GTA Network Management Systems On Behalf Of BellSouth

2 Netcool Introduction Netcool is a network outage event application that operates within the CNM Portal. Netcool gives the agency real-time information on the status of the network for IP services customers with color-coding for quick at-a-glance network diagnostics. Netcool is a network outage event application that operates within the CNM Portal. Netcool gives the agency real-time information on the status of the network for IP services customers with color-coding for quick at-a-glance network diagnostics.

3 Level of view within Netcool is dependent on the Portal username:  GTA Management and NOSC personnel will see the highest levels of the MPLS network, and can drill all the way down  GTA Regional operations will see all alerts within their GTA Region  Agencies will see all alerts within their agency  Sub-Agencies will see all alerts within their sub-agency Netcool Access Levels

4 Netcool To access Netcool from the CNM Portal, click on the Network Management tab and select View Fault Events. The Netcool interface is displayed.

5 All Netcool alarm events are color coded by severity, and categorized by status. The severity color indicates the importance or urgency of the event, and the status indicates whether the event has been acknowledged. Green – Clear event. No active alarms.Purple – Indeterminate – An event that has been resolved. This usually occurs when a problem has been resolved or cleared and the node or interface is still returning to normal. Red – Critical alarm - Service impacting alarm. Examples: Node down (NMS lost network connectivity to device) Node unreachable (NMS lost route to device) Network unreachable (NMS lost route to network) Light Blue – Warning Examples: CPU back to normal (CPU < 60% busy) Interface error returned to normal (< 3 error rate) Memory returned to normal (> 20% available memory) SNMP agent up (NMS can query device) Node up (connectivity restored to device) Buffer is back to normal (alarm automatically clears after 4 hour waiting period) Orange – Major alarm - Service impacting alarm. Examples: CPU alarm (CPU >= 85% busy) Interface error alarm (> 5% interface error rate) Memory alarm (10 % available memory) Link down alarm (interface lost carrier or LMI) Before we get too far into Netcool, let’s look at the alarm colors and meanings that will be displayed in the Netcool console. Yellow – Minor alarm - Non-service impacting alarms Examples: CPU alarm (CPU >= 60% <= 84% busy) Interface error alarm (3% - 5% interface error rate) Memory alarm (>= 10% <= 20% available memory) SNMP agent down alarm (String; nms can not query device) Buffer failure alarm (buffer failures have occurred on device) Netcool Alarm Indicators

6 Netcool Interface It is important to understand that the main Netcool screen is presenting the same event information in four different ways: 1. Network Status 2. Alarm Summary 3. GTA Region Status 4. Agency Status By looking closer at each of these four sections, we can determine just what each section represents.

7 1. Network Status Network Status displays the total number of all alarm events, along with the color of the most serious current alarm event. This means that there are 52 total events of different severities, and the most severe is a Critical (red) event.

8 Event Details List Click the All Events icon to open a detailed description of all 52 events, sorted from most serious to least serious. Scroll down for details on the lesser alarms not visible.

9 Alarm Event Details There are 9 fields in the information displayed once an object has been selected: 1.Event ID- a system generated unique identifier number 2.Remedy Ticket - The Remedy ticket number, once it is assigned (BellSouth ticketing system) 3.Node - The device name for the affected route or device 4.City – The city in which the device is located 5.ACK – Indicates whether the alarm has been acknowledged. 6.Summary – A brief summary of the alarm 7.First Occurrence – A Date/Time stamp of the alarm, indicating the time/date when the device first went into alarm 8.Count – The number of times a device has alarmed since the initial alarm 9.Last Occurrence - Date/Time stamp of the last time the system indicated an alarm

10 2. Alarm Summary Of the 52 alarms listed in All Events, the Alarm Summary section displays only the events that fit into these parameters: Critical An outage affecting more than one site Major Outage at an individual site Last 30 MinsEvents in the last 30 minutes Count > 5 Error rate greater than 5% on a given interface Minor Any error that does not cause an outage Click any of the alarm icons listed in Alarm Summary to open a list with the details for those alarm events.

11 Compare the orange Athens icon to the alarm color codes, and we’ll see that the most serious alarm in that GTA Region is a Major alarm. If we compare the red Rome icon to the alarm color codes, we’ll see that the most serious alarm in that GTA Region is a Critical alarm. Each Region icon color corresponds to the most serious alarm within that GTA Region. Remember the alarm color codes? 3. GTA Region Status Click any of the GTA Region alarm icons to open a list with the details for those alarm events in that GTA Region. This is the list generated by clicking the Rome icon. Click any of the GTA Region alarm icons to open a list with the details for those alarm events in that GTA Region. This is the list generated by clicking the Rome icon.

12 Similar to the GTA Region status, the Agency icons represent the highest status of alarm events within each Agency, regardless of GTA Region. Since they have red icons, DHR and DLAW both have Critical events as the highest alarm. With yellow icons, DOC & DTAE both have Minor events as the highest alarm. DMVS has Indeterminate as the highest level alarm.DJJ, DNR, and CSB are clear, with green icons indicating no current alarms. Click any of the Agency alarm icons to open a list with the details for those alarm events in that Agency. This is the resulting list generated for DLAW, with most serious events listed first. Click any of the Agency alarm icons to open a list with the details for those alarm events in that Agency. This is the resulting list generated for DLAW, with most serious events listed first. 4. Agency Status

13 The Netcool main screen we have been working with is from a GTA perspective- all agencies and all GTA Regions are visible. An Agency or GTA Region view will look similar but will show fewer results belonging only to that Agency or GTA Region. The 4 GTA Region purple icons are regions where DOC has offices with active alarms, so the agency has visibility into those GTA Regions, but only as it pertains to DOC. Here is a GDOC Netcool screen. All Events has only 5 total alarms, and the most serious is indeterminate. We know that because the All Events icon is purple. Level of view within Netcool is dependent on the login username:  GTA Management and NOSC personnel will see the highest levels of the MPLS network, and can drill all the way down  GTA Region operations will only see alerts within their GTA Region  Agencies will only see alerts within their agency  Sub-Agencies will only see alerts within their sub-agency Level of view within Netcool is dependent on the login username:  GTA Management and NOSC personnel will see the highest levels of the MPLS network, and can drill all the way down  GTA Region operations will only see alerts within their GTA Region  Agencies will only see alerts within their agency  Sub-Agencies will only see alerts within their sub-agency The DOC agency icon is purple, and all others are green. This doesn’t mean that all other agencies have no alarms – it means they are masked, and will not show any results with a GDOC user ID. Netcool GTA Region or Agency View The Alb, Athens, Atl_Cen, Atl_N, Aug, and Mil icons are all green, which tells us there are no alarm events for the GDOC offices within those GTA Regions.

14 Netcool Summary Netcool is a fault management tool. It is important to remember that Netcool doesn’t measure performance; it only indicates the presence or absence of traffic from network devices and routes. Similar to a ping command, as long as traffic is returned, it can be demonstrated that the network devices and routes are still intact and functioning. When the traffic is not returned for a device or route, Netcool displays an alert to indicate that lack of a returned message. So if you receive a call reporting that the network is down, Netcool is your first verification tool in diagnosing the issues at hand. To measure metrics indicating network performance or slow-downs, and to compare performance for select dates, select the InfoVista application within the CNM Portal. Netcool is a fault management tool. It is important to remember that Netcool doesn’t measure performance; it only indicates the presence or absence of traffic from network devices and routes. Similar to a ping command, as long as traffic is returned, it can be demonstrated that the network devices and routes are still intact and functioning. When the traffic is not returned for a device or route, Netcool displays an alert to indicate that lack of a returned message. So if you receive a call reporting that the network is down, Netcool is your first verification tool in diagnosing the issues at hand. To measure metrics indicating network performance or slow-downs, and to compare performance for select dates, select the InfoVista application within the CNM Portal.

15 Contact Information Contact GTA TCC / NOSC for user ID & password Portal ID is or call (404)

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