pm platform functional overview 14 nsn

Nokia Siemens Networks

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Open EMS Suite by Nokia

Performance Management Platform Functional Overview Version 1.4

Performance Management Platform

2 (16) Nokia Siemens Networks

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and describes only the product defined in the introduction of this documentation. This documentation is intended for the use of Nokia Siemens Networks customers only for the purposes of the agreement under which the document is submitted, and no part of it may be used, reproduced, modified or transmitted in any form or means without the prior written permission of Nokia Siemens Networks. The documentation has been prepared to be used by professional and properly trained personnel, and the customer assumes full responsibility when using it. Nokia Siemens Networks welcomes customer comments as part of the process of continuous development and improvement of the documentation. The information or statements given in this documentation concerning the suitability, capacity, or performance of the mentioned hardware or software products are given as is and all liability arising in connection with such hardware or software products shall be defined conclusively and finally in a separate agreement between Nokia Siemens Networks and the customer. However, Nokia Siemens Networks has made all reasonable efforts to ensure that the instructions contained in the document are adequate and free of material errors and omissions. Nokia Siemens Networks will, if deemed necessary by Nokia Siemens Networks, explain issues which may not be covered by the document. Nokia Siemens Networks will correct errors in this documentation as soon as possible. IN NO EVENT WILL NOKIA SIEMENS NETWORKS BE LIABLE FOR ERRORS IN THIS DOCUMENTATION OR FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL OR ANY LOSSES, SUCH AS BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF PROFIT, REVENUE, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY OR DATA,THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE USE OF THIS DOCUMENT OR THE INFORMATION IN IT. This documentation and the product it describes are considered protected by copyrights and other intellectual property rights according to the applicable laws. The wave logo is a trademark of Nokia Siemens Networks Oy. Nokia is a registered trademark of Nokia Corporation. Siemens is a registered trademark of Siemens AG. Other product names mentioned in this document may be trademarks of their respective owners, and they are mentioned for identification purposes only. Copyright Nokia Siemens Networks 2007. All rights reserved.

Contents


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Contents

1 Introduction.......................................................................................... 5

2 Functionality of Performance Management Platform........................ 7 2.1 PM adaptation........................................................................................ 8 2.2 PM interfaces......................................................................................... 9 2.2.1 PM South and North Mediation Interfaces............................................ 10 2.2.2 PM Meta Access and PM Access Interfaces ........................................ 10 2.3 Measurement Collection Engine .......................................................... 11 2.4 Reporting Desktop ............................................................................... 12 2.5 PM threshold supervision..................................................................... 14 2.6 PM Taglib............................................................................................. 15 2.7 PM data cleanup.................................................................................. 16

Introduction


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1 Introduction The Open EMS Suite Performance Management Platform (PM Platform) provides an end-to-end solution for the extraction, loading, and reporting of PM measurement data. As a platform for Performance Management PM interfaces are crucial parts of the overall PM solution. They allow connection to the outside world and developing of own business logic in an effective and standard way. The multiplicity of network elements, variety of measurements for different purposes and short collection periods make high demands on the measurement collection system. Measurement Collection Engine is a highly available, cost-efficient, and scalable solution using IT industry standards. This minimizes the need for investments in hardware and in your own software development. Network element measurement data collection is regularly enhanced in new releases. This always requires an update of the element management system (EMS). Open EMS Suite provides a software development toolkit (SDK) for the efficient creation and maintenance of PM adaptations, which are responsible for adapting the suite to certain network elements. Automated supervision of PM data is an important functionality in reducing OPEX. Threshold Engine monitors PM data and sends alarms to the FM Platform. For troubleshooting and root-cause analysis it is vital to have an ad-hoc PM reporting possibility. There should be an easy way to create ad-hoc reports providing the necessary performance data of a network element in question. Reporting Desktop is a tool that provides an easy, intuitive way to create reports on PM data. Reporting Desktop is integrated into Desktop Framework, and ready for use without any further development. Web-based reporting has become a standard in many OSS areas. PM Taglib is an extension of Open EMS Suite Web Scripting solution that allows the integration of ad-hoc reporting on PM Basic data in your own web-based solution.



Figure 1 presents an overview of performance management.

Figure 1. Overview of performance management

In this very simplified overview of performance management domain main data flows and components are depicted. Measurements are collected from network elements directly or via an Element Management System (EMS) into the PM Platform database. In one way or the other PM data needs to be visualized to the end user to support network operation. The following chapters provide more details about the functionality of PM Platform. For more information on Open EMS Suite, see Open EMS Suite Product Description.

Functionality of Performance Management Platform


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2 Functionality of Performance Management Platform

The Open EMS Suite Performance Management Platform provides a strong framework for measurement collection and reporting solutions. An overview of the architecture is shown in Architectural overview of PM Platform.

Figure 2. Architectural overview of PM Platform

South and north mediation interfaces provide an easy way to import (load) or export PM data. Both are based on the Open Measurement Standard (OMeS) XML format. Platform independent XML format allows connection to any IT system.



Java programming interfaces PM Access and PM Metadata Access provide a comprehensive way of accessing PM data and metadata information for customized Java applications. The interfaces offer an abstract way to access PM data, independent of the actual database structure. Reporting Desktop is a ready made PM client integrated into Desktop Framework. Reporting Desktop provides off-the-shelf user interfaces allowing ad-hoc reporting. Threshold Desktop is a ready made PM client allowing the runtime configuration of PM thresholds PM Taglib is a JSP tag library supporting the creation of Web UIs with Web Scripting on top of PM Basic data. Measurement Collection Engine, Query Engine and Threshold Engine are high performance, highly scalable backend applications that are designed for Extraction, Transformation and Loading (ETL) jobs, queries and threshold supervision. Furthermore Data cleanup does its job in the background. Administration UIs are available for administrative tasks during runtime, namely configuration of Deletion Thresholds for data cleanup.

2.1 PM adaptation A PM solution must provide a simple and fast way of adapting to new network element (NE) types and releases. Basic support for measurements is expected from the day when the element is available. Refer to Adaptation Overview for more details on Adaptations in general. A PM adaptation in Open EMS Suite is a PM Basic support, measurements and counters, raw data received from the NE, and NE release support from day one. PM Basic fragment can be created and maintained in the Open EMS Suite Adaptation SDK or directly created in the O2ML metadata format. A Powerful editor is available in the SDK to ease the creation and maintenance of adaptations. A screenshot of the PM Basic Editor available in Adaptation SDK can be seen in Figure 3.



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Figure 3. PM Basic Editor

Syntax and plausibility checks are done automatically; relations to other fragments such as CM Basic can easily be created with PM Basic Editor. Once the adaptation is created with all relevant fragments it can be deployed with just one click to the OES server. Adaptation Manager and individual Deployment Controller for each fragment are responsible to deploy the O2ML fragments to the OES server. The PM adaptation process is designed for cutting costs in the development by reducing the time-to-market of necessary basic parts. They can be provided together with the network element or downloaded.

2.2 PM interfaces

Open EMS Suite PM Platform introduces two kinds of interfaces: South Mediation Interface and North Mediation Interface can

be used to import data into the PM Platform (South) or export data from the PM Platform (North). Both are based on the technology independent XML format.



PM Meta Access Interface and PM Access Interface can be used when developing own business logic on top of the PM Platform. They provide access to the PM data and metadata (Adaptations).

2.2.1 PM South and North Mediation Interfaces

Mediations communicate with the PM Platform via mediation interfaces. In practice, this is a directory structure, a filename convention, and an XML file format. Files can be imported and exported. In a typical PM data export cases there is not only one external system connected to the PM pipe but more. This requires that export configuration to those systems can be done separately. In addition, only the relevant data is exported, and the not-needed data is filtered out. PM North Mediation Interface provides several export pipes which can be configured to filter data separately. Filters can be applied to extract all adaptation data or more fine-grained individual measurement types.

2.2.2 PM Meta Access and PM Access Interfaces

For developing your own business logic on top of PM Platform it is crucial to have access to the PM data in an effective way. OSS through Java Initiative (OSS/J) standard help to cut development costs by harmonizing OSS interfaces. PM Meta Access Interface provides OSS/J common compliant Java access to the PM metadata of PM Basic Adaptation (i.e. measurement types). Metadata can be queried and written via OSS/J Java Value Type (JVT) session facades. PM Meta Access Interface also provides SQL Read access to the Metadata for non-Java clients. PM Access Interface provides Java access to PM Basic data (i.e. Measurements). Data can be queried on an abstract level and is given back as table data. PM Access Interface also provides SQL Read access to the PM data for non-Java clients.



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2.3 Measurement Collection Engine Measurement Collection Engine is an ETL (Extraction, Transformation & Loading) functionality that makes full use of the industry standard J2EE application server scalability. An overview of the ETL scalability is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Data insertion scalability

By adding hardware (either a CPU or server) data parsing and loading can be scaled up very cost-effectively. Measurement Collection Engine automatically detects on a load basis how many inserters have to be started and dispatches the incoming files accordingly. Each inserter opens its own JDBC connection to the database, making full use of a powerful database solution.

Fault tolerant data processing In telecommunication networks it may happen that PM data files contain faulty records because for example new network element releases are introduced in the network. Traditionally even one single faulty record lead the entire data file to be rejected from the ETL process which leads to data loss. Some data processing problems may occur only temporarily. For example missing Managed Object information may be caused by an



outstanding topology upload. Those temporarily problems need to be separated from permanent errors. Open EMS Suite Measurement collection engine introduces a so called best effort data insertion, where all valid records are inserted into the database and only the faulty records are collected in a separate file and rejected. Temporarily problematic records are separated into other files and automatically reloaded after for example one day.

Supervise data loading There is a risk that the data loading gets stuck because for example the disk system gets full or there are other problems in successfully processing the data. Since the measurement collection engine runs unattended in the background there is a user need to receive notifications in case of problems. Open EMS Suite Measurement Collection Engine supervises its own processing and sends alarms in case of problems. If for example the files queue up and are not processed anymore user gets an alarm and can start actions. The data insertion speed is a crucial measure of the Measurement collection. On one hand it indicates that system is working well, on the other hand it might already indicate upcoming problems. Open EMS Suite Measurement Collection Engine measures its own performance and reports it in a so called Self-PM Adaptation. Performance data is collected like any other network data and is available in the database. There is a Web report available that visualizes the Self-PM performance data in a glance.

2.4 Reporting Desktop Reporting Desktop is integrated into Desktop Framework and provides a graphical user interface to support creating ad-hoc reports on PM data. A typical view can be seen in Figure 5.



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Figure 5. Reporting Desktop sample

Reporting Desktop comes with the following tools: Report Wizard / Report Editor: Reports can be created and edited

Selection of counters from the available PM Basic metadata Selection of report dimension, typically time period. Selection of visualization properties, for example chart

and/or table visualization. Wizard guides through the individual steps of the report

creation After the initial creation the report can be edited individually

for the different selections via a context menu Report Explorer: Reports can be launched and managed



Report Explorer shows all available reports in a tree. Reports can be browsed and launched to be executed and shown in the Report Viewer

Reports can be managed, such as copying, deleting, moving, and organizing in Folders

Reports can be edited via context menus Report description can be shown

Report Viewer: Reports can be visualized Once a report is launched and executed the results are

visualized in the Report Viewer. Standard visualizations include charts and tables.

Report can be exported to Excel

Integration into other Desktop tools Reporting Desktop allows the creation of ad-hoc reports in the context of a selected Managed Object or Alarm visible in MOF Desktop or Monitoring Desktop (optional). The selected Managed Object is taken as an object selection for the new report. During the report creation only the relevant Measurement types for the Managed Object in question are displayed. This speeds up the ad-hoc report creation significantly. Managed Objects can also be incorporated into a report by Drag&Drop from MOF or Monitoring Desktop tools into Reporting Desktop tools.

2.5 PM threshold supervision PM threshold supervision is a vital part of a PM Platform solution. PM data collection is typically running unattended in the background. By supervising selected PM data values the user can be informed about network issues before the network elements raise their own alarms in case of failures. Open EMS Suite PM Threshold Engine is capable of supervising counters and creating alarms in case the threshold is exceeded. An example of a threshold definition is shown in Figure 6.



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Figure 6. Example of a threshold definition

In the example above a constant value is used to define the threshold. Once the value of the supervised counter exceeds the threshold value, an alarm is created. Threshold definitions are configured during runtime in a Desktop Tool. The following threshold definitions are supported: Selection of basic PI to be supervised Selection of time aggregation level, e.g. supervise a daily value. Selection of objects to be included in the supervision, i.e. limiting

the network element instances to be supervised (static object selection)

Supervision against a constant value, as in the example above

2.6 PM Taglib PM Taglib is a JSP tag library allowing the creation of Web UIs with Web Scripting on top of PM Basic data. These tags allow ad-hoc reporting on PM data. Main tags provided are: Tag to visualize PM Basic metadata (Measurement

Types/Indicators/Counters). Possibility to select one or several indicators.



Tag to visualize and select Managed Objects from Managed Object Framework

Tag to reuse the aforementioned selections to query PM Basic data for further visualization in Web Scripting. While reusing PM Access Interface capability there is no need to write own SQL for accessing the data.

2.7 PM data cleanup PM applications store data for various periods of time, depending on the product or customer. Regardless of how long the data gets stored, cleanup is a standard function for deleting unnecessary data from the database. Open EMS Suite PM Platform comes with a cleanup solution which is also based on J2EE. This allows scaling the cleanup in large network system configurations. Typically many measurements require a cleanup and possibility to delete data in parallel, to reallocate system resources as soon as possible for other more important jobs (like data insertion).

Deletion threshold configuration Storing periods (so called deletion thresholds) can be configured per measurement type. They can be configured during development with the Adaptation SDK or during runtime as an administrative task via a web interface.

pm platform functional overview 14 nsn

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