SONET/SDH network monitoring

[crysm]

Hi,

We are starting to deploy a new SONET/SDH network, but we haven't realy thought about deploying monitoring until now. The problem is that we don't have too much experience either, so we don't quite know what we should start monitoring and what is mandatory to monitor.

Can anybody with a bit of experience in SONET/SDH tell me what they are monitoring, or what the big operators are monitoring ussualy to ensure a good SLA to their customers.

Thanks.

[tgimmel]

At our Network operations center we are watching all SNMP traps that are generated. Our network is mainly 15454/15600 so it is very important that we see all events. We are using a SNMP trap manager and also using CTM. For a long time we used the open source product called NetSNMP. We have used it with up to 200 nodes and it seems to handle the load. Currently we are moving to SMARTS, but the fellow who handles NetSNMP says it was working fine.

I hope this is the information you was looking for, if not let me know.

Tim

[crysm]

Hi,

thanks for your answer. My question was more concerning about whihc are the most important PM data you think it's worth monitoring.

I mean here the ES, SES, UAS some sort of BER. Whihc PM data do you think is the most important from an user point of view ?

Thank you

[tgimmel]

Keep an eye on the ES, CV-L and the CV-P. Of course the CV-L will show a whole facility in trouble and a CV-P will show a particular STS in trouble. However the Path alarms can be deceiving if provisioned between optical interfaces and the signal has not been applied (channalized OC-x).

The ES (errored seconds) can give you an indication of the health of a link, normally it should always be zeros; as a problem starts to creep in you will notice an error just every now and then, and as the days go by they will increase. So if you can watch for patterens it is possible to catch a trouble before it becoms too bad.

Hope this helps,

Tim