With the increasing number of components involved in a modern IT or communications infrastructure, it is a requirement to include systems to identify equipment in abnormal condition and analyze certain variables to prevent those abnormal conditions through proactive actions.

These monitoring systems must continuously verify the behavior of the equipment and information flows, sending alarm messages when equipment malfunction is detected and/or when certain well defined thresholds are met.

Some of ComMEDIA NMS many features include:

	Monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, PING, etc.)
	Monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk usage, etc.)
	Day, week, month and year graphs of SNMP variables (router bandwidth consumption, etc.)
	Automatic backup and filing of Cisco routers configuration
	Ability to define network host hierarchy using "parent" hosts, allowing detection of and distinction between hosts that are down and those that are unreachable
	Contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via email or SMS)
	Access from "everywhere" either through Web or Wap interfaces
	Follow events with automatic ticket generation

User interfaces:

- Access/Control WEB (http) over Internet Secure WEB (https) over Internet WAP (GSM mobile phones browser) - Notifications: Email SMS (GSM short messages) Audible alarms

Probing

	Functional checks (ex. SMTP/POP3 email services, Web, etc.)
	Through SNMP
	Through proprietary extractors (complementary information)

Security

- Access Secure Web (https) User/Password authentication - Data acquisition Through encrypted VPN traffic (IPSEC and MPPE/PPTP)

Scalability

- Client-Server "Proxy extractors" to decentralize the acquisition process - Functionality splitting Separating server functions (ex. SQL databases, Web servers, etc) - Multiple servers For multiple domains

Modularity

The ComMedia NMS checking functionality is based on the concept of "plug-ins". These "plug-ins" consist of small independent pieces of software specifically conceived to verify certain functions. This architecture offers the extension and adaptation of the system to virtually any kind of probe.

Probes

- "Standard" server probes Availability Up Time (warnings after reboot) CPU usage (threshold check) Memory usage (threshold check) Disk usage (threshold check) Swap usage (threshold check) LAN interfaces errors Processes (WinNT proprietary extractor) Services (WinNT proprietary extractor) Paging file (WinNT proprietary extractor) Threads (WinNT proprietary extractor) - "Standard" router probes Availability Up Time (warnings after reboot) CPU usage (threshold check) Memory usage (threshold check) Interface bandwidth usage (threshold check) Interface errors WAN Bandwidth graphs (day, week, month and year) Cisco IOS version Cisco IOS configuration auto-saving - Other probes SMTP POP3 DNS WEB Proxy WEB …

Reports

	Trend reports - for devices and associated services
	Availability reports - for devices, services and groups of devices

Other features

	"Time Periods" assigned to "Contacts" -each operator (Contact) is assigned a "Time Period" to receive notifications
	Flap detection - to prevent excessive notifications, quick changes from operational to non-operational are identified
	Hierarchy -defining a hierarchic structure between devices avoids dummy notifications for devices "behind" their "parents"
	Easy access -a direct URL for Telnet, Web, etc. associated with the device speeds up maintenance accesses - no need to remember the address of the device, for example.
	Integrated Diagnostic tools - like "traceroute"
	Alerts history
	Notification history
	Basic "Ticketing" System - ComMEDIA NMS can automatically open and maintain tickets associated with notifications. Tickets may also be opened, closed and maintained manually.

	CPU Load
	Available Memory
	LAN Card (NIC)
	WAN Interfaces (routers), with day, week, month and year bandwidth usage graphs
	Available Disk space
	Swap Memory

To access the demo in a real production environment:

	http://nms.commedia.pt
	User/Pw: guest/guest