The Cisco® Proactive Automation of Change Execution (PACE) solution combines products and services that accelerate operational success by helping IT organizations to securely automate and control changes and configurations in their networks. The solution helps enterprises to meet compliance requirements, accelerate growth, ensure business continuity, and increase user productivity. The Cisco PACE solution is optimized to help medium-sized to large enterprises with challenges concerning compliance, in-house expertise, network complexity, and growth.
Q. What is included in the Cisco PACE solution?
A. The Cisco PACE solution includes the following products and services:
Products
• Cisco PACE Portal and Components
• CiscoWorks LAN Management Solution (LMS)
• CiscoWorks Network Compliance Manager (NCM)
• EMC VoyenceControl (available through the Cisco SolutionsPlus program)
• QoS Policy Manager (QPM)
Advanced Services
• Operations consulting services: Assessing, defining, and optimizing your network configuration and change management processes
• Technical consulting services: Providing integration, custom compliance, and policy rules development, and report generation
• Deployment services: Helping you to plan, design, implement, and operate the Cisco PACE solution
Q. What is new in the PACE solution?
A. Cisco PACE Portal and Components software is a new addition to the PACE product suite. The Cisco PACE Portal offers a centralized dashboard of information from underlying PACE products like NCM, LMS, and QPM and also provides direct launch points to specific tasks. Cisco PACE Components add a suite of value-added capabilities for CiscoWorks NCM users including: Cisco PACE Syslog Analyzer, a software adapter that provides integration points between CiscoWorks NCM with CiscoWorks QPM, End of Sale/End of Life Reports and a software connector that synchronizes data collected by NCM with the Advanced Services product, Cisco Network Collector.
Q. What benefits does the PACE solution offer customers?
A. One of the critical elements of managing an efficient network is the ability to manage configuration changes. In addition, customers are increasingly facing the challenges of a complex network and pressure to meet regulatory and internal process policies. The Cisco PACE solution helps customers automate and control their network changes. Included in the solution are services from Cisco experts to help customers implement the tools and analyze data from the network.
Q. Can I selectively deploy products from the Cisco PACE solution?
A. Yes. The Cisco PACE solution is designed to give customers flexibility in the products and services required to meet their needs. Products and services from the solution can be ordered individually as needed.
Q. How can the Cisco PACE solution help my organization with achieving and demonstrating compliance to government, industry, and company regulations and best practices?
A. With CiscoWorks NCM and EMC VoyenceControl you can document compliance with regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), and others. CiscoWorks NCM and EMC VoyenceControl support critical processes from popular IT governance frameworks including ITIL/BS15000 and ISO 17799. You can generate reports in web (HTML), Microsoft Word (RTF), or XML format.
CiscoWorks NCM and EMC VoyenceControl ship with regulatory reports enabled for SOX, VISA CISP, HIPAA, GLBA, ITIL, Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT), and Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) of the Treatway Commission, providing the detailed metrics required by each of these regulations and providing the network information necessary to prove compliance. Included by default are reports on users, systems, network status, configurations, devices, software vulnerabilities, tasks, or jobs, Telnet/Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol sessions, and compliance centers. Flexible reports can be customized to include a diverse and rich set of information.
Q. There are multiple products in PACE. How do I know which products are relevant to me? When would PACE Portal and Components be useful?
A. For customers whose needs include network configuration, change and compliance management:
These customers would deploy either CiscoWorks NCM or EMC VoyenceControl for their change and compliance management needs. They would deploy CiscoWorks LMS to provide fault management as well as network monitoring and troubleshooting. QoS Policy Manager is a good option if centralized deployment and reporting on quality of service (QoS) policies is desired. For customers who deploy more than one PACE product, the PACE Portal adds excellent value by providing a central dashboard. Cisco PACE Components provide features such as a multi vendor syslog analyzer and end of sale/end of life reporting. If these capabilities are desired, then the PACE Portal and Components software would be of value.
For customers whose primary needs are network compliance management:
These customers are best served by CiscoWorks NCM or EMC VoyenceControl, both of which provide excellent compliance management capabilities as well as well-rounded configuration and change management features. PACE Portal and Components software would be useful to add to the deployment if multiple NCM servers are being deployed (the PACE Portal serves as a central portal for all NCM servers) or if multivendor syslog reporting is desired.
For customers whose primary needs are to manage, maintain, and monitor their Cisco network:
These customers are best served by CiscoWorks LMS. LMS offers a versatile combination of discovery, mapping, configuration, monitoring, and performance management. It also features Cisco device upgrade capabilities and end-of-sale/end-of-life reporting, both of which are regularly updated by Cisco.
Q. Does the Cisco PACE solution support network devices from vendors other than Cisco?
A. Yes, NCM and EMC VoyenceControl are both multivendor products. The Cisco PACE Syslog Collector is a multivendor syslog collector.
Ordering Information
Q. Is there a part number for the Cisco PACE solution?
A. There is no specific part number for the Cisco PACE solution. Each product or component within the PACE solution has its own part number(s). Please refer to the ordering guide at http://www.cisco.com/go/pace. Please consult with your account manager to assess your specific requirements and order the products and services that best fit your needs.
Advanced Services
Q. Does Cisco offer services to help deploy the Cisco PACE solution?
A. Yes. Cisco Advanced Services helps enable the success of your Cisco PACE solution through a complete portfolio of lifecycle services dedicated to helping you deploy and use the solution tools. Services are positioned in a three-tier approach:
• Operations consulting services: Assessing, defining, and optimizing your network configuration and change management processes
• Deployment services: Helping you to plan, design, implement, and operate the Cisco PACE solution
Cisco Advanced Services business and technical consultants are experts in operations and network management architectures. They have a deep understanding of problems associated with the deployment and operation of network configuration and change management systems and offer expertise based upon extensive design and deployment experiences.
