Downloads |
Product Overview
Cisco® Active Network Abstraction (ANA) is the Cisco network management foundation for service providers. The rich, open, vendor-neutral "virtual network" mediation model at its core supports the management of diverse multiservice and multivendor networks with functionality including:
• Network discovery and visualization
• Element management
• Fault analysis, event reduction, and alarm correlation
• Network service support (specifically, Multiprotocol Label Switching [MPLS], Carrier Ethernet, and Mobile Transport over Packet [MToP])
Cisco ANA is designed to be extended and integrated into customers' network management, business support, and operations support systems. It offers partners and integrators a rich API and flexible query language to the TMF-compliant network information model as well as comprehensive developer support services. Extremely customizable, Cisco ANA can be deployed along service provisioning systems, trouble ticket systems, performance management systems, and more.
Installed on carrier-class servers, Cisco ANA is highly distributed, providing resiliency, high availability, and scalable deployments, supporting thousands of network elements (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Cisco ANA Network Management Application View
Features and Benefits
Mediation and Information Model
Cisco ANA operates between the network and the operations support layer (Figure 2). Its virtual network abstraction model is built, bottom-up, as an aggregation of independent virtual network elements (VNEs) creating an end-to-end software-based virtual network much in the same way real network elements create the real-world network. Cisco ANA dynamically discovers and identifies device and network components and technologies and maintains its model of the network elements in near real time. This abstraction model supports Cisco ANA's own element management features and provides network mediation for other value-added network and service management applications through standard, open interfaces.
Figure 2. Cisco ANA Operates Between the Network and the OSS Layers
Network Discovery and Visualization
Based on an intial seed list, Cisco ANA will discover multivendor devices and will use various algorithms to discover adjacencies, connectivity, and the physical and logical topology of the network, including routes, Virtual Route Forwarding (VRF) tables, and Virtual Private Network (VPNs).
Element Management
The Cisco ANA VNEs autodiscover and maintain a detailed physical inventory model, down to fans, slots, cards, and ports, and a comprehensive logical networking model and configuration, by polling of routing, bridging, and Label Switch Entity (LSE) tables, as well as hundreds of other device properties. Both the physical and logical inventory models are continuously updated for status and configuration. Changes are detected and reflected in the exposed network model and reported in the form of alarms and northbound interface notifications.
The models can be further customized by users through business tags, treshhold alarms, and other "soft" properties.
Cisco ANA incorporates VNEs for all major network elements and supports additional, nonfamiliar device types with its generic VNE.
Supported technologies include IP, Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN, XDSL, ATM, Frame Relay, Carrier Ethernet, and IP RAN backhaul (MToP), 802.1Q, Inter-Switch Link (ISL), QinQ VLAN tag (QinQ), Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP), pseudowires, and routing protocols (such as Border Gateway Protocol [BGP] and Open Shortest Path First [OSPF]).
Cisco ANA's comprehensive activation framework and tools are used for network element configuration, service activation, and the development of diagnostic scripts with full access to the information model. The Cisco ANA workflow engine is used to customize and automate operational and end-to-end provisioning flows to reduce operator error.
Fault Analysis, Event Reduction, and Alarm Correlation
Cisco ANA captures, annotates, and forwards event notifications (traps and syslogs) and provides extensive element and topology-based fault detection, analysis, and isolation as well as root-cause correlation, resulting in significant event filtering and reduction in the number of trouble tickets that need to be tracked. Extended to end-to-end fault analysis for Layer 3 MPLS/VPN, Carrier Ethernet, and MToP, Cisco ANA offers a comprehensive service-aware fault management solution for device, network, and services. What-if fault scenarios can be explored with the Cisco ANA Impact Analysis tool. Cisco ANA can rapidly be integrated with OSS fault systems like Cisco Info Center and IBM Tivoli Netcool.
Network Service Support (MPLS, Carrier Ethernet, and MToP)
ANA supports broad deployment solutions based on Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN using MPLS, Carrier Ethernet, and IP RAN backhaul over an MPLS network with comprehensive inventory, fault, and activation support.
Structured topology and intuitive service maps provide instant visual clues to network status, main faults, and instantaneous navigation into detailed inventory views, which can be employed by operation staff for network monitoring and troubleshooting.
Flexible Integration Through Standards-Based Interfaces
Designed for deployment in service provider networks, Cisco ANA integrates through Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) or an XML-based API with northbound management applications. The TMF-compliant inventory and fault information model, as well as the activation framework, are programmatically accessed through a simple, open XML-based API.
The near real-time nature of the VNE model and the XML-based API provide an ideal mediation and integration point for a variety of valued-add applications, including trouble ticketing or "manager of manager" systems, provisioning systems, and inventory systems.
Scalable and Distributed Management Architecture
Cisco ANA achieves its end-to-end visibility of network resources through a scalable and distributed management architecture, consisting of multiple unit servers, which host the VNEs, and the Cisco ANA gateway server (Figure 2). Cisco ANA is also available in various standby (high availability) modes, to help ensure high business continuity.
Virtual Network Elements
VNEs are the building blocks of the Cisco ANA virtual network model. They are software-based virtual network elements, communicating with their real-world counterparts through Telnet/Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol and SNMP for configuration and status. VNEs run autonomously within unit servers and communicate among themselves for end-to-end algorithmic flows supporting root-cause and impact analysis, service path tracing, and other value-added applications.
Unit Servers
The interconnected unit servers (units) can host up to thousands of individual VNEs. As the managed network grows, VNEs can easily be moved from one unit to another, and additional units can be added to host additional VNEs.
Cisco ANA Gateway
The Cisco ANA gateway is a server through which all clients access the system. The gateway enforces role-based access control and security for all connections and client sessions. In addition it functions as a repository for configuration, network, and system events and alarms (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Cisco Active Network Abstraction Architecture
System Requirements
The system requirements for ANA differ, depending on the actual type and size of deployment. Tables 1 through 3 list the minimum Cisco ANA 3.6 system requirements.
Table 1. System Requirements, Cisco ANA Gateway Server
|
Server |
Sun/Fujitsu UltraSPARC T series processor, SPARC 64 VI-based processor, with 16 GB |
|
Software |
Solaris 10 Oracle 10g database |
Table 2. System Requirements, Cisco ANA Unit Server
Table 3. System Requirements, Cisco ANA Client
Service and Support
Cisco offers a wide range of services programs to accelerate customer success, delivered through a unique combination of people, processes, tools, and partners. Cisco services help you to protect your network investment, optimize network operations, and prepare the network for new applications. For more information about Cisco services, see Cisco Technical Support Services.
For More Information
For more information about Cisco Active Network Abstraction, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/ana, contact your local Cisco account representative, or send an email to ask_ana_pm@cisco.com.