Everyone knows that the broader and deeper a knowledgebase is, the easier and faster it is to solve issues relating to that knowledge. Sharing this knowledge base becomes an invaluable tool when solving complex issues, like OSS and network management. When individuals, or groups of individuals, share their collective knowledge to solve a problem, we call it collaboration, or the socialization of knowledge. We also know that some information (knowledge) requires a layer of protection due to the sensitive nature of that information. We call this, information security.

These factors especially true with regard to managing and maintaining a complex communications network. Can "open" collaboration and information security really co-exist? The answer is, they must, for very obvious reasons, but the question is, how is that implemented?

All communication networks requires some level of security -- access rights, identity protection, data (logical) security, physical security, etc... In addition, both network service providers and the users of those network services employ many levels of individuals to deliver services and information to the end-user of those networks. No single individual is responsible for service and information delivery.

The network services provider has operations staff, maintenance staff, and field personnel who are responsible for delivering the highest quality of service possible while also protecting the viability of the service and the security of the information traversing the network.

Within a service provider organization, when a problem occurs that affects the viability of a network, many different organizations - spanning a wide geographic area with specific content knowledge - get involved to provide a resolution to the issue. Current methods to connect these disparate organizations to resolve network infrastructure problems are often slow and time-consuming, especially when trying to determine who has the "right" information, as well as the "rights" to work on the resolution. Enter, "Secure Collaboration"





Watch a 4-minute video
showing secure network
monitoring collaboration
with Redcell 7 Synergy






It is not only important to know who or what groups of individuals has the information needed to solve problems, and then to connect those individuals to expedite a resolution, but it is also important to maintain the integrity and security of the network while these individuals or groups are connected (collaborating).

Dorado Software's Redcell 7 Synergy (RC Synergy) facilitates Secure Collaboration. Who (individual or group) and how (what parameters of a network) may be "viewed and shared" among "collaborators" are pre-determined by an administrator upon installation of RC Synergy. These "pre-set" parameters may be changed on-the-fly by an administrator if and when the need arises. With RC Synergy, it has never been easier to "connect" those individuals within an organization to collaborate (socialize) their knowledge to resolve network issues. Further, it is a simple process  to pre-determine network access rights and views and change those rights and views as necessary.

Yes, collaboration and security do, and must, coexist! We'd love to hear about your challenges with secure collaboration - please check out RC Synergy, and contact us today! info@doradosoftware.com

Thanks!

By this time in the social media game pretty much anybody who's anybody has a couple different profiles.  You've got your Facebook, pictures on Flickr, or yFrog for your Twitter profile, etc... but you probably find the most legit one to be your LinkedIn profile.  This one houses your work history, resume, and your colleague/friend recommendations. LinkedIn does house the world's largest professional network on the Internet with more than 100 million members in over 200 countries and territories. It's where you're going to be friends with your boss and your college roommate without any qualms.

LinkedIn really gained its popularity with recent college grads posting up their resumes, but with each request to "join my LinkedIn network," it's popularity has spread. Now there's 100 million plus professionals around the world vying to be in your network.  These 100 million plus are also conversing on a day to day basis, most popularly in LinkedIn's Groups feature.  

LinkedIn groups allow you to start or join a professional conversation.  Think forum for your profession.  With member-generated discussion, hear thier ideas, problems, solutions and simple chit chat.  You do have to weed through it a bit but once you do, it's nothing but a gem of social media interaction at its finest!

So - in the spirit of offering up free resources from the platform which is the world's hottest new IPO - here are our first Top 5 Groups that address network management and service provider resources. Submitted by our very own Dorado Software staff:

Network Management Systems (NMS)

The purpose of this group is to provide a networking forum for operators, solution providers and integrators who are involved or interested in the activities related to the operation and management of cellular and fixed-line telecommunications networks.

IT Infrastructure Management (ITIM) Professionals

We welcome all ITIM professionals, CIO's, CTO's, Tech Heads, IT / EDP Managers, System & Network Administrators & all others who are involved in the IT Infrastructure (Network) setup Planning, Designing, Implementing, Testing, Maintaining & above all involved in IT equipment procurement procedures.

Telecom Executives Business Network

Telecom Executives Business Network is for professionals working within the telecommunications industry. The focus of the group is on building an executive business network that can help foster the growth and networking of members as well as the entire telecommunication industry. Wireless or fixed.

CISCO CERTIFIED

Over 15K+ members and growing fast! Anyone who is Cisco Certified (CCENT, CCNA, CCNP, CCIP, CCSP, CCVP, CCDP, CCDE, CCIE) is encouraged to join this group. Focused on bringing together anyone working or associated with the Cisco networking field.

Network Operations Collaboration Group

Information Technology & Network Operators discuss employing Web 2.0 Collaboration techniques. Open to all, started by members of Dorado Software. Discuss the converging multi-vendor networks that underpin today’s Clouds (Private & Public), Datacenters and Service Provider core networks.


So keep a look out for our next top 5!


In the meantime, to learn more Network Management Systems (NMS and EMS)s, Service Provider Solutions, IT Infrastructure Management and more, just start up a conversation in our LinkedIn group.  We're also at doradosoftware.com

Remember that old adage about "the only constant in the universe is change?" Well one of the great things about working at a software company is - and in the network infrastructure management space to be exact - is that this industry is change on steroids.

Case in point: one of our global strategic partners, Symantec. Not too long ago Symantec acquired Altiris, which is why for awhile we called that component of our software the "Symantec-Altiris" solution. After awhile people started dropping the "Altiris," which is fine except there are many enterprises who have built their entire network around this solution.
Enter Symantec SMP (Symantec Management Platform) 7.1 - and with it, the Dorado Software integration component. What's the difference? For starters, Dorado's Redcell v7 (RC7) platform works with SMP 7.1 (NS7.1) to give you visibility into your network and storage infrastructure - specifically, informing you how the network is affecting applications, servers and clients.

The combined solution delivers the power of applications, systems, multi- vendor network and storage assets, inventory, configuration, and connectivity knowledge - all from within the SMP. 

RC 7 Synergy brings unprecedented power to collaborate. Team members can solve problems faster, better, together.

To see a demo of RC7 and Symantec in action together, please contact:
symantec@doradosoftware.com

or visit our website, www.doradosoftware.com

Maybe not a giant surprise, at least to people who work in the industry. What IS a surprise (to me, at least) is the incredible pace of growth, even in "global recessionary conditions". So this incredible growth of pace is BEAUTIFUL news for Dorado Software customers, partners and resellers: A continued affirmation of our strategy and commitment to supporting the growth of the planet's global IT mobility infrastructure.

For example: Today, Ingram CEO Greg Spierkel told a crowd of 350 solution providers at the VentureTech Spring Invitational conference in Chicago that Ingram's "focus into 2011 and beyond lies in cloud computing, mobility and data center solutions" (full disclosure: Ingram is a Dorado Software reseller). In addition to the focus on the cloud and mobility, Spierkel said, "Last year the overall IT market through distribution increased 14 percent in North America. Those are numbers we haven't seen in the market in a long time." He also said a corporate refresh of more traditional IT solutions is also helping solution providers and that should continue too - and believes we're about two-thirds through a significant IT purchasing cycle that should last another six months to a year.

• Global mobile data traffic grew 2.6-fold in 2010, nearly tripling for the third year in a row. The 2010 mobile data traffic growth rate was higher than anticipated. Last year's forecast projected that the growth rate would be 149 percent. This year's estimate is that global mobile data traffic grew 159 percent in 2010.

• Global mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015. Mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 92 percent from 2010 to 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes per month by 2015.

We encourage you to check out the eye-opening Cisco report. And if you're looking for bleeding-edge software to manage your network, we encourage you to ask us about Redcell.

New Redcell "Synergy" Version 7: The Powerful New Tool To Manage Your Network Infrastructure

One of the amazing things about working in the field of network management software is the constant state of change. We're not talking about "gee, it's raining today so I better wear a jacket" type of change. We're talking break-neck, full-throttle adaptation to changes in carrier ethernet, mobile backhaul and Long Term Evolution (LTE) for service provider environments.

So it's no surprise that our ingenious gnomes here at Dorado Software have been working like crazy to bring out the newest version of Redcell infrastructure management: Redcell Synergy (RC7). Here are a few things you can do if you see a demo of the newest version of Redcell network management software:

1. Comprehensive Security


2. Customizable Alarms

Today we're going to be talking Redcell. While comparisons are nice (and we ALWAYS encourage people who are considering network infrastructure management software to do comparisons!) it's also good to just straight-up answer the question: "Why should I consider buying this product??"

When it comes to mission-critical infrastructure - network or otherwise - the folks running it are necessarily and understandably risk-averse. We wouldn't want it any other way. After all, do we want people to consider sloppy network management solutions for our phone company or airline? At the same time, the quickly evolving nature today's networked world makes it impossible to simply ignore change. At Dorado Software, that's a big part of what we do - help our customers manage network infrastructure change.

Gone are the days of manually running all but the smallest IT networks using hardware from just 1 vendor. Instead, a must-do requirement of any network management or monitoring software should be to be able to manage more than 1 vendor. And to be able to deploy automated network management. We encourage you do do yourself a favor: Save yourself a drive down to the server rack at 2am!

Some of the biggest network concerns center around network security. Especially with prominent equipment vendors such as Cisco. Here are some examples of what Redcell has when it comes to security and fault management:
Regardless of what tool you use, these are functions your current network management software should be able to perform. We encourage you to check out Redcell.

Managing Next-Generation Service Provider Networks 

"Software as a Service." "Cloud computing." "Virtualization." By now we're probably all-too familiar with the terms of the day. But with regards to converging IT technologies - routers, switches, media gateways, media servers, etc - as we ride this technology wave we can sometimes we can miss the forest for the trees. The reality is, technological miracles are happening every hour of every day. Tonight, we'll see the latest entry: IBM's Watson Supercomputer will take on Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in "a landmark test of artificial intelligence."

Yup, that's right. 2 of the word's Jeopardy champs will be taking on a computer. This is an encore to the match in 1997, when IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated chess world champion Gary Kasparoff. One of my theories is that these days, most of us are so used to seeing technology perform miracles that we're pretty jaded. When something amazing comes along, sometimes it's hard to spot because the reality is, if you live in New York, Tokyo or London, you're surrounded by The Amazing every single  day. If you have any doubts, think about the technology it takes to build and operate a single passenger airplane. Not only that, but the average new high-end car has more lines of code than an advanced jet fighter. That's amazing. Consider this tidbit courtesy of Robert Charrotte, IEEE Spectrum Magazine:

Wow. All that power. But whether in Watson, the plane you fly on,  the car sitting in your driveway, or the network you operate - all can be for naught without best-in-class network software. Obviously, when it comes to network infrastructure management I am biased towards our own network management software: Redcell. But whatever solution you are looking at, the software should able to do the following:

One of the awesome things about working with network infrastructure management software is that we can see our products produce real results in the real world! And one of the most gratifying things in any business is seeing continued, happy customers. In that regard, we'd like to express our appreciation to Boeing.

In 2008 Dorado Software was honored to be chosen by Boeing Advanced Systems to manage a high-speed electrical network that connects The Boeing Laboratory Network and real-time flight simulation centers throughout the United States.



Designed to help automate network operations and reduce management costs, the solution was chosen to provide a a single unified view for configuration management, health and performance monitoring, compliance identification and auditing, troubleshooting, and software patching of its multi-vendor network environment which includes equipment from Cisco and Juniper. Some key functions that Redcell delivers are deep system discovery, inventory management and reporting, device configuration, health management, remote access and control, software patching & provisioning, and topology views.

I don't know many things, but one thing I know for sure is: Network stability is an absolute "must-have" requirement in today's hyper-networked world. That's why Dorado Software is trusted to run some of the most mission-critical data centers you can imagine. Examples include the areas of energy, telecommunications and finance to name a few. And we are active in more than 60 countries around the world.

But what if you're not Boeing? What about the smaller and medium-sized Enterprise? We have products to address your needs too. Because no matter what your area - or size - we understand all of our customers are mission-critical. Security. Storage Management. Carrier Ethernet. Long Term Evolution (LTE). You name it. No matter what your challenge odds are we've met it.

We invite you to see a demo of what the new Redcell can do for you.

Anyone who has television knows Cisco has been ramping it up lately, especially if you made it to the recent Las Vegas CES (Consumer Electronics Show). Since we at Dorado Software are Global Strategic Partners with Cisco, now seems like a great time to share some of our software solutions specifically made for Cisco.

Dorado Software's Redcell ASWAN Solution offers Service Providers a unified Network-Based security service management solution for creating, provisioning, and managing VRF-Aware IPSec VPN and virtual Firewall Services on Cisco 7200/7301, Cisco7600 and Cisco 12k series. The management solution provisions site-to-site and remote access IPSec and GRE VPNs and supports configuration of both site-to-site Virtual Firewall and Internet Offload with URL Filtering.

• Integrated service and network management - Consolidate and automate operations of heterogeneous network and service management with a single graphical console. Saves time, training, and errors.
• Transaction-based, flow-through automated provisioning - improves service activation and decrease errors associated with manual tasks.
• Inherently offers infrastructure lifecycle management functions including: deep discovery and device resynchronization, inventory view, group management, active and discrete configuration, global configuration file management, topology, monitoring, and reporting on everything.
• Enables on-demand adjustments to security, Quality of Service (QoS) and other services and policies for subscribers, with the option of empowering customers to control their own broadband experience.
• Technically certified by nSite and available today for Cisco customers, resellers, and field organization

If you would like to find out more about Advanced Security Services Configuration for Service Providers, you can speak to a live person by calling toll free at +1 888-939-9959 or by visiting us at http://www.doradosoftware.com

Imagine a tool that can discover and automate your network and storage environment - all from your existing Symantec Management Console.

The Redcell Integration Component for Symantec Altiris Solutions is a Symantec-certified solution that lets you gain unprecedented knowledge and control of you complete IT infrastructure, even in a multi-vendor environment - all within your Symantec Altiris NS system.




The integrated solution provides the combined power of application, systems, network & storage asset, inventory, configuration and connectivity knowledge - all from within the Symantec Management Console & in the Altiris CMDB.

Specifically, Redcell lets users find, configure and monitor multi-vendor networking & storage environments. Redcell is easy-to-implement, easy-to-use, and easy-to-maintain - providing you with the visibility and control needed to maintain and control a healthy data center.

You can see it for yourself with a free trial. Not up for the free trial? Check out the PDF data sheet (no registration required).

> Free Evaluation Software | Redcell with Symantec Altiris Integration.

> Data Sheet  | Redcell with Symantec Altiris Integration


INTERFACE SUPPORT

Let's talk Dell. One of the nice things about Dell is they provide lots of resources for people who buy their products, especially in the B2B space. And one of those resources is - you guessed - it... us!

A Dell ISV certified product, Redcell System Commander provides integration of Dell OpenManage(tm) hardware management functionality for Dell PowerEdge Servers and Blade platforms. In addition to Dell infrastructure (switches, servers, blades, and printers) there are affordable upgrades to extend management to any other device you have in your datacenter.

So just what do you get with an affordable upgrade? Real power to manage configuration and change of your network with any SNMP-enabled device! Redcell from Dorado Software provides the following:

   * WMI/CIM monitoring and configuration support for any server or sytem running Windows XP, Windows 2000 Server, or Windows Server 2003, Redhat ES Linux V4, V5, SuSe Linux 9,10, ESX 3.x (VMWare)
    * SNMP monitoring for systems supporting SNMP v1/v2/v3
    * Syslog message monitoring
    * IPMI monitoring for systems with a IPMI v1.5 or later compatible BMC (Applicable to 8G and 9G servers)
    * Hardware and OS patch provisioning on managed Windows systems
    * Deep integration of hardware and OS patch provisioning

Operating Environments for installation

    * Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, 2003
    * Sun Solaris 9, 1
    * Redhat ES Linux v4
    * SUSE Linux v10

Database

    * Embedded database or Oracle 9i, 10G, 10GRAC

Interface Support

    * SNMPv1/v2/v3; CLI: Telnet/SSH, XML/SOAP/Web services, CIM/WMI/WBEM,HTTP/S

What all this boils down to is Systems management strategies that addresses the leading systems management vendors in the industry to devise flexible solutions based on open standards and a philosophy of integration. Our approach enables you to bring efficiency to your entire IT environment — now and in the future — without building a patchwork quilt of incompatible proprietary management products.

IT infrastructures are a collection of disparate and converging products, yet all of these technologies must be configured and monitored to ensure viability of mission-critical applications and services.

Deploying, configuring and managing a variety of complex voice and data devices from the same vendor - let alone multiple vendors - is a daily battle that challenges even the most experienced administrator. No matter what software solution you decide to use for managing complex services and automating your network, there are some key tasks you should be able to perform:

Operational Solutions
• Pro-Active Monitoring
• Task Automation
• Configuration Management
• Deployment/Configuration
• CMDB-Based Inventory
• Auditing of Assets
• Change & Compliance Management
• Update & Patch
• Automated Remediation, Configuration, Disaster Recovery
• Application Provisioning & Deployment
• Service Provisioning: VPN/Firewall/VLAN/MPLS
• Reporting

Integration from a Single Suite (common services):
• Discovery
• Resynchronization
• Topology
• Database Services
• Data Archiving
• Scheduling
• Auditing and Logging
• Group Operations
• CMDB
• Event Monitoring



Advanced Carrier and Enterprise-class management of elements such as of L2/L3 MPLS should also be covered, especially for a service provider or large enterprise. Redcell™ does all of this, and is a cost-effective and straightforward solution to automate your IT operations. From one console: find all your IT assets and all their subcomponents; how they are connected to each other; automates device configuration; and monitors the health, availability, and performance of your networked environment.

You can visit the Dorado Software website or email us at: info@doradosoftware.com for more information about automating IT operations - plus get tips on effective network configuration and service provisioning.

How nice would it be to have 1 common interface... A single GUI, not a bunch of different tools... for everything?

One aspect of network management: Inventory/deep discovery. This is something that on the surface sounds simple, but really is the foundation for everything else that takes place in your network. For example, "How are my devices configured?" or "How are my services provisioned?" You can't begin to fix a system or process that's broken without knowing first what you have.

Discovery also happens to be something that Redcell is really good at. It helps to be able to find various open management interfaces (like SNMPv1/v2/v3, Telnet, SSH, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SFTP and SCP). And to be able to find subcomponents, supported management information bases (MIBs) and Ethernet link information. This provides you with access to vital, in-depth network and connectivity data.

Now you can proceed with inventory discovery, event management, advanced scheduling and extensive device configuration management. You can also access physical, geographical and logical topology, security management, group management and performance monitoring... all with 1 single tool, not a hodge-podge of tools that may not work well together.



Service Providers such as AT&T and Telekom Malaysia already know the power of Redcell. For the uninititated, you can receive a free demo to see for yourself - or go head-to-head in a scenario with Redcell vs. any competitor. Check out the platform that was recently selected by Etisilat to support services for their 100m+ customers.

If you work with an Enterprise or Government agency, you can try Redcell free of charge in a 14-day trial or even request an extended license from us. Companies like Boeing Advanced Systems use Redcell for infrastructure management.

Lastly, Manufacturers such as Dell trust Redcell. Dorado Software has a long history of creating OEM element management systems (EMS) for leading manufacturers. Our flexible approach can get you up and running in a matter of weeks and provides you with the ultimate branding potential.

At any time  - we invite you to check out the tools because we honestly believe they are the best tools on earth - especially for complex, next-generation networks. One thing we've seen time and time again: Power users get it.

Service Provider Demo  |  Enterprise 14-Day Trial

We here at Dorado Software had a great time at Cisco Live and thoroughly enjoyed the virtual experience at the Cisco Live & Networkers Virtual website at http://www.ciscolive.com/virtual/. Not only does it represent a great portal to the Cisco conference, it is a valuable ongoing cache of information from Cisco events all year long. From Cisco management to network traffic analysis and more, it's there in the virtual site. We are pleased to be a part of the virtual event (you can find our booth in the “exhibitors” section) and look forward to the growth and evolution of this great tool. If you haven’t joined already, please do (it’s free) and spend some time perusing all that happened at the recent Cisco Live event in Las Vegas.

One thing that particularly struck us during the event was the interest in our “Light Reading” material and especially the Customer Success write-ups that were posted on the site. One of these success stories, following the Dorado Software implementation at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations, is a great example of how our solutions can help organizations garner more control over expansive, growing and dynamic networks.

The main challenges in this success story are managing change within a converging, multi-vendor IT network management infrastructure, reducing manual processes and errors and reducing disparate tools all under a tight budget. The key benefits that Dorado provides in answer to these challenges are a single management interface for a multi-vendor network, automated management of the end-to-end infrastructure, granular inventory and change management and easy and affordable scalability.

We are happy with the ability to get the word out about our award-winning solutions and look forward to additional opportunities within the Cisco networking world to showcase our solutions. Stay tuned for more!

In a world where we're quickly embracing facebook instead of class reunions, instant messages instead of phone calls, and streaming videos instead of book learning a virtual event or tradeshow is the future of industry networking.  Besides, its just plain fun.  You can connect with peers you never would've had a chance to get infront of.  There's easy, on demand access to keynotes, technical sessions and documention all on a social network platform.  All the best features of a physical event from the comfort of you own cube!

Embracing this trend in its early stages, Dorado Software had the opportunity to participate in Cisco Live and Networkers Virtual Event.  The largest virtual event in the tech space featuring premier education and training programs attracting thousands of technical innovators.

After setting up your profile you can peruse virtual booths, start live chats with booth exhibitors and other attendees, or lounge in common areas or play team games.  It's a far easier and commitment free way to get more from an event.  If you're looking for the best network monitoring software, start a blog.  You'll have an educated community to comment, post and discuss. 

Dorado Software is striving to lead the next wave in infrastructure management software, but we're also following that strategy in networking world as well.  Having the opportunity to participate in the latest trend for a 2nd year in a row established a love for virtual events.  You have innovation at your fingertips with out having to spend your travel budget.  The best things about the Cisco Networkers Virtual Event is that the content stays live for a year.  So after the hype of the live portion of the virtual event is over, you can save your favorites relive them again and again.  It's so fun and easy, you wouldn't even want to call it work.  This trend is only going to get stronger and soon you'll be seeing all your favorite physical trade show and events going the virtual route as well.

You too can have free access to this event at http://www.ciscolivevirtual.com.  Be sure to stop by the Dorado Software booth!

In an earlier post we announced the release of Dorado’s Redcell V6 Service Studio. In this post we briefly drill down into the Discovery aspect of V6 Service Studio and it's contribution to Dorado's enterprise network monitoring software.

In a nutshell, Service Studio Discovery enables our customers and partners to quickly and effectively define and implement tasks to discover pre-existing services from the network or other sources such as device configuration files. This also permits importing service data in various formats including CSV and XML, or live from the network using CLI based show commands.

The discovery aspect of Service Studio works in concert with service definitions to persist and represent the discovered services in inventory. In other management systems, this ability to parse the network, discover existing services and bring that information back into the system typically requires teams of professional services. Dorado customers and partners can use a graphical interface with very little (to no) additional programming to quickly accomplish what used to be a large effort.

The two screenshots below show the GUI for the Service Discovery Profile Settings and an example of discovery via configuration files. This example exhibits Cisco management capabilities although the same features can apply to Juniper management and countless other brands of infrastructure equipment. Two important facets of Service Studio and the improved discovery capabilities inherent in the system.

Dorado Software, Inc. (http://doradosoftware.com), a leading provider of infrastructure and service management software, today announced the availability of  Redcell v6 Service Studio, the revolutionary new creation platform to deploy IP services without having to worry about the underlying network infrastructure. Redcell Service Studio offers an intuitive, feature-rich toolset to model custom network services that span equipment from one or more vendors. Dorado Software will showcase Redcell Service Studio, in addition to the Redcell suite of Resource, Service and Health/ Performance management products, in booth 18 at the TM Forum, May 18-20th at the Acropolis Congress Center in Nice, France..

With increasing competitive pressures, service providers must react quickly to reduce churn, improve time-to-market and realize new revenues. Historically, due to network complexity, new services were rolled out manually by operations teams, leading to slow, error-prone deployments. Redcell Service Studio eliminates these issues and also the long development cycles typically required to deploy custom services, enabling service providers to get new services to market quicker than ever before.

With Redcell Service Studio, service providers can model any service type from end-to-end or in part, including FTTx, mobile backhaul, Ethernet, LTE and Multi-media. Additionally, this toolset empowers service providers to implement modifications to their network services as their business evolves over time, without incurring huge development costs or incurring prohibitive supplier lead times.

The automation capabilities provided by the Redcell Service Studio frees the service provider to concentrate on rapid content delivery instead of coding infrastructure to integrate into the Redcell suite of monitoring, resource and service management products. A service definition built with Redcell Service Studio is automatically part of Redcell's inventory and is therefore exposed during runtime for discovery, reporting, monitoring, provisioning (activation), and graphical topology views.

The Redcell Service Studio enables the following aspects of the service:

Service Definition: Model the service's schema, define the GUI behavior for data entry, and define the tasks as a workflow to perform provisioning and diagnostics.

Discovery Definition: Define and implement tasks to discover pre-existing services from the network or other sources such as device configuration files. This also permits importing service data in various formats including CSV and XML, or live from the network using CLI based show commands.

Pool Definition: Define network resource pools for IP address allocation or VLAN ID allocation for example, to automate service data entry and ensure that IDs that must be globally unique for service endpoints are never assigned overlapping values.

In combination with Redcell's Device Driver Software Development Kit, The Redcell Device Driver Factory, virtually "any service" for "any device" can be added to Redcell Service Center. Since time to market is critical, the Redcell Service Studio toolset hands control of network service rollout back to the service provider, enabling them to meet their business objectives and customer obligations without external dependencies..

We were just perusing the collection of white papers on the Dorado Software website  and ran across a great write-up regarding lights-out IT Management. If you haven’t seen the actual white paper, you can get it here.

In a nutshell, Lights-Out IT Management is the ability to provide automated remediation including event, configuration, service level and security management in an unattended environment. This helps move IT resources further up the food chain – being able to provide value-add services to the enterprise instead of maintaining the “status quo”.

Lights-Out IT Management also covers the trifecta of IT responsibilities:

• Find – Automatic discovery of all IT infrastructure elements
• Configure – Automatically configure a service and IT infrastructure elements – especially the rote configurations
• Monitor – Maintain a highly-intelligent infrastructure monitoring scheme including Network Availability Management and WAN monitoring.

When implementing Lights-Out IT Management, the major tactical benefits fall into these categories:

• Configuration Management – Reduce / eliminate manual configuration – especially rote configurations
• Event Management – Monitoring events for conditions that may lead to a fault. Proactively take remediation measures.
• Service Level Management – Ensure SLAs are being met and feed violations to a fault management component
• Security Management – Ensure security policies are not being violated.

By converting manual network tasks into automated routines, an IT department can move resources towards customer-facing services and create more value for the enterprise. Automated management tools should be able to handle these tasks:

• An integrated system that supports find, configure and monitor functions
• Support for customizable user interface
• Multi-vendor, multi-element, multi-domain support
• Service-level awareness and reporting
• Support for virtualized environments
• Support for physical and logical network topologies and root cause analysis
• Integrated functionality across the Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, Security (FCAPS) model and Service Level Management
• The ability to assist in the rapid creation and/or modification of a service
• Support of a sophisticated CMDB
• A high degree of automation within each function and across functions
• Ease of integration with other network management tools

Of course, Dorado software is a prime candidate for these operations and can help an IT department realize improved efficiencies and higher levels of service.

A sampling of other white papers at the Dorado website:

Impact of Carrier Ethernet on Service Providers

The Complete Network Assessment

The One Hour Network Assessment

Several months ago we put together a presentation on Network Change & Configuration Management that had some pretty cool nuggets. It was spearheaded by our own Mike Grote, Dorado Software's VP of Product Management.

Regardless of what systems or procedures you decide to choose for running your own network, there are 3 attributes that every NCCM system should deliver. To wit:

1. Complete visibility of your IT environment
    (including automated discovery of devices, interfaces AND connectivity
2. Flexible yet controlled configuration options
    (this sounds contradictory, but what it really means is that the system should provide multiple configuration options that best suit your own individual processes because every network is unique)
3. Proactive Change Detection, Analysis, Remediation and Reporting
    (in other words detecting any changes in your network ought to be easy, accurate & automatic)


Mike also put together a nice illustration of the entire NCCM life cycle. Again - regardless of the solution you choose for your own infrastructure management solution - here is what the NCCM life cycle generally looks like:

• Deep Discovery
• Inventory
• Deploy & Configure
• Service Enablement
• Update & Patch
• Change Detection & Compliance
• > and back to Deep Discovery

It is even better when you can automate these functions. The entire 35-minute webcast presentation - along with free trials of Redcell for Enterprise - are available at Dorado Software's website. We hope this information helps as you plan the next generation of your infrastructure!

*Note: Dorado Software's Redcell suite of network management products are trusted some of the largest, most mission-critical infrastructures on Earth. These include AT&T, British Telecom, Telekom Malaysia and Boeing Advanced Systems. To learn more or request a demo of Redcell please contact us.