Device management is the methodology of maintaining and improving the availability of critical and/or non-critical devices over a given period. The primary goal is to ensure that component network devices supporting the businesses applications are monitored and maintained to given service level agreements (SLAs).

The importance of the availability of IT to the success of the business has never been more apparent. Over the years the interdependency between the Business process and the IT operation has developed to the point where quite simply if the IT stops, then the business stops.

CNS’s Device management module consists of the following component.            

Monitoring/Alerting

CNS’s Monitoring and Alerting Service utilises SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol; industry standard network management protocol that allows network nodes to exchange information about their configuration and status) and other alerting protocol to centrally poll target devices and automatically measure response time and trigger alerts when specific thresholds of interest are exceeded.

Nodes (including services operating on nodes) are ‘polled’ at timed intervals so that specific data can be reviewed and analysed. This allows for the following:

• Simplifies the task of inventory, monitoring and administration of contracted nodes
• Centralised management of all devices allowing the CNS Service Desk to compile SNMP traps so that incoming data can be analysed and notification alerts can be configured to notify on-call engineers and or customer contacts
• Node health can be measured in real time and trend reports can be compiled using historical information (essential for capacity management)
• Proactive fault analysis, diagnosis and isolation
• Pre-defined and custom alerting using SNMP and other protocols to trap raw network events and filters

The Monitoring and alerting service underpins device management and is essential in ensuring IT delivers the right levels of service availability required by the business to satisfy its business objectives and deliver the quality of service demanded by their Customers.

Key Performance Indicators

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are the method of monitoring and measuring a combination of IT service integrity, availability and overall health of particular network devices or services; KPI’s provide real time insight to operational status and equally early indication of impending issues likely to effect business services.

KPI thresholds and specific event triggers can be configured and monitored in real time or alternatively measured in the form of historical data. KPI’s can be configured to interrogate any number of IT service thresholds or events such as unauthorised device access attempts, interface bandwidth utilisation, device throughput and memory/CPU utilisation (good for firewalls or switch components.) Additionally, CNS are able to configure KPI’s in relation to the customer’s server environment monitoring specific components such as Hard disk free space or else environmental conditions such as temperature, power output etc.

System event traps of this nature are essential in building a real time view of the IT operational landscape supporting critical business services.  Such monitoring and recording of event information can also provide extremely useful insight during the fault troubleshooting process.

Network Configuration & Compliance Management (NCCM)

CNS’s Network Configuration and Compliance Service (known as NCCM) is the ongoing configuration management and compliance validation tool specifically targeted at network and security components.

It is estimated that more than 60% of availability and performance issues are actually caused by configuration errors or the inability to affect swift resolution and service restoration in the event of failing component.

The service is designed to dramatically reduce such service degradation through careful scheduling of secure configuration back ups of all target devices (multi vendor) and combined with the monitoring and alerting service, NCCM is also able to alert CNS personnel or customer staff alike to any authorised/unauthorised configuration changes. Such alerts provide evidence to the changes made any comparative differences from the original configuration whilst also identifying the identity of the administrative party who conducted the changes.

In addition to ensuring regular, secure, schedule backups, NCCM becomes invaluable when hardware needs to be replaced; most replacement hardware is sent directly from distribution. Therefore, it is crucial that once the vendor engineer arrives on site with the kit or to configure the device he or she has the latest configuration files available. For this reason it is essential that the configuration files provided are readily available and confirmed as the latest revisions; CNS’s daily backup schedule ensures just that.

CNS’s NCCM service can also assist in ensuring that network and security devices comply with government, industry and internal regulations, while protecting devices from security threats (such as unprivileged access attempts). Areas of regulatory compliance include SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley), PCI (Payment Card Industry), DHS, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and ISO/IEC 27002. It also assists in ensuring best practice in such security guidelines as ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) and COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and related Technology.)

The NCCM service can therefore be defined as offering an assessment and remediation tool for automated network, security, compliance and configuration management and the key benefits are:

• Correlates audits of how, when, where and by whom changes were administered
• Drastically reduces fault analysis time as checks can be made instantaneously
• Coupled together with the alerting service it can also ensure centralised access control in support of security and compliance.
• Ability to quickly rollback configuration revisions for individual devices or components of a network, or the entire network - including support for disaster recovery.
• Threat Mitigation and Regulatory Compliance

Syslog

To augment the excellent features and functionality of their SNMPc Monitoring & Alerting service, CNS have designed an extended network messaging capability using Syslog.  CNS’s Syslog service receives syslog messages from network devices such as network switches, routers, firewall devices and any other syslog capable device and displays them in real-time.  Actions can be configured and ultimately performed on received messages. Messages can be filtered by host name, host IP address, priority, message text or time of day. 

The clear benefit of this service is in its automation. Automation of this function removes the issue of committing significant support time to the collection, analysis and subsequent actions arising from monitoring and responding to network conditions.  CNS’s automated Syslog service offers full process automation whilst providing support staff with headline notifications and message updates. This ability greatly improves workforce productivity and also greatly reduces incident response and resolution times.

Key Benefits of Syslog are:

• Accurate monitoring of event and fault conditions
• Faster diagnosis of event and fault conditions
• Archive messages for quick future reference
• Filter messages by facility, severity, date/time, host name and key words
• Improved service delivery and workforce productivity
• Targeted response based on alert type and category
• Improved Service Level Management; audit trail of event type, response and assigned support party
• Control the event type and method of delivery
• Increased ‘End-User’ availability of network devices.

Fault Management Service

CNS’s Fault Management Service offers the customer access to a tiered team of experienced, multi-disciplined engineers, who are able to assist in the analysis and resolution process of any arising IT infrastructure related query or problem.

From an issue affecting a single user service to a more complex issue affecting multiple services to a large group of users, CNS will engage in an appropriate level of fault management until normal services are resumed.

In the main, CNS will first attempt fault investigation and problem resolution across a secure remote connection to the Customers IT systems. Where remote fault resolution is not possible, a qualified engineer will be dispatched to site.

CNS’s Fault Management Service offers its customers peace of mind and in the event of a service impacting incident, will allow the customer to concentrate internal resources on continuing with their core business function and delivery to their customer base safe in the knowledge that CNS will work away at restoring full IT service as expediently as possible.

To assist customers with financial budgeting, CNS’s Fault Management service can be offered in one of the following ways:
Option 1 – Unlimited Fault Calls (Fixed Annual Cost)
This option allows IT managers to predict and provide annual fixed cost for unlimited incident fault calls. The service is priced as a fixed annual fee and is determined by the quantity and service function of each device/service covered under the support contract. Examples of how fault analysis time is applied are:

• Hardware faults/power issues on desktop, local servers, printers, perimeter firewalls ISP Routers or Network Switches
• Operating System/MS Office Suite error conditions
• Investigation into degraded or total loss of business service
• General service connectivity issues i.e.
• Server connectivity issues
• Printer/multi-function device connectivity issues
• ISP/WWW connectivity issues
• DNS/Name Resolution issues
• Exchange/Mail user/service issues
• Intra-site VPN connectivity issues
• User network connectivity issues

Option 2 – Limited Fault Calls (Pay as You Go)
This service option provides the same functionality as option 1 but instead of offering an annual fixed cost against unlimited fault access to CNS’s Service Desk, the customer must select their preferred method of acquiring fault analysis time. This option offers a ‘Pay as You Go’ approach to securing access to CNS’s Service Desk and thereby a pool of qualified trained engineers. Two methods of acquiring Fault Analysis time exist:

The first method offers the customer a retained pool of fault analysis time purchased up front, named Countdown time. Countdown time offers the same privileges as option 1 including the attaching SLA’s. As fault calls are made, used time is drawn down against the raised amount of Fault Analysis time. Where Countdown time is exhausted, the customer will simply purchase further units of time.

The second method of ‘Pay as You Go’ Fault Analysis time is offered on an emergency call out basis. In this scenario, the customer will be charged retrospectively for any time committed by CNS’s Service Desk in troubleshooting and resolving the reported issue.  Emergency call out charges carry a premium rate. Additionally, CNS offer their response and time to engage on a best endeavours basis.

Please contact us to find out more.