Cisco Active Network Abstraction Customization User Guide, 3.6.3 - Introducing the Cisco ANA Soft Properties Manager [Cisco Active Network Abstraction]

Table Of Contents

Introducing the Cisco ANA Soft Properties Manager

About the Soft Properties Manager

Soft Properties

Alarm Thresholds

Basic Concepts and Terms

Introducing the Cisco ANA Soft Properties Manager

This chapter describes the Cisco ANA Soft Properties Manager. In addition, it provides a brief explanation of the terms soft properties and alarm thresholds used throughout this guide.

•About the Soft Properties Manager—Describes the Cisco Active Network Abstraction (ANA) platform and architecture. In addition, it provides a brief description of the Soft Properties Manager.

•Soft Properties—Provides a description of soft properties.

•Alarm Thresholds—Provides a description of alarm thresholds.

•Basic Concepts and Terms—Provides a brief description of some basic concepts and terms.

Note Changes to the registry should be performed only with the support of Cisco, for details, please contact the Cisco Project Manager or Cisco Account Team.

About the Soft Properties Manager

Cisco ANA provides deep auto-discovery and maintains a live model of the network. This model is based on Cisco's Device Component Modeling (DCM) architecture, in which each Network Element (NE) is modeled as an interconnected hierarchy of Device Components (DCs), both physical (for example, cards, ports) and logical (for example, forwarding tables, profiles). Each DC maintains a set of properties, which contain its actual data (status, configuration, performance and so on).

When interacting with Northbound clients, the DCM information is translated internally into Information Model Objects (IMO), this is Cisco's TMF513-based Northbound information model, which is the public language of the Cisco ANA system with external systems.

The Cisco ANA property management framework enables the user to extend (in runtime) the system's coverage and capabilities in two areas, namely:

•Soft Properties—Extending the NE data collection and modeling, by adding new properties to the DCs, and assigning them to NE MIB variables. The new soft properties are also automatically added to the Northbound IMO.

•Alarm Thresholds—Assigning various types of alarm conditions to soft properties.

All property definitions and parameters are maintained in XML meta-data in the registry. To ease the definition process, Cisco ANA provides a friendly, simple-to-use GUI that guides the user through the definition and testing process, and hides the underlying XML definitions.

Soft Properties

Cisco ANA Virtual Network Elements (VNEs) by default model a subset of the device properties, which cover the most important and commonly used properties. Cisco ANA offers the Soft Properties mechanism to enable user-configurable extension of device modeling, which can cover any unsupported MIB variable. This enables adding new monitored NE properties in runtime to the default set of supported properties.

The Soft Properties mechanism enables quick adaptation to new software upgrades and new requirements that arise during ongoing operation and deployment. It provides the field engineer with the ability to adapt the currently installed Cisco ANA software to changes in the deployed network.

Every Soft Property is implemented through a set of definitions that determine how to retrieve, parse and display a certain MIB variable from the NE. The definition process is done through a simple GUI utility, and does not require system restart. Soft properties are retrieved from the NE using SNMP, or Telnet/SSH.

For example, consider the case where the Cisco ANA system monitors the port parameters of an ATM switch, and the operator installs a new software version on the switch that is capable of reporting the BER for each of the ports. Since this capability was not supported in previous software versions of the NE, the Cisco ANA VNE might not support the property. To avoid the need for a new VNE from Cisco, the Soft Property mechanism enables the user to immediately support the new BER feature in the currently installed version.

Alarm Thresholds

Cisco ANA's main positioning is as a mediation layer between the network and the operational and business support systems. As such, it abstracts the physical network and provides a generic, vendor-neutral network model, with a consistent information model and interface.

Cisco ANA also provides the user with the ability to leverage its live network model for intelligent data processing within the mediation layer. This enables Cisco ANA to conduct advanced processing in areas like fault correlation, root-cause analysis, impact analysis, activation design/validation and so forth. This intelligence enables Cisco ANA to provide processed information to the applications in the upper tiers. This enables Cisco ANA to enhance application functionality, while dramatically reducing the application's complexity and the uploaded data volumes.

Alarm thresholding is one of the major areas in which Cisco ANA can boost its Northbound clients. With this mechanism, Cisco ANA constantly monitors selected properties and generates an alarm every time they cross a user-defined threshold or violate a condition. This eliminates the need for OSS/BSS applications to constantly upload huge amounts of data and process it. Instead, Cisco ANA filters-out irrelevant data, and sends only meaningful notifications.

Basic Concepts and Terms

•Managed Element—Anything managed by the system, usually a component managed by the VNE, for example, a device.

•Network Element (NE)—A user-named physical component or device existing in the network.

•Virtual Network Element (VNE)—A virtual representation of a single network element as a modeled component. VNEs all communicate with each other to present ANA-based applications with a single, common device abstraction for network element discovery, configuration, status collection, fault analysis and other basic network (FCAPS) functions. VNEs can be extended to support new application functionality.

	Cisco Active Network Abstraction Customization User Guide, 3.6.3
	Introducing the Cisco ANA Soft Properties Manager
Cisco Active Network Abstraction Customization User Guide, 3.6.3 Preface Cisco ANA Overview Customizing Network Element Information Using the Soft Properties Manager Introducing the Cisco ANA Soft Properties Manager Getting Started with the Soft Properties Manager Soft Property Examples Parsing Operators/Rules Alarm Threshold Triggers Regular Expressions Using the Workflow Editor to Create Task Workflows Introducing the Cisco ANA Workflow Editor Working With the Cisco ANA Workflow Editor Getting Started with the Workflow Editor Managing Workflows Customizing the Workflow Editor Managing and Deploying Configuration Changes Using the Command Builder Introducing the Command Builder Getting Started with the Command Builder Creating an ANA Macro Language Command: An Example Running Command Scripts ANA Macro Language Bean Shell Commands Working with BQL Getting Started with Cisco BQL Understanding IMO IMO Specification BQL Generic Commands Encrypted SSL Sockets Detailed BQL Errors Catalog and Examples Best Practices for Integration BQL Parsing Index	Download this chapter Introducing the Cisco ANA Soft Properties Manager Download the complete book PDF of Cisco ANA Customization User Guide, 3.6.3 (PDF - 3 MB) Table Of Contents Introducing the Cisco ANA Soft Properties Manager About the Soft Properties Manager Soft Properties Alarm Thresholds Basic Concepts and Terms Introducing the Cisco ANA Soft Properties Manager This chapter describes the Cisco ANA Soft Properties Manager. In addition, it provides a brief explanation of the terms soft properties and alarm thresholds used throughout this guide. •About the Soft Properties Manager—Describes the Cisco Active Network Abstraction (ANA) platform and architecture. In addition, it provides a brief description of the Soft Properties Manager. •Soft Properties—Provides a description of soft properties. •Alarm Thresholds—Provides a description of alarm thresholds. •Basic Concepts and Terms—Provides a brief description of some basic concepts and terms. Note Changes to the registry should be performed only with the support of Cisco, for details, please contact the Cisco Project Manager or Cisco Account Team. About the Soft Properties Manager Cisco ANA provides deep auto-discovery and maintains a live model of the network. This model is based on Cisco's Device Component Modeling (DCM) architecture, in which each Network Element (NE) is modeled as an interconnected hierarchy of Device Components (DCs), both physical (for example, cards, ports) and logical (for example, forwarding tables, profiles). Each DC maintains a set of properties, which contain its actual data (status, configuration, performance and so on). When interacting with Northbound clients, the DCM information is translated internally into Information Model Objects (IMO), this is Cisco's TMF513-based Northbound information model, which is the public language of the Cisco ANA system with external systems. The Cisco ANA property management framework enables the user to extend (in runtime) the system's coverage and capabilities in two areas, namely: •Soft Properties—Extending the NE data collection and modeling, by adding new properties to the DCs, and assigning them to NE MIB variables. The new soft properties are also automatically added to the Northbound IMO. •Alarm Thresholds—Assigning various types of alarm conditions to soft properties. All property definitions and parameters are maintained in XML meta-data in the registry. To ease the definition process, Cisco ANA provides a friendly, simple-to-use GUI that guides the user through the definition and testing process, and hides the underlying XML definitions. Soft Properties Cisco ANA Virtual Network Elements (VNEs) by default model a subset of the device properties, which cover the most important and commonly used properties. Cisco ANA offers the Soft Properties mechanism to enable user-configurable extension of device modeling, which can cover any unsupported MIB variable. This enables adding new monitored NE properties in runtime to the default set of supported properties. The Soft Properties mechanism enables quick adaptation to new software upgrades and new requirements that arise during ongoing operation and deployment. It provides the field engineer with the ability to adapt the currently installed Cisco ANA software to changes in the deployed network. Every Soft Property is implemented through a set of definitions that determine how to retrieve, parse and display a certain MIB variable from the NE. The definition process is done through a simple GUI utility, and does not require system restart. Soft properties are retrieved from the NE using SNMP, or Telnet/SSH. For example, consider the case where the Cisco ANA system monitors the port parameters of an ATM switch, and the operator installs a new software version on the switch that is capable of reporting the BER for each of the ports. Since this capability was not supported in previous software versions of the NE, the Cisco ANA VNE might not support the property. To avoid the need for a new VNE from Cisco, the Soft Property mechanism enables the user to immediately support the new BER feature in the currently installed version. Alarm Thresholds Cisco ANA's main positioning is as a mediation layer between the network and the operational and business support systems. As such, it abstracts the physical network and provides a generic, vendor-neutral network model, with a consistent information model and interface. Cisco ANA also provides the user with the ability to leverage its live network model for intelligent data processing within the mediation layer. This enables Cisco ANA to conduct advanced processing in areas like fault correlation, root-cause analysis, impact analysis, activation design/validation and so forth. This intelligence enables Cisco ANA to provide processed information to the applications in the upper tiers. This enables Cisco ANA to enhance application functionality, while dramatically reducing the application's complexity and the uploaded data volumes. Alarm thresholding is one of the major areas in which Cisco ANA can boost its Northbound clients. With this mechanism, Cisco ANA constantly monitors selected properties and generates an alarm every time they cross a user-defined threshold or violate a condition. This eliminates the need for OSS/BSS applications to constantly upload huge amounts of data and process it. Instead, Cisco ANA filters-out irrelevant data, and sends only meaningful notifications. Basic Concepts and Terms •Managed Element—Anything managed by the system, usually a component managed by the VNE, for example, a device. •Network Element (NE)—A user-named physical component or device existing in the network. •Virtual Network Element (VNE)—A virtual representation of a single network element as a modeled component. VNEs all communicate with each other to present ANA-based applications with a single, common device abstraction for network element discovery, configuration, status collection, fault analysis and other basic network (FCAPS) functions. VNEs can be extended to support new application functionality.
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