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Table Of Contents
Overview of IPM
This chapter provides an overview of Cisco Internetwork Performance Monitor (IPM) application. It contains the following sections:
What is IPM?
IPM is a network management application that allows you to monitor the performance of multi-protocol networks. IPM measures the latency and availability of IP networks on a hop-by-hop (router-to-router) basis. It also measures latency between routers and the mainframe in Systems Network Architecture (SNA) networks, and monitors jitter in networks with more than one server.
Use IPM to:
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Troubleshoot problems by checking the network performance between devices.
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The IPM/SA Agent monitoring solution is composed of :
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The focus of this document is the IPM network management application, which includes the server and the client. In some cases, however, it is not possible to fully describe IPM without including information about the SA Agent feature. Therefore, we have included some information about the Cisco IOS feature. Information about the SA Agent feature provided in the latest Cisco IOS software documentation take precedence over the information about the SA Agent feature contained in this document.
Key Terms and Concepts
The key terms and concepts in IPM are:
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How Does IPM Work?
IPM measures and displays network performance statistics (latency, availability, jitter, packet loss, and error information) between a source router and a target device.
The target can be an IP-addressable device, an IBM MVS mainframe, or an SA Agent-enabled Cisco router:
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Once each hour, the source router aggregates all measurements into a single sample value for each network performance statistic. IPM gathers the data from the source routers once per hour and stores it in the IPM database. If you want to take measurements between the source router and the target device more often than once an hour, you can use the IPM configuration process to specify more frequent measurement intervals.
IPM also provides a real-time feature that allows you to display the data without waiting for the one-hour data collection interval. However, the data displayed in the Real Time window is not stored in the IPM database.
Additionally, IPM provides an extensive set of reports and graphs for viewing and analyzing the collected performance metrics. IPM supports both standalone and Web-based clients in a multi-platform environment.
Client/Server Architecture
IPM provides central services and database functions on an IPM server, which communicates through a messaging interface to multiple IPM clients (Figure 1-1). The IPM software consists of server software and client software components that can be installed on the same workstation or on different workstations.
Figure 1-1 IPM Client/Server Architecture
For this release of IPM, the server software runs on Solaris, Windows NT4.0, Windows 2000 Professional and Server systems. The client software runs on Solaris, Windows 98, Windows NT4.0, Windows 2000 Professional and Server platforms.
The client/server architecture is cross-platform compatible, which allows you to run the client and server software in mixed operating system environments. For example, you can run the IPM server on a Solaris workstation and access it from an IPM client running on a Windows workstation.
The IPM server software consists of a group of functional services that manage the data among the network, client workstations, and the centralized database. The IPM server manages the exchange of data between the IPM database and the network devices, such as the source routers and target routers. The IPM process manager launches and manages all of the IPM servers, providing a robust and reliable launching platform for IPM.
The IPM client software communicates with the IPM server. You can install the IPM client software on the same workstation as the IPM server software, or on a different workstation on the same network as the IPM server. The IPM client integrates with the CiscoWorks2000 desktop.
From a Web browser running on any workstation on the network, you can:
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