Migrating to Netcool-Precision for IP Networks --Best Practices for Migrating From IBM Tivoli NetView Sg247375

7/31/2019 Migrating to Netcool-Precision for IP Networks --Best Practices for Migrating From IBM Tivoli NetView Sg247375

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ibm.com/redbooks

Migrating to Netcool/Precisionfor IP NetworksBest Practices for Migrating from

IBM Tivoli NetView

Stephen HochstetlerDonald HartLeslie Clark

Mathias ScharfenbergPdraig Byrne

Rob ClarkBob Louden

Compare capabilities and solution

architectures

Migrate IBM Tivoli Switch

Analyzer

Perform the migration and

configure the new features

Front cover
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/


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Migrating to Netcool/Precision for IP NetworksBest Practices for Migrating from IBM Tivoli NetView

February 2007

International Technical Support Organization

SG24-7375-00


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Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.Note to U.S. Government Users Restricted Rights -- Use, duplication or disclosure restricted by GSA ADPSchedule Contract with IBM Corp.

First Edition (February 2007)

This edition applies to Version 7, Release 1, modification 5 of IBM Tivoli NetView (productnumber 5698-NTV) and Version 1, Release 3 of IBM Tivoli Switch Analyzer (product number5724-C72) and Version 3, Release 6 of Netcool/PrecisionIP Discovery and Root Cause Analysis(product number 5724-O52) and Version 3, Release 6 of Netcool/PrecisionIP Topology Server(product number 5724-O60) and Version 3, Release 6 of Netcool/PrecisionIP Topology DiscoveryTier 1 (product number 5724-O85) and Version 3, Release 6 of Netcool/PrecisionIP TopologyDiscovery Tier 2(product number 5724-O86) and Version 3, Release 6 of Netcool/PrecisionIP

Fault Discovery and Asset Tier 1 (product number 5724-O87) and Version 3, Release 6 ofNetcool/PrecisionIP Fault Discovery and Asset Tier 2(product number 5724-O88)

Note: Before using this information and the product it supports, read the information inNotices on page ix.


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Copyright IBM Corp. 2007. All rights reserved. iii

Contents

Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ixTrademarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiThe team that wrote this redbook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Become a published author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiiiComments welcome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Part 1. Product comparisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.1 IBM Service Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.2 Next Generation Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61.3 Netcool/Precision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81.4 NetView customer choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91.5 The purpose of this book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Chapter 2. Product review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.2 Discovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122.3 Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162.4 Network visualization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182.5 Event management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232.6 SNMP tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252.7 Diagnostic tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272.8 User consoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

2.9 Product administration and configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322.10 Integration with other products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Chapter 3. Benefits of migrating to Precision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373.1 Full layer 2 discovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

3.1.1 The OSI seven layer model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383.2 Filling in gaps in the discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

3.2.1 Inserting missing connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433.3 MPLS networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

3.3.1 Example MPLS discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443.3.2 MPLS edge view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453.3.3 MPLS core view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463.3.4 More information on MPLS capabilities in Netcool/Precision . . . . . . 47


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5.3 Required Netcool components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 855.4 Installation of Netcool components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

5.4.1 Install and verify Netcool License Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 865.4.2 Install and verify Netcool OMNIbus 7.1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

5.4.3 Install and verify Netcool Knowledge Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 915.4.4 Install and verify Netcool Mttrapd Probe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 915.4.5 Install and verify Netcool Security Manager 1.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 935.4.6 Install and verify Netcool Precision IP 3.6. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

5.5 Starting Netcool products at server boot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 975.5.1 Running the OMNIbus script to create startup files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 975.5.2 Running the Precision script to create startup files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 985.5.3 Creating a startup script for Netcool License Manager . . . . . . . . . . . 995.5.4 Creating a startup script for Netcool GUI Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . 100

5.5.5 Creating a startup script for Netcool Security Manager . . . . . . . . . 1005.5.6 Symbolic link creation to auto-start applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Chapter 6. Migrating NetView and Switch Analyzer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1036.1 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

6.1.1 NetView architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1046.1.2 Netcool architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

6.2 Gathering information from the NetView server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1056.3 Migrating the discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

6.3.1 First pass at discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1086.3.2 Second pass at discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1136.3.3 Third pass at discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1166.3.4 Fourth pass at discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1196.3.5 Migrating discovery rules and adding agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1206.3.6 Discovering extra information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

6.4 Migrating the network map visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1316.4.1 Migrating SmartSets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1326.4.2 Migrating the network view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

6.5 Migrating network monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1486.5.1 Tivoli NetView preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1486.5.2 Netcool/Precision preparation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1496.5.3 Configure ping polling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1506.5.4 Configure SNMP link polling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1546.5.5 Configure SNMP threshold polling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1546.5.6 Activating the changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1556.5.7 Passive monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

6.5.8 Understanding how interfaces are managed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1566.5.9 Enabling new node events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1576.5.10 Examples of the monitoring events. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

6.6 Netcool OMNIbus automations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158


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6.6.1 Mail on critical automation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1596.6.2 Event enrichment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

6.7 Creating users for Netcool components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1706.7.1 User creation in Netcool/OMNIbus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

6.7.2 Creating user in NGF with admin permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1766.7.3 Assign user roles and groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1776.7.4 Creating a user with operator access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1796.7.5 Creating the operator user in the NGF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1806.7.6 Creating a limited access executive view in the NGF . . . . . . . . . . . 1836.7.7 Summary of new Netcool/OMNIbus and NGF users . . . . . . . . . . . 186

6.8 Adding tools to the user interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1886.8.1 The Ping tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1896.8.2 Adding a MIB application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

6.8.3 Adding an http management tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Chapter 7. Migration topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1997.1 Scheduled discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2007.2 Provisioning Netcool/Precision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2017.3 Problem determination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2087.4 Populating the user interface by roles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

7.4.1 Create the network operators group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2117.4.2 Create the tabbed page for the operators view. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

7.4.3 Create the network topology view. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2157.4.4 Build the Operators tabbed view. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

7.5 The menus in Omnibus and Netcool/Precision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2207.5.1 Omnibus X11 menus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2207.5.2 NGF/Webtop menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2227.5.3 NGF/Topoviz menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

7.6 Enriching interface events with chassis object attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Appendix A. Useful information for Netcool installation and maintenance

227A.1 Environment settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228A.2 License Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229A.3 ObjectServer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229A.4 OMNIbus probes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230A.5 OMNIbus gateways. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231A.6 Process control (PA). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

A.7 Menus, tools, and prompts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

A.8 Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233A.9 Automation triggers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233A.10 Security Manager 1.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234A.11 Webtop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234


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A.12 Precision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235A.12.1 Precision server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235A.12.2 Precision monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236A.12.3 Precision monitor probe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236A.12.4 Precision discovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

A.12.5 Precision bidirectional gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237A.12.6 Precision Failover: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

A.13 mySQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Appendix B. Scripts and commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241B.1 Commands and scripts used to extract information from the NetView

installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242B.1.1 Devices that are discovered and managed by NetView . . . . . . . . . 242

B.1.2 Custom fields information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255B.1.3 User account information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256B.1.4 Polling information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259B.1.5 Trap and event processing information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261B.1.6 Event processing information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262B.1.7 Other automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

B.2 Scripts and commands for validating and customizing the Precisioninstallation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

B.2.1 Perl script to extract all unknown OIDs from Precision. . . . . . . . . . 264

B.2.2 Script to compare discovered nodes in NetView and Precision . . . 267B.2.3 Perl script to handle unmanaged nodes or interfaces . . . . . . . . . . 270B.2.4 Sample of threshold polling definition to be put into *.aoc file . . . . 275

B.3 Precision agents we modified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277B.4 Startup scripts modified to run at boot time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280B.5 NGF menu configuration files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285B.6 Stitchers for event enrichment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Appendix C. Additional material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Locating the Web material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297Using the Web material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

System requirements for downloading the Web material . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298How to use the Web material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Related publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299Other publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299Online resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299How to get IBM Redbooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300Help from IBM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301


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Copyright IBM Corp. 2007. All rights reserved. ix

Notices

This information was developed for products and services offered in the U.S.A.

IBM may not offer the products, services, or features discussed in this document in other countries. Consultyour local IBM representative for information on the products and services currently available in your area.Any reference to an IBM product, program, or service is not intended to state or imply that only that IBMproduct, program, or service may be used. Any functionally equivalent product, program, or service thatdoes not infringe any IBM intellectual property right may be used instead. However, it is the user'sresponsibility to evaluate and verify the operation of any non-IBM product, program, or service.

IBM may have patents or pending patent applications covering subject matter described in this document.The furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents. You can send license

inquiries, in writing, to:IBM Director of Licensing, IBM Corporation, North Castle Drive, Armonk, NY 10504-1785 U.S.A.

The following paragraph does not apply to the United Kingdom or any other country where suchprovisions are inconsistent with local law: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATIONPROVIDES THIS PUBLICATION "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS ORIMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NON-INFRINGEMENT,MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some states do not allow disclaimerof express or implied warranties in certain transactions, therefore, this statement may not apply to you.

This information could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes are periodically madeto the information herein; these changes will be incorporated in new editions of the publication. IBM may

make improvements and/or changes in the product(s) and/or the program(s) described in this publication atany time without notice.

Any references in this information to non-IBM Web sites are provided for convenience only and do not in anymanner serve as an endorsement of those Web sites. The materials at those Web sites are not part of thematerials for this IBM product and use of those Web sites is at your own risk.

IBM may use or distribute any of the information you supply in any way it believes appropriate withoutincurring any obligation to you.

Information concerning non-IBM products was obtained from the suppliers of those products, their publishedannouncements or other publicly available sources. IBM has not tested those products and cannot confirm

the accuracy of performance, compatibility or any other claims related to non-IBM products. Questions onthe capabilities of non-IBM products should be addressed to the suppliers of those products.

This information contains examples of data and reports used in daily business operations. To illustrate themas completely as possible, the examples include the names of individuals, companies, brands, and products.All of these names are fictitious and any similarity to the names and addresses used by an actual businessenterprise is entirely coincidental.

COPYRIGHT LICENSE:

This information contains sample application programs in source language, which illustrate programmingtechniques on various operating platforms. You may copy, modify, and distribute these sample programs in

any form without payment to IBM, for the purposes of developing, using, marketing or distributing applicationprograms conforming to the application programming interface for the operating platform for which thesample programs are written. These examples have not been thoroughly tested under all conditions. IBM,therefore, cannot guarantee or imply reliability, serviceability, or function of these programs.


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Trademarks

The following terms are trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation in the United States,other countries, or both:

Redbooks (logo) DB2IBMMQSeriesNetcool/Omnibus

NetcoolNetViewRedbooksSystem pTivoli Enterprise

Tivoli Enterprise ConsoleTivoliViewpointWebSphere

The following terms are trademarks of other companies:

IT Infrastructure Library, IT Infrastructure Library is a registered trademark of the Central Computer andTelecommunications Agency which is now part of the Office of Government Commerce.

ITIL is a registered trademark, and a registered community trademark of the Office of GovernmentCommerce, and is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Java, JRE, and all Java-based trademarks are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States,other countries, or both.

Microsoft, Windows, and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States,other countries, or both.

Pentium, Intel logo, Intel Inside logo, and Intel Centrino logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of IntelCorporation or its subsidiaries in the United States, other countries, or both.

UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries.

Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both.

Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.


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Copyright IBM Corp. 2007. All rights reserved. xi

Preface

This IBM Redbook will help you determine if you want to migrate from IBMTivoli NetView version 7 and IBM Tivoli Switch Analyzer to Netcool/Precisionfor IP Networks version 3.6.

The first part of the book is written to help you understand the changes andbenefits that Netcool/Precision for IP Networks can bring to your environment.The intent is to help you evaluate your own usage of the NetView features andsee how they map to the Netcool/Precision features. You can also learn aboutthe additional features that Netcool/Precision offers to help determine if a

migration is right for your company at this time.

The second part of the book takes a systematic and detailed approach to theprocess of planning and performing the migration from NetView toNetcool/Precision. Drawing on the authors many years of experience with bothNetView and Netcool/Precision, as well as on extensive work in the Redbookslab, this part is intended for the technical leaders and specialists who will beperforming the migration and who have the appropriate education or experienceto deploy Netcool/Precision. The scripts we developed to help with the migration

tasks are documented in appendixes and are available for download from theredbook Web site.

The team that wrote this redbook

This redbook was produced by a team of specialists from around the worldworking at the International Technical Support Organization, Austin Center.

Stephen Hochstetler is a project leader at the International Technical SupportOrganization, Austin Center. He writes extensively and teaches IBM classesworldwide on all areas of system management, Linux, and System p. Before

joining the ITSO 6 years ago, Stephen worked in Tivoli Services, USA as anetwork management architect.

Donald Hart is a Solutions Architect in the USA. He has 10 years of experiencein managing networks with the Netcool product suite. He has traveledextensively around the world providing network architecture consulting and

training for the past 6 years.

Leslie Clarkis a Senior Services Specialist with IBM Global Services USA. Sheholds a BSc from the University of Michigan. She has helped customers


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xii Migrating to Netcool/Precision for IP Networks

implement and customize Tivoli NetView across the US and Canada over thelast fifteen years.

Mathias Scharfenberg is a Senior IT Architect in Germany. He has 10 years ofexperience in networking. He holds a BSc degree in Computer Science from the

University Of Hertfordshire. His areas of expertise include networks and networkmanagement.

Pdraig Byrne is a Netcool Specialist for IBM Australia. He has six years ofexperience working with telco and network management software. Prior to

joining the pre-sales team in Australia he worked with the Precision developmentteam in London. He holds a degree in Mathematics from the University ofCambridge. His areas of expertise include networks, Precision and the Netcoolsuite.

Rob Clarkis a software developer in the USA. He has 20 years of experience insoftware development and 10 years with NetView development. He holds an MSdegree in Computer Science from Northeastern University. His areas ofexpertise include software engineering, and all aspects of Tivoli NetView.

Bob Louden is a Consulting IT Specialist on the Tivoli Sales Enablement teamresponsible for training and supporting worldwide sales teams on Tivoli products.He holds a BS in Computer Science from Virginia Tech, and an MS in Computer

and Communications Science from the University of Michigan. Bob has enjoyedtwenty-four years with IBM in roles ranging from product development, to sales,to technical sales support, to consulting helping clients apply technologysolutions to their business problems.

Thanks to the following people for their contributions to this project:

Special thanks to Andrew Hepburn with IBM, United Kingdom. His technicalguidance is reflected in many sections of the book. All of the authors learnedseveral things from Andrew.

Arzu GucerInternational Technical Support Organization, Austin Center

Jonathan Baggott, Bhrat Patel, Dave RobertsIBM, United Kingdom

Nick Ho, Bob Louden, Raymond SunIBM USA


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Preface xiii

Become a published author

Join us for a two- to six-week residency program! Help write an IBM Redbookdealing with specific products or solutions, while getting hands-on experiencewith leading-edge technologies. You'll have the opportunity to team with IBMtechnical professionals, Business Partners, and Clients.

Your efforts will help increase product acceptance and customer satisfaction. Asa bonus, you'll develop a network of contacts in IBM development labs, andincrease your productivity and marketability.

Find out more about the residency program, browse the residency index, andapply online at:

ibm.com/redbooks/residencies.html

Comments welcome

Your comments are important to us!

We want our Redbooks to be as helpful as possible. Send us your commentsabout this or other Redbooks in one of the following ways:

Use the online Contact us review redbook form found at:

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Mail your comments to:

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2455 South RoadPoughkeepsie, NY 12601-5400
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/residencies.htmlhttp://www.redbooks.ibm.com/residencies.htmlhttp://www.redbooks.ibm.com/http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/contacts.htmlhttp://www.redbooks.ibm.com/contacts.htmlhttp://www.redbooks.ibm.com/http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/residencies.htmlhttp://www.redbooks.ibm.com/residencies.html


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xiv Migrating to Netcool/Precision for IP Networks


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Copyright IBM Corp. 2007. All rights reserved. 1

Part 1 Product

comparisonsIn this part we discuss the reasons that IBM bought Micromuse and the valuethat the new products bring to the Tivoli portfolio. After looking at theNetcool/Precision for IP Networks features that map to IBM Tivoli NetViewand IBM Tivoli Switch Analyzer, we also look at additional benefits thatNetcool/Precision brings to customers.

Part 1


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2 Migrating to Netcool/Precision for IP Networks


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Chapter 1. Introduction

The IBM acquisition of Micromuse Inc., on February 14, 2006, marks a majormilestone for IBM Tivoli software because it significantly strengthens the

end-to-end IBM Service Management software portfolio. The acquisition comesat a time when important new networking technologies have emerged and veryhigh network availability has become mission critical for most organizations.

While the IBM Tivoli NetView product has a long history of industry-leadingout-of-the-box utility, the addition of Netcool/Precision to our portfolio extends ournetwork management capabilities to include extensive automated networkdiscovery and best-of-breed topology-based root cause analysis providingcustomers with comprehensive, real-time understanding of their network

infrastructures and the fastest possible resolution of network problems. Whilesignificant focus is being placed on enhancing the ease of installation and use ofcoming versions of Netcool/Precision, IBM will continue to protect NetViewcustomers investments and also intends to provide a smooth upgrade path to afuture converged network management product offering.

1


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1.1 IBM Service Management

Today, IT environments are under tremendous pressure. This pressure can betraced to four key sources: complexity, change, compliance, and cost.

Businesses must be able to quickly respond to market changes in order tomaximize revenue. As businesses increasingly rely on technology to improvetheir ability to deliver products and services, additional pressure is put on the ITdepartment to adapt their services to these changes.

1. Change - Fast-changing external and internal forces, and unpredictablevariations in workloads make meeting service levels difficult.

2. Complexity - Organizations manage complex IT environment to supportbusiness processes.

3. Compliance - The changing global regulatory and business environmentrequires security, privacy, and ongoing audit capabilities.

4. Cost - To meet business service-level expectations, infrastructure costs havebeen outpaced by spending on management and administration.

For example, a new product launch and promotion may stress the orderfulfillment process, which relies on a Supply Chain Management application. TheIT department must be able to provide capacity to support the application duringthis period of high demand, but purchasing additional hardware that will not beutilized during normal periods is not the most effective solution. It is dealing withthese changes in increasingly complex environments while under constrainedbudgets that truly challenges IT.

By combining the Netcool and Tivoli por tfolios, IBM enables customers to take amore comprehensive approach to aligning IT operations and processes with theirorganizations' business needs - an approach that leverages best practices suchas those of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL). IBM calls this approachIBMService Management(Figure 1-1).


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Chapter 1. Introduction 5

Figure 1-1 IBM Service Management

IBM Service Management includes a uniquely broad and modular set ofcapabilities that help customers better manage the business of IT:

Operational management helps organizations deliver services across theinfrastructure effectively and efficiently. Tivoli operational managementproducts span networking, business applications, servers, devices, storage,and security to provide an end-to-end service perspective.

Service management platform is built on IBM Tivoli Change andConfiguration Management Database (CCMDB), which standardizes andshares information across the enterprise to help align operations withbusiness context and enable customers to manage change. Tivoli CCMDBincludes automated, configurable best-practice workflows for the change andconfiguration processes. It also serves as a platform for integrated processmanagement.

Process management integrates and automates service managementprocesses to increase operational efficiency.

Best practices learned from thousands of successful customerengagements serve as the foundation for IBM Service Management.

Network management is key to Tivoli's comprehensive service managementstrategy. Awareness of network devices, configuration, and faults is required forService Deployment, Business Resilience, and Service Delivery processes. By

joining the Tivoli leadership and experience managing data center environments

with those of Netcool in the network operations center, IBM enables customers tobenefit from fully integrated management software that shares event andperformance management, visualization, and automated workflow capabilitiesacross the enterprise. The combined Netcool and Tivoli portfolio will help users


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manage any data related to infrastructure elements such as networks, systems,security devices, storage components, and applications to gain full visibility intothe health and performance of infrastructure-dependent services.

IBM is as committed to Netcool customers and products as it is to customers who

have invested in Tivoli solutions. The company's strategy is to enable all Netcooland Tivoli users to protect, optimize, and extend their investments in thecombined product portfolio.

Protect: IBM seeks to protect customer investments of not only resources,but also knowledge accumulated over years of building ever more advancedIT operations infrastructures. As the Netcool and Tivoli product portfoliosconverge, IBM intends to provide smooth upgrade paths that facilitateadoption of the best capabilities across the combined portfolio whilepreserving and unlocking customers' knowledge investments.

Optimize: IBM is helping customers leverage expanded capabilities today,even as work progresses toward the converged Tivoli portfolio. In productcategories where the combined portfolio capabilities overlap, customers can"trade up" to the more feature-rich product in the category. For example, IBMTivoli NetView and IBM Tivoli Switch Analyzer users can trade up toNetcool/Precision for integrated Layers 2 and 3 network discovery andmanagement.

Extend: Whether a customer currently uses Netcool products, Tivoli

products, or both, the combined portfolio offers many additional products andcapabilities the organization can leverage. Specifically, the Netcool portfoliooffers Tivoli users a wide range of capabilities for security operationsmanagement, performance management, and network management. TheNetcool portfolio further extends the Tivoli portfolio with next-generationmanagement solutions for telecommunications infrastructures.

IBM is dedicated to every customer's success. As the company works to delivera converged portfolio, it is taking numerous steps to enable the investments

customers have made in IBM and Micromuse products over the years tocontinue to benefit their organizations. Furthermore, the smooth upgrade pathsIBM is putting in place are meant to help customers derive even greater valuefrom these investments moving forward.

1.2 Next Generation Networking

For years, the networking industry has been heralding the emergence of NextGeneration Networks (NGNs) - networks where new TCP/IP-based technologiesleverage extraordinary (wireless, wired, and optical) transport networkcapabilities to deliver voice, video, data, and multimedia traffic across a common


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networking infrastructure (and, in many cases, the Internet). NGNs are heretoday, but increasing dependence upon them brings with it significantly greaterrequirements for high-quality, secure, and highly-available communicationservices. Likewise, network management technologies and protocols haveevolved (such as the Simple Network Management Protocol, most recently,

SNMPv3) to provide ever greater security and functional capabilities. The rate ofchange in networking technologies and requirements has strained the ability ofmany network management products to keep up with the consequent inabilityof network managers to see, understand, and troubleshoot problems within theirnetworking infrastructures.

Network management challenges for NGNs include:

NGNs are normally heterogeneous (multi-vendor), requiring broadmanagement support for network equipment that is vendor-specific.

NGNs normally involve a combination of network technologies for delivery,including:

Transport protocols such as SONET/SDH, ATM, Frame Relay, andwireless

Dynamic networking and high availability technologies such as OSPF,HSRP, VRRP, and BGP

TCP/IP transport technologies such as Voice over IP, IP Multimedia

Services, and MPLS

Security technologies such as Virtual Private Networking, firewalls, andNetwork Address Translation

NGNs often involve more complex meshed network architectures, including:

Traffic engineering to optimize traffic flows, as well as ensuring serviceavailability in the event of a network failure

Potentially overlapping IP address spaces often due to mergers and

acquisitions

The traditional network management approach of "discover all the boxes andping (ICMP) the devices" no longer provides sufficient coverage to ensureservice availability. Crucial time may be spent chasing alarms that are merelysymptomatic of deeper, underlying problems. Tools, such as Netcool/Precision,are required to enable an end-to-end view across the IP and Transmissionnetwork components.


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1.3 Netcool/Precision

The addition of Netcool/Precision to the IBM network management portfolioextends our network management capabilities to include extensive automatednetwork discovery and best-of-breed topology-based root cause analysis,providing customers the best possible, real-time understanding of their networkinfrastructures and the fastest possible resolution of network problems. Keyfeatures of the Netcool/Precision product are the following:

Netcool/Precision's automated network discovery uses advanced techniquesto gather in-depth information about the contents and structure of thenetwork, including:

Layer 2: the data-link layer, including switched networks and Virtual LANs

Layer 3: the network layer, including dynamic routing protocols, VirtualPrivate Networking, and multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) services

The network is then modeled within Netcool/Precision to create ahighly-accurate representation of the true network fabric. Collecting extensiveinformation directly from the network devices provides the most complete andup-to-date details of the network assets and their connectivity. This discoveryinformation is maintained ("persists") across restarts of the Netcool/Precisionsystem, thereby eliminating the need for extensive network rediscovery afterrestarts.

Netcool/Precision helps network management teams visualize andunderstand the layout of complex networks and the impact of network eventsand failures upon them and, more importantly, the services delivered acrossthem.

Within Netcool/Precision, the topology-based event correlation engine usesthe model of the discovered network to understand the relationships betweennetwork events based upon the connectivity and containment (variousgroupings) of network devices. This enables Netcool/Precision to quickly and

accurately identify root cause events (to the node and port level) and theirassociated symptoms, thereby reducing the time needed to restore thenetwork and ensuring that customer-facing network operations staff hasmeaningful contextual information at their fingertips.

Integration with Netcool/OMNIbus allows the Netcool/Precisiontopology-based event correlation engine to process events obtained fromboth network devices and other management systems using a broad range ofavailable integrations.

Netcool/Precision easily integrates with operational support systems (OSS)and other mission-critical workflow applications.


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The Precision product will anchor future Tivoli network management offerings,including the planned support for enhanced next-generation networks and IPv6.The next planned release of Netcool/Precision aims to blend the capabilities ofPrecision for IP Networks (Precision IP) and Precision for TransmissionNetworks (Precision TN) to facilitate integrated discovery and management of all

layers of the network infrastructure. A future version of Precision is planned toprovide fast and easy problem identification and resolution for small and midsizebusinesses.

1.4 NetView customer choices

While significant focus is being placed on enhancing the ease of installation and

use of coming versions of Netcool/Precision, IBM will continue to protect ourNetView customers' investments and intends to provide a smooth upgrade pathto a future converged network management product offering. Customers who donot yet need the enhanced device discovery and layer 2 support offered byPrecision, and who are concerned about disrupting their environment, cancontinue to use NetView 7.1.4. Customers who need enhanced SNMP support,duplicate IP address support, or NetView monitoring capabilities, can upgrade toNetView 7.1.5. Customers who have an immediate need for the deep discovery(including layer 2 support), advanced protocol support, and topology-based root

cause analysis offered by Precision IP, can upgrade immediately to Precision IP.

1.5 The purpose of this book

This book was written primarily for customers who are thinking about upgradingto Netcool/Precision. We have established a team of experts from NetViewDevelopment, Network Management Services, Netcool Services, and IBMServices. Together, we have documented the best practices for upgrading

customer environments from NetView to Netcool/Precision.

This book will help you identify the additional features that Netcool/Precisionbrings to your environment to help you determine which strategy is better for you.


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Chapter 2. Product review

In this chapter we discuss the major features of Tivoli NetView and match themwith the equivalent Netcool/Precision for IP Networks features. This will give

you a good idea of how your current network management functionality can beprovided with Netcool/Precision. The features and capabilities discussed are:

Discovery

Monitoring

Network visualization

Event management

SNMP tools

Diagnostic tools

User consoles

Product administration and configuration

Integration with other products

2


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2.1 Overview

The Tivoli NetView users often centers their activity around the topology mapsfrom where they can see status changes and access diagnostic tools and device

information. To make this task easy, many users customize the maps to organizethe information visually and to make navigation easier. Events offer usefulinformation including status changes, but to do any serious event management,NetView users typically integrate with Tivoli Event Console (TEC) and managethe events from there. From the TEC event view they can launch the NetViewtopology maps via the Web Console to access network-related information andvisual orientation.

With Netcool, the components focus on contributing events or enriching events.Netcool/Precision discovers and monitors the network devices. It contributestopology information to the events and uses this for further enrichment bytopology-based Root Cause Analysis (RCA). The GUI uses the network topologyinformation to construct network views based on object attribute criteria and hopviews based on connectivity information. Because the event management iscentral to the Netcool suite, operators tend to watch the filtered events and cannavigate seamlessly to the maps for contextual information or orientation.

Tivoli NetViews single-server architecture makes it simpler to administer andgenerally has GUIs for routine maintenance. Netcool/Precision, on the otherhand, gains much of its scalability and flexibility from the multi-tiered architecture,and low-level access to data as well as program controls in the form of SQLtables and scripting. It is closely integrated with the other Netcool products asdiscussed in Chapter 4, Solution architecture on page 61. The trend in recentreleases is to provide more GUI control to administrative tasks, as seen in thediscovery configuration GUI in Precision 3.6.

This low-level control also makes it possible to customize the product in the fieldto handle unique devices or unique network management requirements, things

which often require a new release of Tivoli NetView.

2.2 Discovery

This section provides an overview of network discovery with Tivoli NetView andIBM Tivoli Switch Analyzer (ITSA), followed by a comparison withNetcool/Precision.


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Chapter 2. Product review 13

Tivoli NetViewTivoli NetView discovers and monitors at the layer 3 OSI level using largelystandard MIBs (management information bases). This is a relatively simplediscovery process that builds a network representation based on IP hierarchy.The discovery is fast and continuous: a new node discovery poll, by default, runs

every 15 minutes. The main NetView process that handles layer 3 discovery isnetmon.

Tivoli NetView supports specific technologies such as Cisco HSRP, ISDNfailover, Cisco PIX Firewall failover, and unnumbered serial l inks. The netmondaemon automatically creates objects for subnets, segments, nodes, andinterfaces in both the Object database (ovwdb) and the Topology database(ovtopmd). The subnet and segment container model is automatically based onIP addresses and the corresponding subnet masks. Netmon issues SNMP traps

for all topology changes on each object.

You can scope the Tivoli NetView network discovery based on IP address,hostname, and device type. For SNMP access, you can either provide a list ofalternate community names for netmon to try during discovery, or configure thecommunity names per node or IP address range. Tivoli NetView maintains anSNMP configuration database that is used by other Tivoli NetView applicationsfor SNMP queries.

IBM Tivoli Switch Analyzer (ITSA) is a closely integrated product used todiscover, monitor, and visualize the layer 2 level. Layer 2 requires asophisticated process to build the layer 2 connections and model the VLANs.ITSA has basic support for switches through the standard Bridge MIB andprovides VLAN support for Cisco devices. ITSA holds the layer 2 topology inmemory, which requires a full layer 2 discovery on every restart. ITSAreschedules a full layer 2 discovery typically on a daily or weekly basis.

Tivoli NetView can also discover and monitor services available on the network,

based on port sniffing or custom tests using the Servmon daemon. Thiscapability is not in Netcool/Precision, but monitoring network services can beaddressed with Netcool/OMNIbus Application Service Managers (ASM) andTivoli Application Dependency Discovery Manager.

Netcool/PrecisionNetcool/Precision itself is the approximate equivalent to netmon in TivoliNetView. It discovers the network devices, queries for layer 2 and 3 information(including specialized technology information), and then builds the connections

between objects, both intra-node and network connections. Depending on thedevice, Netcool/Precision can gather a wide variety of information primarily bySNMP, but telnet/ssh can also be used. Netcool/Precisions discovery time is


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Figure 2-1 Precision agents for device support


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By default Netcool/Precision does not send events for topology changes in thenetwork like Tivoli NetView does, but you can configure it to send events whennew nodes are found.

Just like ITSA, Netcool/Precisions topology-based Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

needs to know the path back to the Point of Reference, normally theNetcool/Precision server. If there is an undiscovered router or undiscoveredWAN network along that path, topology-based RCA will be affected due to thegap created by the undiscovered devices. Tivoli NetView is able to use a customlink to bridge the gap for ITSA and similarly with Netcool/Precision you cancreate an artificial link.

2.3 Monitoring

This section compares how network device monitoring is done onNetcool/Precision and Tivoli NetView. This includes polling, availability status,root cause and impact determination.

Tivoli NetViewTivoli NetView actively polls all managed network interfaces at regular intervals.The intervals can vary based on IP address or SmartSet. The poll can be ICMP

or SNMP (adminStatus and operStatus from the Interface table). The IP Statusattribute for each interface is set depending on the result of the poll. Status forhigher order objects, such as node, segment, and subnet, are propagated fromthe interface and are persistent.

Netmon issues SNMP traps for each status change on an object to inform boththe network management operator and other applications, such as the maps.

Tivoli NetView calculates root causes. At the layer 3 level, Tivoli NetViewsRouter Fault Isolation (RFI) algorithm determines the root cause and issues atrap for the causal router or node. If the problem is with a router, the TivoliNetView program issues a Router Status trap and calculates the impact. Subnetsand routers in the impacted partition are set to the Unreachable status bynetmon. Netmon has an option to suppress generating critical events for nodesin unreachable areas (the default). However, some users consider those criticalevents important so they can do their own event correlation in TEC for impactedservices and trouble ticket prioritization.

ITSA provides layer 2 monitoring and root cause. ITSA can monitor the switchports actively and also listens for status traps from Tivoli NetView, which promptit to begin the algorithm to determine the root cause at the layer 2 or 3 levels.Tivoli Switch Analyzer discovers the ports of layer 2 devices and integrates this

i f ti i t th k l 3 t l ti l t l 2 d


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information into the known layer 3 topology, creating a complete layer 2 andlayer 3 network topology. In addition, Tivoli Switch Analyzer creates a networksegment for each port to represent the connection between the port and thedevices connected directly to it. This means that correlation can be to a switchport, rather than a device downstream from that port. The Tivoli Switch Analyzer

correlator is a process that uses this integrated topology to determine the rootcause of a network outage, either confirming the Tivoli NetView RFI result (atlayer 3) or identifying a layer 2 root cause. ITSA issues SNMP traps to alert thesystem management operator of root cause changes. Tivoli NetView changesthe maps to reflect port status changes on switches. Note that the ITSA rootcause algorithm and events are independent from the netmon RFI algorithm.This can result in redundant events, which can then be correlated in TivoliEnterprise Console or Netcool/OMNIbus.

Completely separate from availability monitoring, Tivoli NetView can monitorSNMP MIB variables for threshold triggers using the SNMP Data Collector(snmpcollect). Threshold and Rearm SNMP traps are issued, but do notcontribute to the map status for the object, unlike in Netcool/Precision.

Netcool/PrecisionNetcool/Precision has a highly integrated monitoring capability coupled withtopology-based Root Cause Analysis (RCA) that does a nice job of signalling theproblem events versus the symptom events from any suitable source based on

the discovered layer 2 network topology and intra-device containership.

The Netcool/Precision IP component AMOS performs topology-based RootCause Analysis (RCA). It does this by correlating events with each other, andwith the network topology, to determine which ones are the root causes, andwhich are symptoms that disappear when the root cause is resolved. BecauseAMOS knows how devices in the network are connected, it can use a techniquecalled downstream suppression to determine which devices are temporarilyinaccessible due to other network failures. It suppresses the events on these

temporarily inaccessible devices. Suppressed events are still visible to the user;however, they are marked as symptomatic, rather than root cause.

Active monitoring consists of defining pollers, which can be ICMP or SNMP.SNMP pollers are configured to trigger events when a threshold is exceeded.The pollers and the polling intervals are assigned to classes of devices based onthe Active Object Class structure. This is sufficiently different from how you setup polling frequencies and types in Tivoli NetView that it will require a completereconfiguration for Netcool/Precision.

Passive polling consists of listening for SNMP traps (Link Down and others) andsyslog events. These events are automatically enriched with topology

information and feed into topology based RCA just like the active monitoring


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information and feed into topology-based RCA just like the active monitoringevents.

The color of map symbols represents the severity of problem events for thedevice or devices represented by the symbol. Because events represent more

than just availability problems, this is a useful state of health indication. There aresix severity states based on the events, with the most severe being propagatedup to the container object.

Unlike Tivoli NetView, Netcool/Precision does not maintain status fields forobjects. Instead, current and historical status can be seen by clicking the objectto see a filtered list of events providing you with the current state of the device.Because of the richness of the events, operators typically create fi ltered eventlists to cover the environment they are interested in. This is analogous to theSmartSet submaps in Tivoli NetView. From these event lists the operator caneasily jump to the topology map views in context to examine the environment ofthe problem and the possible impact.

You can create Netcool GUI Foundation (NGF) views, complete with backgroundmaps, that consist of symbols representing, for instance, each of the datacenters. These symbols, including artificial connection symbols, reflect the mostserious status represented by filtered events for that symbol.

There are no diagnostic tools, equivalent to NetViews demandpoll, that query

the SNMP MIB on the device and update the management database withchanged information. However, there are many real-time tools that allow theoperator to learn the current state of a device and its underlying technologies fordiagnostic purposes, such as Ping, Trace Route, Whois, DNS, and Cisco andJuniper tools.

There is no capability to unmanage devices from the GUI out of the box. This canbe achieved by running an OQL command to update the polling.suspendedtable.

2.4 Network visualization

This section compares the typical map usage in Tivoli NetView andNetcool/Precision.

Tivoli NetView

By default, NetView displays a hierarchical set of submaps for the IP layer 3network. The symbols can differentiate device types by their shape and image.See Figure 2-2 on page 19 for an example. The symbol color represents one of 9

status states of that symbol Status from the interfaces is propagated up the


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status states of that symbol. Status from the interfaces is propagated up thehierarchy depending on context and the algorithm you select.

Figure 2-2 NetView IP Network hierarchy

In addition to the IP Internet hierarchy, there are submaps to visualize dynamic

SmartSets. The SmartSets consist of a set of objects that match booleanexpressions based on object fields. The SmartSet becomes an object that canalso be used in other parts of NetView to define SNMP parameters and SNMPdata collections, and for event filtering.

The user can also create custom submaps consisting of objects andconnections. Typically these ad hoc submaps are manually constructed asphysical representations of the network per site, or a custom collection of devicesand objects meaningful to the operator.

When ITSA is installed, the layer 2 views are available on the Web console only.You can navigate from the regular layer 3 views to the layer 2 views in context.

The layer 2 views consist of a physical hop view point to point view and a VLAN


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The layer 2 views consist of a physical hop view, point to point view, and a VLANmembership list.

There are a number of contextual options available to navigate around thenetwork, perform diagnostics on devices, trigger updates on devices, view details

for a device, and observe current status for the device and all its interfaceobjects. This rich source of information available from the map compared with,for example, the event display, is why users often customize heavily and rely onthe maps for daily operations.

Netcool/PrecisionNetcool/Precision uses NGF/Webtop for visualizing the network and hosting theMIB Browser. All functionality is controlled by the Security Manager with useraccounts, groups, and roles.

There are two types of topology views: network views and hop views. Both areavailable from event lists and topology views in context. When multiple views areavailable, you are prompted for a selection. Alternatively, you can select from thetree view of all the network views you have created.

Network views

Network topology views can be created via filters on any attribute. You canpartition the network automatically on some attribute, which will create container

objects for each variation. Drill into each container to see the devices with thecommon attribute. For instance, lets say all devices have a location attribute andfall into one of two locations: New York and Texas. Auto-partitioning on locationwould yield two container objects, one for each of the locations, as shown inFigure 2-3 on page 21.


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Any attribute can be used for partitioning or filtering purposes. Unlike SmartSets,


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y p g g p pthese views will show any connections that exist between objects.

These views are basically filters, so new devices are automatically added to theappropriate views and little map maintenance is required.

Hop views

TheHop view, shown in Figure 2-4, shows the selected device and all devicesconnected to it within a configurable number of hops. It is useful for viewing theimpacted area of an outage or state of each network connection on a corenetwork device, for instance.

Unlike NetView, Netcool/Precision does not show symbols for interface objectswith their status. Instead, the interfaces of a selected device appear in a frame

under the Hop view.You can choose to show a layer 2 Hop View or a layer 3 Hop View.


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Figure 2-4 Hop view showing interfaces

2.5 Event management

This section describes event management in Tivoli NetView and Tivoli EventConsole (TEC) and contrasts the capabilities in the Netcool suite.

Tivoli NetView


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While NetView has a complete event management feature set, TEC is often usedas a central manager of managers (MOM) because of its stronger feature set forhistorical analysis, correlation rules, and event grouping and filtering peroperator. TEC ships with a ruleset that has basic correlation of NetView and

ITSA events preconfigured into the ruleset.

NetView can receive SNMP traps from the network and also generate internalevents based on status changes, topology changes, and configuration changes.NetView processes these traps and events using the same standard SNMPformat. Each event can be configured with additional information such asseverity, category, formatted description, and actions. If NetView is installedwithin a Tivoli Framework environment, the events can be exported to arelational database. Users sometimes build custom applications or tools to parse

the trapd.log as a convenient way of processing traps further.

Within NetView you can view events, correlate them using complex rulesets,trigger actions, and forward them as SNMP traps to other managers, such asTEC. Events are persisted on disk and NetView can receive SNMP traps fromother network devices. However, users typically forward important events to acentral TEC server where event management is stronger. In TEC, you cancorrelate events against those from other products, group and filter events peroperator, automatically clear events, automate notifications and other actions.

From TEC you can also launch the NetView Web console to view devices incontext with the event to get more details on the device and perform diagnostics,and view other devices in the vicinity to determine the cause and impact.

NetView has a single configuration file for handling SNMP traps. Here you canspecify additional information such as severity and category, format the eventdescription to include varbind information, trigger actions and notifications, andwhether to forward to other event managers, including TEC.

NetView has a graphical ruleset builder that you can use to build complexrulesets based on correlation and time sequencing. A default ruleset filtersevents and forwards them to TEC.

Netcool/OMNIbusNetcool/Precision is one management application among several that feedevents to Netcool/OMNIbus. Each application is called an event source. Yoursolution may include many event sources, including a number of Netcool suitecomponents such as Netcool/OMNIbus Internet Service Monitors (ISM),

Application Service Monitors (ASM), and System Service Monitors (SSM);Netcool/RAD; and other Event Management Systems. Other Netcoolcomponents exist to enrich events received by Netcool/OMNIbus, such asNetcool/Precisions topology-based Root Cause Analysis (RCA), which adds

topology information and calculates root cause information to classify events intoeither problem or symptom categories Netcool/Impact is another product that


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either problem or symptom categories. Netcool/Impact is another product thatenriches events with information potentially from any existing data source, asshown in Figure 4-1 on page 62.

Each Netcool/OMNIbus installation must have at least one ObjectServer to storeand manage alert information.

The events are viewed in event lists in Webtop according to the configurationand filtering for each user. Since the current status of devices is reflected in theevent database, you can construct event lists to monitor the health of specificareas, mimicking the functionality of Tivoli NetViews SmartSet submaps.

The event lists are a central place for the operator to access a rich source ofinformation. A right click takes you to any topology view in context, where you

can see the relationship of the device in the network, access a wealth of storedinformation about the device, and use a wide variety of real-time focused SNMPtools to diagnose the problem further.

Probes connect to an event source, detect and acquire event data, and forwardthe data to the ObjectServer as alerts. Probes use the logic specified in a rulesfile to manipulate the event elements before converting them into fields of analert that is sent to Netcool/OMNIbus. The mttrapd probe receives and feedsunsolicited traps from the network into Netcool/OMNIbus. Using

Netcool/OMNIbus, you can configure the same actions on traps that were set inTivoli NetView, such as E-mail/pager notifications and executing scripts.

During the transition period, if you have a TEC server, you may want to continueusing it for central event management if you are moving network management tothe Netcool suite while maintaining a Tivoli server management solution. Justlike Tivoli NetView, Netcool/OMNIbus can forward events to TEC. There is awhite paper and configuration files for Tivoli and Netcool Event Flow Integrationavailable in the IBM Tivoli Open Process Automation Library:

http://catalog.lotus.com/wps/portal/topal

2.6 SNMP tools

This section describes SNMP data collection capability in Tivoli NetView andcontrasts the capabilities in the Netcool suite.

Tivoli NetViewNetView provides a set of SNMP tools. These tools all use the central SNMPconfiguration database for community names (with the exception of the Web

console MIB Browser). NetView 7.1.4 supports SNMPv1 for all functions exceptthe MIB browsers which support SNMPv2 as well while version 7 1 5 has a new
http://catalog.lotus.com/wps/portal/topalhttp://catalog.lotus.com/wps/portal/topal


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the MIB browsers, which support SNMPv2 as well, while version 7.1.5 has a newSNMP library that extends support to SNMPv2 in general.

SNMP data collection

Tivoli NetView includes an application that can be configured to collect SNMPdata, store it, and trigger threshold events. The data is typically stored inproprietary flat files and users often write custom applications to access this datato augment reporting. Users can view the stored data in both tabular andgraphical format from the NetView native console. If NetView is installed in aTivoli Framework environment, the data can be exported to a relational databasefor easier custom access and reporting.

NetView can store collected data in Tivoli Data Warehouse (TDW) v1.3, if it is

installed. However, it is left to the user to create reports from TDW.

You can configure each data collection to store the data, or evaluate againstthreshold and rearm values, or both. If a threshold is triggered, the snmpcollectdaemon issues a NetView threshold event.

SNMP data can be collected and displayed in a real-time graph that is useful fordiagnosing or evaluating an ongoing network problem.

NetView 7.1.5 introduced a new SNMP Collector that stores data in DB2 and

can handle SNMPv2 including 64-bit counters.

SNMP MIB browser

In NetView 7.1.4, there are two native MIB browsers one for SNMPv1 and theother for SNMPv1/v2. Each has its own MIB loader. These browsers can belaunched in context from the map, and will use the centralized SNMPconfiguration data for access. The Web console has a Java MIB browser(SNMPv1/v2) that has a built-in loader on startup. It does not share thecentralized SNMP configuration.

SNMP MIB Application Builder

NetView also includes a graphical tool to create small custom applications thatcollect and display specific SNMP MIB variables or tables. These SNMP MIBApplication Builder applications are then available from the native console menuto be run in context with selected devices.

SNMP command line tools

The standard snmpwalk, snmpget, snmpgetnext, snmpset, and snmptrapcommands are available from the command line. These commands, if notoverridden, will use the community names from the centralized SNMP

configuration. In NetView 7.1.5 an additional set of equivalent commands areavailable that also support SNMPv2


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available that also support SNMPv2.

Netcool/PrecisionDuring discovery Netcool/Precision determines and stores the SNMP community

names for each device, including any SNMPv3 authentication settings. Thesesettings can then be used transparently by the SNMP MIB Browser in theNetcool GUI Foundation (NGF) or overridden if necessary.

The MIB Browser is available as a Netcool/Precision application in NGF. It usesthe SNMP access data provided centrally by Netcool/Precision and you canperform SNMP walks, SNMP gets, and SNMP get tables (no SNMP sets). TheMIBs are loaded automatically; there is no separate process to load them oncethey reside in the MIB directory. Netcool does not provide command line versions

of the SNMP tools.

There are custom MIB Browser diagnostic tools available from the topologymaps. These tools are equivalent to Tivoli NetViews MIB Application Buildertools. They gather and display specific MIB data in context and can be extendedto include custom tools.

As we saw in the Monitoring section, Netcool/Precision incorporates thresholdmonitoring as an integral part of its network polling.

The Netcool/Proviso product is designed for heavy duty performance metriccollection and analysis - Netcool/Precision does not have an equivalent functionto gather and store SNMP data or a real time graph for MIB variables at this time.

2.7 Diagnostic tools

This section describes the diagnostic tools available in Tivoli NetView and

contrasts the capabilities in the Netcool suite. These tools typically access datain real time rather than rely on previously collected data. They enable you toquickly explore connectivity, configuration, and performance information whilediagnosing a problem.

Tivoli NetViewThe Tivoli NetView native console has a number of menu-driven options incontext for diagnosis:

Connectivity tests using ping, Quicktest/Demandpoll, Locate Route UNIX commands such as netstat

Custom SNMP MIB-based graphical or tabular reports

In addition, you can create custom reports based on command line output shownin the appmon display window, or using the SNMP Application Builder.


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in the appmon display window, or using the SNMP Application Builder.

The Web console includes the following options:

Connectivity tests using ping, Quicktest/Demandpoll, Locate Route

Canned SNMP MIB-based tabular reports on system and networking data,including basic MPLS data and layer 2 forwarding data

Custom reports can be added using HTML or text-based output from applicationsor commands run on the NetView server.

Netcool/PrecisionNetcool/Precision has a wide variety of diagnostic tools and reports availablefrom right-click menus, as shown in Figure 2-5 on page 29. These WebToolsinclude:

Ping, including a subnet ping

Traceroute

DNS lookup

Whois lookup

A set of Cisco tools

A set of Juniper tools

The Cisco and Juniper reports require telnet access to the devices and runnative commands to display information such as routing, BGP, OSPF, MPLS,ISIS, Cisco ping, and so forth.

Custom menu items can be added that use a cgi-based script. As an example,we added the SNMP MIB browser similar to the NetView SNMP ApplicationBuilder.


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Figure 2-5 Right click diagnostic tools

2.8 User consoles

This section describes the consoles available in Tivoli NetView and contrasts thecapabilities in the Netcool products.

Tivoli NetViewNetView supports two different consoles: an X-based native console on theNetView server and a Web-based Java console for remote access.

Native console

Tivoli NetView has a native console with full functionality for the operator and


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Tivoli NetView has a native console with full functionality for the operator andadministrator. The administrator can optionally enable the native security systemand implement NetView user security roles for user groups and individuals. Thenative console can be distributed to other machines as heavy X-based clients.

Web console

The Web console, as shown in Figure 2-6 on page 31, is an HTTP-based Javaconsole that can run either as a Java application or as an applet in a browser.The proprietary Web server supports users, roles, and scopes, which are

independent from the security system of the native console.

The Web console is basically an operator or help desk console; it does notprovide the administrator functions to control the maps, discovery, or other

NetView configuration tasks. It contains the following components: Submap Explorer

Here you see the network topology in tabular or graphical form with aright-hand tree frame for navigation.

Object Properties

This is a central place to view attribute and event information for an object.

Diagnostics

This component provides a set of real-time displays for ICMP and SNMPdata.

MIB Browser

This MIB Browser is different from the one available in the native console.

Event Browser

Read-only display of filtered events.


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Figure 2-6 Tivoli NetView Web console

Netcool suiteNetcool/Precision uses the Netcool GUI Foundation (NGF) for a Web-basedconsole. The NGF uses the Netcool Security Manager for single sign-on useraccounts for authorization and authentication across products using the NGF.

The security system supports users, groups, and roles. For authentication, it canuse the native ObjectServer, NIS, or LDAP.

The NGF is a common GUI for the Netcool products within a Web browser.

TopoViz provides the Netcool/Precision relevant views for NGF, which consist of: Hop views

Network views

MIB Browser

Configuration wizard for discovery


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g y

Discovery progress and status views

Webtop provides the event views, consisting of:

Active Event Lists based on customized filtering

Light Event Lists based on customized filtering (read-only)

Custom portal views (URL-based)

At the top there is a drop-down box (Figure 2-7) that contains a list of rolesavailable for the account you logged in under. These roles cover administrationtasks and desktop views. For each account you can create home pages with theviews for that user.

Figure 2-7 NGF roles available for current user

2.9 Product administration and configurationTivoli NetViewThe initial setup and configuration of Tivoli NetView is done via the installation.After installation the user can expect the product to be running, the initialdiscovery underway, configuration completed for databases including Tivoli DataWarehouse, if installed, and connection to TEC, if installed. After installation, itmay be necessary to modify the best practices applied out of the box fordiscovery, monitoring, event management, and daemons' configurations, using

the GUIs mentioned in this section.


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Tivoli NetViewNetView has strong capabilities for products to closely integrate with the GUI(incl ding c stom maps and men options) the e ent stream database access


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(including custom maps and menu options), the event stream, database access,including registering daemons under NetViews daemon control structure(ovspmd).

IBM Tivoli Switch Analyzer (ITSA)

This is an integrated application that provides layer 2 management for NetView.It is integrated into the Web console maps, and updates NetViews database withstatus updates for switches. Status events are fed into NetViews event stream.These events can be forwarded to TEC, where NetView rules correlate them withlayer 3 events and provide clearing functions. ITSA makes use of NetViewspublic APIs to download the layer 3 topology and update NetViews objectdatabase with status changes.

Tivoli Enterprise Console (TEC)

Many NetView customers implement TEC as a manager of managers withNetView as one of the event feeds. If TEC is integrated, NetView will providenetwork-related information including service impact events triggered whennetwork outages impact important services (in NetView 7.1.4 these areWebSphere servers, MQSeries servers, and DB2 servers). TEC includes aNetView ruleset that correlates network events with events such as ITMheartbeat events, implements housekeeping functions such as clearing events,

and correlates layer 2 events with layer 3 events for the same device.

IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM)

Prior to Tivoli NetView 7.1.5, NetView integrated with ITM only to provide serviceimpact events for network outages. NetView queried ITM for important serversand then raised the severity for outage events sent to TEC for those servers.

In addition to this, NetView 7.1.5 provides an ITM NetView Health agent tomonitor NetView processes and provide a dashboard to the health of the

network.

Tivoli Business Systems Manager (TBSM)

NetView provides network data, including topology, object, and availabilityevents to TBSM using an Intelligent Monitor for NetView. This enables TBSM toaugment the business views with network visualization and real-time networkoutage and impact information.

Ciscoworks

Users can install and integrate Ciscoworks. This updates the maps to use specialCisco icons for Cisco devices, and menu options to launch the Ciscoworkselement managers in context.


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Netcool RAD

Netcool/Realtime Active Dashboards (RAD) helps business and operations staffunderstand the complex relationships between business services and supporting


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understand the complex relationships between business services and supportingtechnology. It gives organizations advanced, real-time visualization of servicesand processes in a comprehensive service dependency model.

3


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Chapter 3. Benefits of migrating toPrecision

In this chapter we look at some of the extra features that migrating to Precisionwill bring to existing NetView customers. This is not designed to be anexhaustive list of the capabilities of Precision, but instead to demonstrate theflexibility of Precision and the Netcool suite.

The following topics are included:

Full layer 2 discovery

Extending your discovery

MPLS networks Topological root cause analysis

Multiple domains

Failover

Event enrichment

Asset management

3

3.1 Full layer 2 discovery

NetView is limited in its discovery capabilities in that it will only discover


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NetView is limited in its discovery capabilities in that it will only discoverconnectivity between devices at Layer 3. It is possible to expand the capability ofNetView by adding IBM Tivoli Switch Analyzer (ITSA), but support is limited to

Cisco devices.

We begin this section by defining what we mean by Layer 2 and Layer 3discovery, and identifying the differences between them.

3.1.1 The OSI seven layer model

During the eighties, multiple vendors came together to develop a set of rules thatwould allow separate products to communicate independent of the platform they

were on. The result was what we now call the Open Systems Interconnection(OSI) model.

The OSI model consists of seven layers. Eac

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Migrating to Netcool-Precision for IP Networks --Best Practices for Migrating From IBM Tivoli NetView Sg247375