COGNOM PRODUCT PHILOSOPHY
Since the cornerstones that derive most organization is its I.T. capability, the Network operations infrastructure will play both an imminent and strategic prominence in supporting the organizational capability, competitive edge and sustainability..This is coupled with hyper-dynamics in technology, market players, innovations, customer focus, demand, customer’s shifts in the supply chain echelons, and other factors attributed with extreme dynamics. To deal with these, the Network Operations Management(NOM) infrastructure is equipped with a persistent, robust, reliable, agile, secure, and scalable information technology elements that integrates all the entities with the entire organizational value chain. Such as this Network Operations are constrained with multidimensional factors, and perspectives. Consequently, the design philosophy of CogNOM is anchored into a tradeoff of multi-perspective model, i.e. Ergonomics, Strategic, Quality, Financial, Customer, internal processes, organizational knowledge, organizational behavior, risks, technological perspectives … etc. Consequently, CogNOM is implemented using holistic problem solving approach where these multidimensional perspectives are balanced with an optimal equilibrium to implement the Network Operations Management infrastructure that quenches both the eminent and strategic requirements.

COGNOM PROMINENT FEATURES

• Basic NMS Features:
• Support for all versions of NetFlow, sFlow, IPFIX, and other traffic analysis protocols.
• Support for all SNMP versions.
• Support for SNMP Polling and Traps
• Support for SNMP set to automatically configure a device.
• Support for TR069 protocol.
  
• Support for advanced NetFlow statistical analysis using advanced statistical techniques and drilldown using slice and dice data traversing.
  
• Support for the auto-regulation of IP SLA
  
• Device Availability: Identifying the availability of a device, and defining reflection for unavailability. This can be achieved using ICMP ping of IP address or using SNMP agents.
  
• Interface Availability: Identifying the availability of a interface, and defining reflection for unavailability.
  
• Link Availability: Identifying the availability of a link, and defining reflection for unavailability.
  
• Bandwidth Utilization: Measuring the Bandwidth utilization, and defining reflection on the ccurrence of any anomaly.
  
• Link Performance: Measuring the performance of a given link, and defining reflection on the occurrence of any anomaly.
  
• Advanced data manipulation repository techniques such as backup, restoring, archiving of traffic data and log trails.
  
• Enable the access of customer’s device using Telnet, SSH, RDP and other analogous techniques with great agility and simplicity.
  
• Integration with Billing system and Radius
  
• Capability to configure VPN and other networks regardless of topological and geographical diversities
  
• Provides network views in an intuitive graphical format.
  
• Discovers network devices and provides a map to illustrate the structure of the network and the status of devices and segments.
  
• Enable network administrators prevent problems by identifying potential trouble spots before a failure occurs.
  
• Pinpoints the cause of network problems by letting the administrator drill down to see all events that contributed to an alarm. Includes out-of-the-box correlation logic for some of the most common network management problems.
  
• Preconfigured reports enable historical data analysis, which provides a unique view of the devices on the network and helps administrators take actions that prevent problems from occurring.
  
• Users can schedule back-ups of business-critical network management information to occur while they continue to manage the network. Also NMS stations must be configured to take over the functions of the collection stations if one or more collection stations fail.
  
• Embedded ITIL Processes
• Out of box implementation of complete ITIL lifecycle (Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Service improvement.
• Each process and lifecycle can easily be tailored using intuitive user interfaces
• Built-in Quality Program
• Out of box implementation of Six Sigma, and TQM
• Built-in tools for Design for Six Sigma
• Advanced Artificial Intelligence Regulators
• Intelligent regulators based on Swarm Technology
• Advanced Pattern Recognition based on Neural Networks, Bayesian Networks, Genetic Algorithms for Trend Analysis, and Pattern Filtering
• Service Level Management (SLM) Studio
• Graphical based SLA Designing Tools
• Graphical based Value Chain based Tools
• Built-in SLM Tradeoff Models
• Temporal and Spatial SLM Simulator
• Advanced SLM Analysis, Regulation and Monitoring features
• Performance Management:
• CogNOM is equipped with features to measure and make available various aspects of network performance so that internetwork performance can be maintained at an acceptable level. Examples of performance variables that might be provided include network throughput, user response times, and line utilization.
• The performance manger supports the three phases for performance management. First, performance data is gathered on variables of interest to network administrators. Second, the data is analyzed to determine normal (baseline) levels. Finally, appropriate performance thresholds are determined for each important variable so that exceeding these thresholds indicates a network problem worthy of attention.
• Management entities continually monitor performance variables. When a performance threshold is exceeded, an alert is generated and sent to the network management system.
• Performance management permits proactive methods: For example, network simulation can be used to project how network growth will affect performance metrics. Such simulation can alert administrators to impending problems so that counteractive measures can be taken.
• Configuration Management
• The goal of configuration management is to monitor network and system configuration information so that the effects on network operation of various versions of hardware and software elements can be tracked and managed. For instance version control of network devices should track information such as Ethernet interface (Ver. 5.4), TCP/IP software (Ver. 2.0), NetWare software (Ver. 4.1), … etc.
• The change to any device configuration is controlled via the configuration management system.
• ALL configuration items are stored in a database for easy access. When a problem occurs, this database can be searched for clues that may help solve the problem.
• Accounting Management
• The goal of accounting management is to measure network utilization parameters so that individual or group uses on the network can be regulated appropriately. Such regulation minimizes network problems (because network resources can be apportioned based on resource capacities) and maximizes the fairness of network access across all users.
• As with performance management, the first step toward appropriate accounting management is to measure utilization of all important network resources. Analysis of the results provides insight into current usage patterns, and usage quotas can be set at this point. Some correction, of course, will be required to reach optimal access practices. From this point, ongoing measurement of resource use can yield billing information as well as information used to assess continued fair and optimal resource utilization.
• Fault Management
• The goal of fault management is to detect, log, notify users of, and (to the extent possible) automatically fix network problems to keep the network running effectively. Because faults can cause downtime or unacceptable network degradation, fault management should be implemented with great agility, and reliability.
• Fault management involves first determining symptoms and isolating the problem. Then the problem is fixed and the solution is tested on all-important subsystems. Finally, the detection and resolution of the problem is recorded.
• Security Management
• The goal of security management is to control access to network resources according to local guidelines so that the network cannot be sabotaged (intentionally or unintentionally) and sensitive information cannot be accessed by those without appropriate authorization. A security management subsystem, for example, can monitor users logging on to a network resource and can refuse access to those who enter inappropriate access codes.
• Security management subsystems should partition network resources into authorized and unauthorized areas. For some users, access to any network resource is inappropriate, mostly because such users are usually company outsiders. For other (internal) network users, access to information originating from a particular department is inappropriate.
• The system should be able to support security management. The system should be equipped with a module to identify sensitive network resources (including systems, files, and other entities) and determine mappings between sensitive network resources and user sets. They need to monitor access points to sensitive network resources and log inappropriate access to sensitive network resources