Cisco Network Management Solution

zakarieya · ‎11-05-2012

Hi,

I was asked to put together a Network Management solution to manage multiple sites. The sites are as follows:

Site 1 - Approx 30 Switches (Cisco 4507 Core / Cisco 3750X Access)

Site 2 - Approx 50 Switches (Cisco 4507 Core / Cisco 3750X Access)

Site 3 - Approx 40 Switches (Cisco 4507 Core / Cisco 3750X Access)

Site 4 - Approx 40 Switches (Cisco 4507 Core / Cisco 3750X Access)

Site 5 - Approx 50 Switches (Cisco 4507 Core / Cisco 3750X Access)

The sites are connected over a 2 or 4Mbps WAN connection to a central site.

Can you please advise on the following:

1) Architecture - Centralized or Distributed?

2) Cisco Prime Infrastructure 1.2? or is there anything else?

Thanks,

Z

Marvin Rhoads · ‎11-05-2012

Centrailzed architecture in my opinion.

The Cisco solution would be PI 1.2 (Lifecycle or "LF"). But I'd recommend running LMS 4.2, the license for which is included with PI as opposed to a "native" PI 1.2 installation.

PI 1.2 LF licensing tiers are 25, 50, 100, and 500 ( and beyond) so you would need to add up license PAKs to at least equal the number of managed devices. For example:

1 each R-PI12-K9 (base product)

2 each L-PI12-LF-100 (Lifecycle license, 100 devices per)

1 each L-PI12-LF-25 (25 additional)

Gives you a 225 device license. Cisco would prefer you also include the SASU (software application support plus upgrade) for the above. (2 each CON-SAU-PI12LF1H plus one each SW APP SUPP + UPGR PI 1.2).

Collin Clark · ‎11-05-2012

IMO Prime LMS is a horrible piece of @#^%*@. There a many other, better, options out there. Just a few-

Solarwinds

PRTG

Whats Up Gold

Manage Engine

Tivoli

OpenNMS

Nagios

Marvin Rhoads · ‎11-05-2012

In addition to LMS (and its predecessors) I've used (installed configured, administered and been an end user of over several years) four of the ones Colin mentions plus a few others. They all have pros and cons.

No product solves the network management product by itself and, in my opinion, cannot. That's because two equally important parts of the equation are the people that use the product and the processes they follow. Unless and until the technology, people and processes are all aligned any product will leave you unsatisfied and your business requirements unmet.

For an all-Cisco shop as the OP mentions, Cisco Prime LMS is a very capable and powerful product. It does require some investment in configuring it properly and ongoing attention to keeping it up to date - but so do all the products on the market. It also requires mindful attention to an organization's processes to integrate (any) tool use into how work is done.

Martin Ermel · ‎11-06-2012

I'd agree with Marvins last statement, that Cisco made some good steps forwarard in making its management software more usable. I still see a couple of points where it could be made better and more straight forward and I also see some problems in the way the backend processes are implemented. But as Marvin said, each of the products Collin mentioned have pros and cons.

With such knowledge in mind, you should first define what you want to do or what you expect from a "management" software (like Config Management, Fault Management, Performance Monitoring, do you need reporting capabilities and if yes in which ways [e-mail with a link, e-mail with attachment, HTML, PDF]

Make a ordered list, note down who of the team will do what (or are all doing the same?) and define priorities of your expectations;

After that have a look at the typical FCAPS capabilities and see if there are additional things you need;

Now, have a look at different software and test which meets your requirement.

For the architecture - I would definitly go with a centralized solution - it is much more easier to administer and no database synchronization as with a distributed version is necessary (which eases backup and recovery)