Table of Contents

Product Overview
Key Features and Benefits
Specifications
Ordering Information

CiscoWorks Blue Maps

Product Overview

CiscoWorks Blue Maps (Maps) monitors the physical and logical relationships between Cisco routers that support SNA protocols. Maps shows you the status of your combined SNA and IP network through the use of UNIX-based topographical maps, and web-based displays. These displays allow your help desk operators, and network administrators to immediately identify problems in your combined SNA and IP networks, and to begin problem resolution before end-users realize that there is a problem. In addition, Version 2.1 of Maps incorporates the functionality of Version 1.2 of CiscoWorks Blue SNA View, which correlates information gathered from Cisco routers, with information gathered from one or more VTAM domains, enabling the management of PU and LU sessions from within the graphical displays.

Network managers need the right tools for the right job, and troubleshooting a problem within Data Link Switching (DLSw), Advanced Peer to Peer Networking (APPN), or remote source route bridging (RSRB) networks can be a complex task, without those right tools. Think of the difficulty involved - first, you would need to identify the connectivity of a Physical Unit (PU) or Logical unit (LU) to the router supporting that device. Then, telnet into that router, and issue a series of Command Line Interface (CLI) commands in order to display the circuits and sessions that are passing through the router. After that, you would write the results down, or try to remember them as you telnet from the original router to the router at the other end of the connection. Once you have telneted into the peering router, you would need to issue another set of CLI commands (remembering the correct parameters), and process the results of those commands, in order to draw a mental "map" of the connectivity. Finally, once you have determined the correct path for the connectivity of the session, you would gather data for problem resolution, if you can remember the format of the commands, and can interpret the results of those commands.

Cisco has done this all for you. CiscoWorks Blue Maps simplified the process of managing DLSw, APPN, and RSRB networks by monitoring the physical and logical relationships between the Cisco routers that are supporting these SNA protocols. Maps is an easy-to-use, cost effective solution that automatically discovers the Cisco DLSw, APPN, or RSRB routers, and uses information in Management Information Bases (MIBs) to draw a topology map of the protocols. This map shows the physical and logical rings that connect the devices, the routers are color-coded according to the health of the SNA protocol, providing status information at a glance. Additional information is just a mouse click away, providing quick access to detailed status of peer connections, traffic statistics, and error statistics. No longer do you need to remember protocol specific CLI commands or learn MIB values.

Cisco has provided seamless integration of Maps with CiscoView and path-tool, providing the ability to gather detailed information about the health of the device - such as the status of interfaces, ports, and the IP connectivity between resources. CiscoWorks Blue Maps goes that extra step, by correlating PU and LU information from VTAM, to provide end-to-end dependency views, showing how your end user`s sessions traverse your IP environment, an essential and necessary picture for diagnosing problems.

As network managers are moving rapidly to support Web technologies and Internet standards as the basis for the next generation of enterprise management solutions, CiscoWorks Blue Maps has embraced the "management intranet" by providing a Web-based interface. Maps can be seamlessly integrated into the CiscoWorks 2000 framework, providing a "portal" of management applications- utilizing the power of Web technologies in solving management problems.

Version 2.1 of CiscoWorks Blue Maps provides the following enhancements:

• Support of IETF draft standard DLSW MIB, RFC 2024

• Support of IETF draft standard APPN MIB, RFC 2455

• Support of IETF draft standard DLUR MIB, RFC 2232

• Support of SNA Switching Services feature of Cisco IOS

• Support of Branch Extender Network Node Type

• Support of Solaris LU 6.2 Connectivity to the Mainframe

Key Features and Benefits

Logical Maps

• Map Layout — CiscoWorks Blue Maps applications draw detailed logical maps of SNA-related protocols. These maps are automatically discovered and drawn to depict specific protocols in that network.

• Tools — CiscoWorks Blue Maps is an easy-to-use application that provides the network administrator the tools needed to manage growing SNA/IP integrated networks. This application set of maps (RSRB, DLSw, and APPN) can be integrated with popular Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) management platforms such as IBM NetView for AIX, HP/OpenView, or SunNet Manager.

• Map Manipulation — From the maps, a network administrator can drill down to see path information or go directly to a device view using CiscoView, Cisco`s premier device and element manager.

• Problem Determination — By leveraging the consolidated protocol information, problem determination and isolation are accomplished more quickly.

Web-Based Displays

CiscoWorks Blue Maps provides web-based displays to view the same information as is provided through the UNIX topological displays

• Provides protocol-specific web pages

• Accessed anywhere that a browser can be used

• Tabular summaries show the status of devices, and hotlinks provide direct access to those resources.

Integration with Network Management Systems

Version 2.1 of CiscoWorks Maps integrates with an Network Management System if it is present on the same workstation, but there is no requirement for a NMS.

• Integration with Tivoli for AIX, HP OpenView, SunNet Manager

• Maps can be launched from the NMS menu

• Sends traps to NMS

• Receive traps from NMS

• Utilizes the NMS database as a seed-file for the discovery of routers supporting SNA protocols.

Integration with Network Management Tools

Maps does not require any other network management tools to operate. Maps will integrate with the following tools, if they are present within the customer`s environment:

• Integrates with CiscoView, if present on same workstation

• Integrates with Tivoli for OS/390 HTML interface

• Integrates with CiscoWorks 2000 through the Cisco Management Connection

• Integrates with CiscoWorks Blue SNA View to provide web-based end-to-end views of SNA sessions

Specifications

Ordering Information

Posted: Wed Sep 27 05:13:33 PDT 2000
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