Installation Guide for CiscoWorks QoS Policy Manager 4.1 on Windows
Chapter 1 Overview of QPM 4.1

Table Of Contents

Overview of QPM 4.1

What is QPM?

Preparing to Install QPM

Hardware and Software Requirements

Installation Prerequisites

Prerequisites for Installing QPM

Prerequisites for Installing Common Services

Installation Paths

Further Resources


Overview of QPM 4.1


This chapter contains the following topics:

What is QPM?

Preparing to Install QPM

Further Resources

What is QPM?

QoS Policy Manager (QPM) lets you analyze traffic throughput by application or service class, and then leverage that information to configure QoS policies . This allows you to differentiate traffic and define the QoS functions to be applied to each type of traffic flow.

By simplifying QoS policy definition and deployment, QPM makes it easier for you to create and manage end-to-end differentiated services in your network. This allows you to use your existing network resources more efficiently and economically.

For example, you can deploy policies that ensure that your mission-critical applications always get the bandwidth required to run your business.

QPM is suitable for large-scale enterprise deployments, and IP telephony deployments, consisting of hundreds or thousands of devices.

QPM helps you to manage large networks by providing advanced user authorization capabilities through integration with Cisco Access Control Server (ACS).

QPM runs on the CiscoWorks Common Services server. CiscoWorks Common Services provides the infrastructure required by QPM to run from the CiscoWorks desktop environment. It allows you to manage user roles and privileges, and control user access to specific tasks in QPM.

QPM stores policy and device information in a relational database. Reports generated by QPM are stored separately as XML files. Monitoring task data is also stored separately.

QPM uses the CiscoWorks Common Services server to backup all application data.

Preparing to Install QPM

Before you install QPM, review the installation prerequisites and available installation paths to prevent problems during installation.

Hardware and Software Requirements

Installation Prerequisites

Installation Paths

Hardware and Software Requirements

Table 1-1 shows the hardware and software requirements for the QPM server.

If the server does not meet the recommended system requirements, QPM startup and performance might be slow, or QPM might not work at all on the server.

Table 1-1 Server Hardware and Software Requirements on Windows 

Processor

Any of the following:

Intel Xeon Processor (Dual Core)

Intel Core Duo Processor T2600 - T2300

Intel Pentium processor Extreme Edition 965 (Dual Core)

Intel Pentium D processor 960 (Dual Core)

Intel Pentium 4 processor with Hyper-Threading Technology

Intel Xeon DP

Intel Itanium 2 Processor

Intel Quad Core Processor

Dual-Core AMD Opteron Processor

AMD Opteron Processor

AMD Quad Core Processor

Hardware and RAM requirement

The number of CPUs and the RAM requirement depends on the number of devices:

For around 2500 devices— 2 CPUs with 2GB RAM with a virtual memory of 4 GB

For around 10000 devices—2 CPUs with 4GB RAM with a virtual memory of 8 GB

Available disk drive space

A minimum of 9 GB.

CiscoWorks Common Services 3.2 requires 2 GB free disk space, therefore ensure that you have a minimum of 9 GB free disk space before you install CiscoWorks Common Services 3.2 and QPM.

The available disk space required also depends on the tasks you want to do in QPM. We recommend you to use 40 GB hard disk.

Monitor

Monitor with display set to High Color (16 Bit)

Software1

Any of the following:

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition

Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition with Service Pack 1 and 2

Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 and 2

Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition with Service Pack 1 and 2

Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 1 and 2

Both 32 bit and 64 bit Operating Systems are supported on the above versions.

Browser (optional)

One of the following:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 with Service Pack 2

Firefox 2.0

1 Common Services 3.2 supports only US-English and Japanese versions of Windows Operating Systems. It does not support any other language version. Installation might proceed normally in other locales but there might be problems in the functionality of CiscoWorks.


Table 1-2 shows the requirements for client systems.

Table 1-2 Client Requirements 

System hardware and software

The hardware recommended for the client systems are:

Windows systems:

PC-compatible system with single CPU 2.4 GHz or equivalent processor running:

Windows Server 2003 Standard and Enterprise Editions with Service Pack 1 and 2

Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard and Enterprise Editions with Service Pack 1 and 2

Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2, Service Pack 3

Windows Vista Business Edition with Service Pack 1

Solaris systems:

Sun UltraSPARC processor with Solaris 10 with latest patches and upgrades.

Memory requirements

1GB minimum RAM

Either of the following:

For Solaris: 2GB swap space

For Windows: 2GB virtual memory

We recommend that you set virtual memory and swap space to twice the size of RAM.

Monitor

Monitor with display set to High Color (16 Bit)

Browser

Internet Explorer 6.0 Service Pack 1, Service Pack 2

Internet Explorer 7.0

Firefox 2.0 (for Solaris 10 client)

Plug-ins

Adobe Flash Player 9 or later


Installation Prerequisites

We recommend that you use a dedicated server for QPM for maximum performance.

If you cannot use a dedicated server for QPM, you can install QPM on a Common Services server with LAN Management Solution (LMS) 3.1.

Prerequisites for Installing QPM

Before you install QPM, ensure that:

The machine on which you are going to install QPM meets the requirements for running QPM. See Hardware and Software Requirements.

CiscoWorks Common Services 3.2 must be installed on the machine before you begin to install QPM.

The QPM installation DVD contains Common Services 3.2 installation files. For more information, see Chapter 2, "Installing and Uninstalling QPM."

Set the desktop display to High Color (16 Bit). You can set the color depth under Display Properties > Settings on your desktop.

Prerequisites for Installing Common Services

Before you install CiscoWorks Common Services, note the following:

Do not install CiscoWorks on a system that is configured as a primary or backup domain controller.

Do not install CiscoWorks on Advanced Server with terminal services enabled in application server mode.

Do not install CiscoWorks on a FAT file system.

Do not install CiscoWorks on Windows XP server.

Installation Paths

If you have other CiscoWorks products installed on your server, review the information in Table 1-3 to determine the installation path required for QoS Policy Manager to successfully operate.

Table 1-3 Recommended Installation Paths 1

If You are Installing QoS Policy Manager on a System That...
Then You Must...

Has no other CiscoWorks products

Install (from the QPM 4.1 DVD):

1. Common Services 3.2

2. QoS Policy Manager 4.1

Has LMS 3.1

Install QoS Policy Manager 4.1 (from the DVD).

We recommend that QPM should be the last application to be installed on LMS server.

Has QPM 4.0 or QPM 4.0.x, with Common Services 3.0.5

Install (from the QPM 4.1 DVD):

1. Common Services 3.2

2. QoS Policy Manager 4.1

The QPM and CS application data is automatically migrated to QPM 4.1

1 QPM 4.1 does not support inline and remote upgrade from QPM 3.2.3.


Further Resources

For information on installing CS 3.2 and QPM 4.0, see Chapter 2, "Installing and Uninstalling QPM."