IBM Tivoli Netcool Configuration Manager (ITNCM) helps data center and networking staff to discover, visualize, detect, configure and activate the network.

ITNCM consists of two servers: an application server and a database server. The application server is made up of a Web Start graphical user interface (GUI) and web-based HTML interface. The Web Start GUI provides access to the queue manager, resource browser and system and archive manager. The web-based HTML interface provides access to the account management interface, process and policy; audits for each network device; and controls what changes a user can make.

ITNCM manages business recovery compliance with device configuration backups in order to meet IBM security compliance. It’s a network solution that enables network-driven organizations to improve visibility, control and automation over their networks and services. ITNCM provides network automation solutions for multi-vendor devices such as routers, switches, hubs and firewalls for Cisco, Juniper and IBM Blade Network Technologies (BNT).

This diagram demonstrates the product features of ITNCM. As a network person, I use ITNCM in my data center, where it helps with backup configuration, configuration restoration, bulk configuration, synchronization and security policy.

What is the impact when your network is down?

The impact of a down network can be severe, resulting in a loss of revenue and customer dissatisfaction. It is imperative to avoid network outages. However, if one does occur, quickly restore the network to full capacity.

Why is ITNCM the answer to your network complexity challenges?

1. It tracks every change, on every device.
2. It pushes out complex network changes and verifies each change.
3. It controls who can access what device and what commands and parameters they can use.
4. It builds effective change authorization workflows.
5. It builds a comprehensive backup of all network devices.
6. It enables recovery through rollback to a previous state without any impact to the service.
7. Automation of configuration management, which can automate device backup and restore
8. Compliance management, which can monitor and enforce the policy that meet corporate best practices
9. Service provisioning and activation, which use ITNCM for the provisioning and activation of network services

Where can ITNCM be applied to drive value quickly?

1. Automation of configuration management, which can automate device backup and restore
2. Compliance management, which can monitor and enforce the policy that meet corporate best practices
3. Service provisioning and activation, which use ITNCM for the provisioning and activation of network services

Netcool Product Suites

The following diagram shows how ITNCM works when you make changes on any device.

What is ITNM-IP?

IBM Tivoli Network Manager IP Edition (ITNM-IP) helps with network discovery, visualization, device monitoring and root cause. It consists of network discovery, polling, topology storage, event enrichment, root cause analysis, event virtualization and reporting.

ITNM-IP consists of a web application and object server. The web application runs GUI from different Tivoli products. GUI includes the topology virtualization, event virtualization, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), reporting, network discovery and polling. The ObjectServer is the database server of OMNIbus. The OMNIbus correlates and stores alert information from other Netcool components, such as probes and monitors.

What are the benefits of integrating ITNCM and ITNM-IP?

The combination of these products helps monitor the data networks and alerts you to any issues. We use both products in our data center to monitor our network for all sites in the US, including IBM Watson computers. The plan is to monitor all CSI-IT labs globally.

I’d like to share an example of the benefits of using ITNCM and ITNM-IP in our data center. We had a core hardware failure in RTP, and network admins were notified immediately. When the core went down, all the distributed and access switches went down and no one could access any of the labs. We were able to get a module replacement for that core. Once the core was up, all devices connected to it were up as well. Due to that value, we are implementing ITNCM and ITNM-IP for all CSI-IT labs.

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