / Total Network resources

Categorize by type and with icon selection capability; add items such as:o Printero Router, etc.

3) Names to resources to be flexible Specification of logical names/icon by user Property page for each discovered resource

4) Option of deleting resources as needed Have generic control panel per resource if possible

5) Backend db engine needed to provide: Dynamic HTML Data sorting Performance, etc.

6) Enhanced Distribution of Linux / Unix /



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1. Type wise display of network resourcesCurrent implementation: All the networking resources including computers, printers, routers

etc. are displayed under a single category.

Feature enhancement: Networking resources would be displayed under different sections/categories in the Explorer and Web-based display. This categorization will be based upon thetype of the device such as computer, printer and router.

2. Logical name assignment for resourcesCurrent implementation: There is no support for assigning logical name to a discoveredresource. Either the host name or the IP address is shown when that resource is discovered.

Feature enhancement: Enhancement will be made in manual discovery process to let userassign logical name to the resource he is to discover. To handle this for auto-discoveryprocess, Edit Properties page on each discovered resource will let user to change its name.

3. Delete (un-discover) unwanted resourcesCurrent implementation: Not Supported

Feature enhancement: Support will be added so that on each network resource user canoperate upon the Delete option. This option will be provided as part of the main menu andalso the short-cut menu through the mouse right-button click.

4. Backend database engineCurrent implementation: Not Supported

Feature enhancement: This improvement is believed to improve/enhance the following:

Dynamic HTML pages generation Data sorting, reports generation and Audits Improved intelligence for identifying trends and patterns Better handling of data generation for graph display

5. Distribution of Linux and Solaris packageCurrent implementation: Not Supported

Feature enhancement: Distribution and installation of Linux, Solaris etc. client softwarethrough BirdsEye central management server (Explorer).


Documents

BE Pro MRD