Q. What is Cisco® Assurance Management Solution (AMS)?
A. Cisco AMS provides end-to-end assurance management based on Cisco and IBM Tivoli technologies. Cisco AMS delivers service providers and large enterprises real-time centralized monitoring and root-cause analysis, integrated with Cisco Active Network Abstraction (ANA).
Q. Who should deploy Cisco AMS?
A. Cisco AMS is designed for service providers and larger enterprises that have a need to change and evolve network devices and configurations without having to change their service management and operations support systems (OSS) applications.
Q. What benefits can I expect from deploying Cisco AMS?
A. Cisco AMS provides service providers and large enterprises with the following features:
• Integrated with Cisco ANA, Cisco AMS provides a license for network fault visualization with real-time root-cause analysis; consequential fault events are automatically correlated to the root-cause fault event, which reduces time to troubleshoot network issues.
• Cisco AMS makes best use of your existing investments by enabling data from multiple tools to be managed under a single console.
• Cisco AMS helps improve the effectiveness of a service provider or enterprise network operations environment.
• Cisco AMS provides operations staff and executives with "anytime, anywhere" access to device and network status and actionable information.
• Highly customizable dashboards offer an array of images, graphical maps, charts, tables, and event lists that provide immediate visibility of the network status.
• Cisco AMS is packaged to facilitate incremental use of its functions, integrated with Cisco ANA.
• Cisco AMS can easily be extended with the Layer 3 Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) VPN fault monitoring and service path tracing features of Cisco Service Fault Isolation.
• Cisco AMS can easily be extended to include additional fault and service management functionality of Tivoli Netcool or Cisco Info Center.
• The distributed and scalable architecture of Cisco AMS allows network operators to plan, expand, and effectively manage a multivendor network with low incremental cost as the network grows.
Q. What networking technologies are supported by Cisco AMS?
A. Cisco AMS supports IP, Layer 2/3 VPN, xDSL, ATM, Frame Relay, Gigabit Ethernet, Ethernet, 802.1Q, Inter-Switch Link (ISL), Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP), and routing protocols such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).
Q. What are the major components of Cisco AMS?
A. Cisco AMS has four main components: Cisco AMS Manager of Managers, Cisco AMS Root-Cause Analysis, Cisco AMS right-to-use (RTU) licenses, and Cisco AMS Manager of Managers Probe. The Cisco AMS Manager of Managers, Root-Cause Analysis, and Manager of Managers Probe have a fixed price whereas the Cisco AMS RTU licenses are sold by device, like Cisco ANA.
Q. I already have Cisco Info Center. Why would I need Cisco AMS?
A. Cisco AMS extends the Cisco Info Center solution to provide trouble isolation and root-cause analysis integrated with the breakthrough device management and mediation solution, Cisco ANA. Cisco AMS is packaged to facilitate integration into existing Cisco Info Center implementations, preserving your investment in your existing Cisco Info Center components.
Q. I already have Tivoli Netcool from IBM. Why would I need Cisco AMS?
A. If you own the IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus product, Cisco AMS extends it to include trouble isolation and root-cause analysis, integrated with the breakthrough device management and mediation solution, Cisco ANA. If you already have the full portfolio of Netcool solutions, you can still gain value by introducing Cisco ANA and gaining the advantages of next-generation device management and network mediation.
Q. What devices are supported in Cisco AMS?
A. Cisco AMS supports a wide range of Cisco and third-party devices. Contact your Cisco account representative for more information.
Q. Can Cisco AMS be integrated with my existing OSS applications?
A. Yes, Cisco AMS is an open solution that allows integration of both internal and external OSS applications.
