Cisco Netsys Connectivity Service Manager

Product Overview

The Netsys Connectivity Service Manager lets you view, assess, and troubleshoot a full spectrum of connectivity issues, including network availability, security, and reliability. It monitors your actual network configuration data and uses built-in intelligence to verify the availability of key network services; it allows you to establish service-level policies for connectivity, reliability, and security services; and it uses the unique VISTA (View, Isolate, Solve, Test, Apply) troubleshooting methodology to automate the diagnosis and repair of problems.

As a result, you can begin to focus more on strategic network issues such as growth and capacity planning, and less on solving the network crisis of the moment. The Connectivity Service Manager dramatically increases the productivity of network and system administrators, thereby reducing overall network management costs.

Get the Big Picture Instantly

The Connectivity Service Manager collects actual router configuration data and creates multi-protocol topologies, so you can visually navigate your network and gain a complete understanding of how it works. The topologies are drawn automatically, so you don`t have to spend hours manually linking interfaces and grouping objects. All physical and logical relationships between routers and LAN switches are represented so you focus on solving problems, not drawing pictures. You can also generate views such as campus, virtual ring group, and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) areas in an instant.
All multi-protocol topologies support:
- Visual queries exposing devices running combinations of network or routing protocols
- Pop-up menus accessing configuration information on each LAN, link, router, and circuit
- Graphical views of routing table coverage
- Graphical displays of round-trip paths between end systems
Define Service-Level Policies with Ease

Using the Connectivity Service Manager, you can easily build a policy database that explicitly defines the connectivity, security, and reliability service levels needed to meet critical business application needs. Each policy defines the protocol type, the key devices or subnets between which certain service-levels must be met, and the category of service to be monitored. Each of these service-level categories is designed to alert users to distinct sets of problems on their network.
Connectivity

You specify which network connections are critical to the day-to-day operations of the company, and the Connectivity Service Manager validates configurations and round-trip for applications defined in the policy.
Security

After you define which network resources should remain insulated from inappropriate users, the Connectivity Service Manager validates router access list configurations along the round-trip connectivity between the key network devices and the applications defined in the policy.
Reliability

You can specify which client/server connections should not be subject to downtime resulting from a single point of failure on the network. The Connectivity Service Manager emulates the failure of a single router or multiple routers along the paths between the key connections and ensure that a redundant path is available.
Assess Your Service-Level Policies

Using its detailed understanding of network configuration, the Connectivity Service Manager can assess whether or not the network is meeting the service-level requirements defined in the service-level policy database. Using a wizard mechanism to configure the service-level policy assessment cycle, you can specify which configuration files to collect, the collection intervals, and the notification method to be used upon completion of the assessment. After collecting configuration data from the network, the Connectivity Service Manager processes any predefined service-level polices and then summarizes and displays the information in a summary report. This report includes two sections: an assessment of service-level policy checks, and a display of network health checks. For easy access and distribution over the network, a hypertext markup language (HTML) version can be generated automatically.

The service-level assessment report quantitatively assesses which policies are being violated. You can quickly identify the most recent service-level policy violations through a sophisticated "difference" mechanism. The difference mechanism compares current service-level assessments with previous assessments and identifies which policy violations are new, which are recurring, and which have been repaired. Within the summary report, you also can see which users have been affected by the violation, the source of the violation, and suggested fixes.
Resolve Problems and Manage Change Painlessly

The Connectivity Service Manager uses a unique troubleshooting methodology called VISTA to "drill down" into the details of any service policy violation, enabling network managers to automate the process of troubleshooting and tuning the network.

Using the VISTA methodology, you can view the Layer 2/Layer 3 (L2/L3) network topology, isolate errors automatically, solve network problems, test the solution before implementation, and apply an automatically generated configuration delta file to the network.
View Topologies

You can use the multi-protocol topology maps generated by Connectivity Services Manager to view all physical and logical relationships between routers of your network, enabling you to search for actual or potential problems quickly and easily. In addition, the topologies can highlight problem sources once you`ve identified the problem.
Isolate Errors Automatically

The Connectivity Service Manager automatically generates a number of reports that provide a quick health overview of your network, immediately isolating error sources and speeding problem resolution. To help you determine if there are any immediate problems, a "difference" mechanism shows any new additions or deletions from each report. This is particularly valuable when used with the Integrity Checks Report, which highlights the occurrence of about 100 common yet hard-to-isolate configuration problems within and between routers and LAN switches, including:
- Access list errors
- Overlapping subnet masks, redundant addresses, unmapped WAN circuits, bad subnet masks
- Unnecessary routing updates
- Incomplete peer definitions for remote source-route bridging (RSRB), data-link switching plus (DLSw+), and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
- Mismatched encapsulations
Other network health reports include:

Blocked Routing Updates, Partitioned Major IP Networks, IP and IPX Routing Exceptions, Device/Address Inventory.
Solve Network Problems Quickly

The Connectivity Service Manager`s QuickSolver function employs powerful model-based reasoning to diagnose service-level policy violations.

Service-level policy violations are often due to problems such as misconfigured routing processes, access lists, or routing loops. These problems are difficult to solve because the symptoms can occur far away from the misconfigured device. QuickSolver pinpoints the exact router that is causing the policy violation and provides command-specific advice and solutions with specific Cisco IOS commands. In addition, if a single router problem is causing a chain reaction of problems downstream, QuickSolver will identify the root cause of the problem. To help you prioritize troubleshooting efforts, there is a complete list of which customers are affected for each problem diagnosis.
Test Before Implementation

The Connectivity Service Manager is the first and only operational network management solution to offer integrated simulation capabilities. This feature enables you to quickly test planned changes to your network so you can identify and fix downstream connectivity, security, and reliability problems before rolling changes out on your live network. This capability significantly reduces roll-backs and downtime, resulting in substantial savings in time and cost.

Using the "what-if" simulation capabilities also allows you to quickly determine the effects of planned changes such as access list modifications, route filtering, protocol migrations, or address changes off-line.

"What-if" capabilities also enable you to verify that key connectivity and security requirements are met by emulating device or network failures. These are virtually impossible to verify live on the network.
Apply Changes

The final step of the VISTA methodology is applying configuration changes to your live network. The Connectivity Service Manager simplifies this process by exporting "router-ready" command delta files. The delta files contain all changed commands plus appropriate "no" commands to remove previous settings, thereby eliminating a time-consuming and error-prone manual task. The delta files can be easily applied to your network using Telnet, tftp, or CiscoWorks.
Get Proactive at Your Own Pace

The Connectivity Service Manager provides operational network management services out of the box, and enables you to move toward automated, proactive network management whenever you`re ready.

For example, once you`ve used the product for reactive tasks such as isolating and solving actual problems, you can begin to use it for proactive measures such as identifying potential problems, highlighting issues created by projected growth, or studying the impact of specific changes. And since the product is built for scalability, you can begin deploying Connectivity Service Manager on larger and larger segments of your network on an incremental basis.

Figure 13-2: Visual Queries Ease Protocol Migration by Displaying Routers Running Combinations of Routing Protocols

Troubleshoot LAN Connectivity Problems

Connectivity Service Manager also supports LAN switching topology and troubleshooting capabilities. It shows you an integrated view of your Router/LAN Switching network and traffic paths, and checks the integrity of your LAN switch domain, improving your spanning tree design. When combined with the Performance Services Manager, it enables you to perform "what-if" simulations to analyze the effects of moving end-stations from one virtual LAN (VLAN) to another, so you can optimize performance.
Integrated L2/L3 Topology

Connectivity Service Manager adds visibility into Catalyst LAN switch domains, creating a unified Layer 3/Layer 2 view (L3/L2). You can easily view the associated switch domain for a particular VLAN, or for all VLANs. The L2 views are bounded by connections to peripheral routers. This capability enables you to quickly troubleshoot router and switch connectivity problems without having to switch from one tool to another. To avoid collection redundancy, Connectivity Service Manager pulls its switch information from CiscoWorks for Switched Internetworks (CWSI).
L2/L3 Path Tracing

The topology displays show the paths taken by a given conversation across the L3 network, and allow you to drill down into each L2 network to trace the conversation path. This feature gives you unparalleled insight into network connectivity to help you improve both troubleshooting and performance.
LAN Integrity Checking

The LAN Service Manager automatically checks for problems in the interactions between spanning tree and VLANS as well as in inter-VLAN routing, giving you insights in how to improve the configuration and performance of the network. It identifies spanning tree loops, shows single points of failure, and alerts you to potential lengthy convergence times. To help sanitize inter-VLAN routing, it verifies that the router has Inter-Switch Link (ISL) subinterfaces compatible with the switch, and validates IP addressing across VLANs and router interfaces or subinterfaces.
A Single View of Multiple VLANs

The LAN Service Manager can show multiple VLANs on the same view as well as their spanning trees. When VLANs are used for security, it can automate the checking of your routing policies and access lists to make sure data is blocked correctly; and with the addition of the Performance Service Manager it can check the performance of inter-VLAN routers by simulating different client/server deployments given various traffic patterns.

Key Features and Benefits

**Table 13-43: Summary of Features and Benefits for Cisco NetSys Connectivity Manager**
Features	Benefits
Real Network Data	Ensures accurate representation of all protocols configured on routers, including route redistributions and filters
Protocol-Sensitive L2/L3 Topologies	Graphically displays physical and logical connections between routers and protocols, enabling network administrators to see the big picture instantly and accurately L2 drill-down capability shows every connection type, facilitating troubleshooting and optimization
Integrity Checks Report	Rapidly identifies about 100 types of severe and warning-level problems within and between router configurations
Visual Queries	Provide instant identification of device or network types with addresses, protocol coverage and conflicts
Connectivity Service-Level Management	Monitor router configuration files to ensure that the network is configured properly and identify critical routing problems between key devices or subnets
Security Service-Level Management	Monitor router configuration files to verify that access lists are configured properly to protect key network resources from unwanted access
What-If Analysis	Shows the impact on connectivity and routing tables of configuration or topology changes and failures — without risking experimentation on the live network
Router-Ready Command Export	Eliminates costly downtime caused by mis-entered router commands
Scheduled Data Collection	Provides up-to-date information to connectivity and performance tool network models Increases network staff productivity
QuickSolver Automatic Problem Diagnosis	Provides command-specific advice and solutions to connectivity and security problems
Application-Layer Connectivity Analysis	Allows you to determine network connectivity, security and reliability for every application, eliminating the network as a potential source of problems for each application
VLAN Support	Enables toggling between VLAN views within a switch domain, so you can see a spanning tree for each Analyzes connectivity and security between VLANs With the addition of Performance Service Manager, analyzes inter-VLAN routing performance and what-if scenarios
Web Interface	Makes the full power of the connectivity and performance tools reports and protocol-specific topology views available to operations staff and managers

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