Network Performance Report

Much is in the news lately concerning advances in Carrier Ethernet technology. Network infrastructure build-out is continuing at a rapid pace on every continent, with some of the biggest growth taking place in the Middle East and Africa. In addition, domestic U.S. service provider infrastructure continues to grow as the insatiable consumer demand for more services such as video, apps and on-demand media content (at ever faster speeds) seems to know no bounds. For example, Light Reading has reported that Comcast will soon be rolling out their new Metro Ethernet service in over 20 major U.S. markets.

Business and governments are also growing their infrastructure at a dizzying pace. What a lot of people don't know is that technologies such as Ethernet and MPLS are also applicable for environments in enterprise and government as well as Service Providers. Because network bandwidth needs are growing at every level - from individuals using tablets and smartphones to increasingly robust Service Level Agreements (SLAs) at the carrier level - managing network change and unified communications is a more complex task than ever before.

Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks are an attractive alternative for providing Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to your customers. Deploying a variety of IP VPN services in a multi-vendor environment is still challenging, however. Configuring VPN appliances individually for each account limits the scope of services you can offer and the number of clients you can handle. To stay competitive, you must find a way to automate the configuration of VPNs so they can be deployed fast, while still guaranteeing configuration accuracy in order to attain the top VPN performance your customers demand.



The Redcell MPLS Infrastructure Management Solution is a flexible tool that allows you to deploy all types of MPLS-based IP VPN services including Layer 3, Layer 2, and VPLS. Redcell handles the entire lifecycle of VPN services from initial configuration and deployment to daily administration and maintenance, as well as availability and performance monitoring.

If you'd like to learn out more, please email us at info@doradosoftware.com or contact us through our web form.
Thanks for reading!

"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.

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.

What to do if you're managing Cisco? The first thing to do is research the tools that are out there. Redcell Service Provider Solutions for Cisco provide an integrated network and service management for Cisco advanced technologies. They provide a solid foundation so you can build successful and scalable service offerings for next generation security, Ethernet, VPN and other services, delivering the level of service and range of options your customers expect. With visibility across the network and powerful management tools, Redcell enables you to guarantee availability and performance-and when service level agreements are not being met, Redcell alerts you to proactively solve problems before they impact end-users.

You can capitalize on your Cisco advanced technologies, such as network-based security services, MPLS VPNs, VRF-aware IPSec VPNs, virtual firewall services and more.

*  Service Policies - Centralized Service Allocation & Provisioning for
          o Service/Security Policies
          o Resource Classes
          o ACL
          o NAT/ PAT/ Static NAT
          o URL Filtering
          o Firewall Inspection/ context changes
          o IPSec/ ISAKMP VPNs/ GRE tunnels
          o Remote Access/ EZ-VPN

    * Security Service Provisioning
          o VRF-Aware IPSec Service Configuration
          o Virtual Firewall Service Configuration
          o VRF-Aware Service Interface (VASI)

    * OSS Integration & Web Portal
          o Web services, XML Data Format/SOAP Envelope, Web Services Description Languate (WSDL), API definition, Request/response semantics, Application authentication, SSL secure transmission

    * Support for Cisco
          o 7200/7301: IOS 12.4(4)T1
          o 7600/Cat6500: IOS 12.2(18)SXE4
          o GSR XR 12000: IOS-XR 3.5






















Service Providers can now get 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.

Lastly, there is the the Cisco IP SLA solution from Dorado Software. Don't just look at your IP SLA data, use Redcell's Cisco IP SLA Monitor and start saving your IP SLA data. The Redcell Cisco IP SLA Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool that lets you quickly troubleshoot network issues with quick notifications, thresholding on metrics and flexible reporting.

In any event - if you're working with Cisco, Dorado Software has you covered!

Problem! Service Providers lose millions of dollars annually because of poor processes during the provisioning process. 

The Dorado Software downloads section is a quality repository of solution notes, data sheets, white papers and podcasts that cover a wide variety of topics. From drill-down information regarding Dorado’s suite of network management tools to the latest information on LTE and 4G and enterprise network management, our downloads section contains some great reading.

Two of the white papers that we regularly refer to are titled “The Complete Network Assessment” and “The One-Hour Network Assessment”. These documents lay out a clear path on how an enterprise IT organization can quickly and effectively perform network assessments and provide subsequent reporting. Below is an excerpt form “The Complete Network Assessment”. To download the complete white papers, free of charge, follow this link.

“The only thing constant in the network world is change. The network is in place to
support mission-critical applications that are constantly being updated with needs for new protocols, services, or greater bandwidth. Network assessment is vital to the health of any network as well as a key tool in identifying underutilized or out-of-date resources. A complete network assessment can identify elements in your network that are in need of an upgrade or replacement and elements in your network that can fulfill service or growth needs. Network assessment could be an easy task if network elements were all from a single vendor, in a single room, and managed by the same person. The fact is, though, that this is seldom the case.”

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