Cisco Notification Engine

Table Of Contents

Data Sheet

Product Description

Features and Benefits

System Requirements

Cisco Service and Support

Data Sheet

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Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine

Cisco Networking Services is a suite of intelligent engines working with device agents to create a programmable network.

Cisco Networking Services extends the management plane of Cisco devices to a shared "Programmable Network" comprising three parts: Cisco Networking Services Intelligent Agents embedded within Cisco devices that enable devices to become intelligent peers in network provisioning and monitoring, Cisco Networking Services Intelligent Engines which are Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance and Security (FCAPS) and subscriber policy servers tightly coupled with the device agents, and the Cisco Networking Services Integration bus which provides a single, open programmatic interface to the entire network.

Product Description

Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine is a component of Cisco Networking Services, delivering fault management capability. Fault management consists of three basic processes: detection, diagnostics, and resolution of network faults. The Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine touches each of these processes to better equip your Network Operations Center (NOC) to maintain and increase your network uptime and remain compliant with defined Service Level Agreements (SLA).

Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine is a software application that adds significant value to fault notification for network management. The Notification Engine collects information rich syslog messages and generates reactive fault notifications, at the same time actively polling managed devices and performing self-health monitoring for proactive fault notifications. This combination of reactive and proactive monitoring ensures detection of network affecting faults converting syslog messages to user selected SNMP trap notifications or XML events published on the Cisco Networking Services Integration Bus, the Notification Engine enables flexibility in higher-level network management systems. Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine lessens data overload by de-duplicating and correlating events at the device layer and reduces the response time to network faults with an extensive Probable Cause/Recommended Action (PC/RA) knowledge base.

The integrated offerings available from Cisco incorporate Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine. The table below describes these offerings.

Integrated Offering	Description
VPN Management	Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine is used to collect and pass key VPN affecting syslog messages to Cisco Info Center (CIC), while sending a heartbeat signal to devices being managed and generating a "node unreachable" notification if necessary.
Wholesale Voice	A key solution in the voice technology Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine is used to monitor devices and process messages key to the solution.
Metro Ethernet	Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine manages the IP devices for the Metro Ethernet solution providing a common interface for higher-level NMS applications to plug into.
Cisco WAN Manager (CWM) management of RPM	Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine enables a higher-level of management by processing the RPM messages and converting them to SNMP for the CWM product.

Features and Benefits

Feature	Benefit
User defined filtering, de-duplication, and correlation of device notifications	Reduces message rates and network traffic by up to 90 percent and enables you to "program" and define notifications at the device level.
Collection and processing of Cisco IOS, CatOS, and Sun OS syslog messages	Flexible in collection of device notifications to best suite your networking needs.
Distributed processing from the device of notifications	Enables network devices to "concentrate" on routing switching while offloading heavy processing to Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine.
Support for Cisco's Reliable SNMP (RSNMP) notifications	Ensures all notifications generated by Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine are received by the higher-level fault management system.
Publishes messages in XML format on the Cisco Networking Services Integration Bus	Provides advanced networking capabilities via commonly available programming talent
Consolidation of network devices to a single MIB	Simplifies higher-level fault management integration, and removes one-off development
Action/response table	Faster Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) to remain compliant with defined SLA's

System Requirements

•Standard Sun Netra-20

•Solaris 2.7, or 8

CNS Notification Engine operates on various hardware platforms. For current Solaris-Based Network Management product hardware requirements, please refer to the Sun Cisco Optimized Platform Recommendations Table for hardware and part numbering ordering information.

Cisco Service and Support

Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine is fully supported by Cisco TAC on a 24/7 basis for the server software. Service activation fees do not require a support contract.

Contact your local account manager or system engineer for more information on Cisco Networking Services Notification Engine including how to order.