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Product Overview
Cisco® Monitor Manager 1.1.2 is a comprehensive management application designed for the needs of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with as many as 250 IP phones. It provides monitoring of key device parameters on Cisco network devices including routers and switches, access points, IP phones, and Cisco Unified Communications applications. Cisco Monitor Manager also provides support for any Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)-capable and IP-addressable devices from other vendors in the network. It monitors the network 24 hours a day, periodically polling and collecting inventory and performance-monitoring data from the managed devices.
Applications
Cisco Monitor Manager can be used by SMBs as a self-managed network monitoring application or by service providers as part of a managed service offering. This gives greater flexibility to SMBs and creates revenue-generating opportunities for managed service providers (MSPs).
Self-Managed Solution
You can manage and monitor your SMB's network using a single copy of Cisco Monitor Manager at your corporate office. The application operates in a standalone mode and remotely discovers, monitors, and proactively manages the entire network, including remote offices. Reports and alerts are generated as required to provide 24-hour visibility into the health of the network. Cisco Monitor Manager also supports launching of Cisco device managers when they are needed to perform advanced configurations.
Cisco Monitor Manager performs automatic discovery of the entire network infrastructure and Cisco Unified Communications system to provide a real-time physical view, service-level details, and the current operational status of each element in the network. See Figure 1.
Managed Service Solution
As a Cisco value-added reseller (VAR) MSP, you can deploy Cisco Monitor Manager at your SMB customers' sites (Figure 2). This model provides you with an economical, 24-hour network management solution for your customers that help them to focus on their core business rather than their network. Operating as an agent for Cisco Monitor Director it collects relevant network information and syslogs from your customer's network and selectively forwards them to your Cisco Monitor Director server at your network operation center over a highly secure and reliable communication channel. You have full visibility into your SMB customers' networks and can anticipate network issues before their businesses are affected. For more information on Cisco Monitor Director solution please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/cmd.
Figure 1. Cisco Monitor Manager in a Small-Business Network
Figure 2. Cisco Monitor Manager with Cisco Monitor Director
Key Features and Benefits
Cisco Monitor Manager provides the following key features and benefits:
• Voice and data network discovery and topology
• Networkwide inventory collection and reporting
• Cisco IP telephony monitoring
• Support for Cisco devices, SNMP-capable multivendor devices, and Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) ping-based monitoring
• Key end-user monitoring component in an MSP upgrade
• SNMP and highly secure, reliable HTTPS-based communication
• Cisco device performance monitoring
• Interface status and traffic monitoring
• Real-time alerts and notifications
• Reports
• Configuration archive
• Troubleshooting tools
Voice and Data Network Discovery and Topology
Cisco Monitor Manager allows you to discover and view the complete topology of your network across all locations and remote offices. It supports seed device, SNMP sweep, ICMP ping, and Cisco Configuration Assistant import-based discovery. It uses Cisco Discovery Protocol and Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) neighbor data to discover the entire underlying data and voice network and then visualizes it in an intuitive graphical display. Its real-time autorefresh display shows network and device-level status, faults, inventory, connectivity, and manageability information for all the managed networking elements in the network. Cisco Monitor Manager periodically rediscovers the topology and generates alerts if it finds new devices in the network. The graphical topology display is a central navigation point to initiate various context-sensitive right-click menus used to obtain detailed status; to obtain real-time as well as historical performance data, reports, and alerts; and to launch device managers for in-depth configuration. See Figure 3.
A single copy of Cisco Monitor Manager deployed at the main office facilitates monitoring of all remote sites as well as the main office.
Figure 3. Cisco Monitor Manager Network Topology
Networkwide Inventory Collection and Reporting
Cisco Monitor Manager periodically collects inventory information, including cards and interface data, from all managed devices in the network and stores it in an embedded database for reporting purposes. The application provides device-inventory reports that show all the managed devices with their operational cards and interfaces. These reports are also periodically sent to the Cisco Monitor Director server when managed by a VAR MSP. Cisco Monitor Manager also collects a detailed inventory of all Cisco voice devices in the network and stores the information in its embedded database for detailed voice-related reports. See Figure 4.
Figure 4. Cisco Monitor Manager Networkwide Inventory Report
Cisco IP Telephony Monitoring
The application remotely polls and collects data continuously as it monitors the different Cisco IP telephony elements such as Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, Cisco Unity® Express, Cisco voice gateways, and Cisco Unified IP Phones. It provides real-time information and raises alerts for connectivity-related and registration-related outages and provides additional contextual information to locate and identify the affected Cisco Unified IP Phones. It uses open interfaces such as SNMP and HTTP/HTTPS to periodically collect data from the Cisco Unified Communications system and the underlying transport infrastructure.
Cisco Monitor Manager provides a rich set of reports that include trunk utilization, voice port utilization, and IP phone reports. The IP phone inventory reports give network managers instant access to status information about every IP phone in the network. Such reports are available for both Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based and Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP)-based IP phones. Cisco Monitor Manager also provides voicemail monitoring that keeps track of mailbox sizes and creates alerts based on configured threshold limits.
SNMP and HTTPS-Based Communication
Cisco Monitor Manager uses SNMP to discover and retrieve configuration and performance information and manage network elements in your network. It also uses the highly secure and reliable HTTPS protocol to manage Cisco security appliances and certain aspects of the application. Cisco Monitor Manager also uses ICMP ping to manage non-SNMP-capable devices. With protocol fallback, Cisco Monitor Manager uses HTTP if a managed Cisco device does not support HTTPS.
In MSP deployments, Cisco Monitor Manager periodically communicates with Cisco Monitor Director over an encrypted Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connection. Every instance of Cisco Monitor Manager is authenticated using a unique ID number and license key. For improved security, the SSL port is configurable on both Cisco Monitor Manager and Cisco Monitor Director.
Cisco Device Performance Monitoring
Cisco Monitor Manager provides a GUI for monitoring important device parameters such as CPU, memory, reachability, availability, and public switched telephone network (PSTN) trunk utilization. The application periodically polls devices for these parameters and stores them in its embedded database for real-time graphing, historical analysis, and reporting purposes. The application also allows you to configure thresholds for these parameters to notify operators of a threshold breach. Alerts are generated and dispatched through e-mail or pager messages and optionally sent to a Cisco Monitor Director server. See Figure 5.
Figure 5. Cisco Monitor Manager Device Performance Monitoring
Interface Status and Traffic Monitoring
Cisco Monitor Manager monitors traffic status and important interface parameters such as packet rates, interface status, traffic counters, errors, and interface utilization. The application periodically polls devices for these parameters and stores them in its embedded database. It also allows you to configure thresholds for these monitored parameters to notify operators of a threshold breach. See Figure 6.
Figure 6. Cisco Monitor Manager Interface Monitoring
Real-Time Alerts and Notifications
Cisco Monitor Manager collects syslogs from all managed devices and displays real-time fault-monitoring information to help you anticipate issues before they affect users. It converts emergency, alert, and critical syslogs into alert notifications and notifies network managers through e-mail and pager messages. In addition to displaying user-friendly charts and graphs, Cisco Monitor Manager also compares monitoring data against user-defined thresholds and notifies network managers of a threshold breach. It also raises alerts on Cisco Unified Communications devices based on their service status. Alerts are stored in the embedded database for historical reporting purposes. See Figure 7.
Figure 7. Cisco Monitor Manager Notification and Alerts
Reports
Cisco Monitor Manager provides in-depth reporting capabilities that are easy to interpret, present, and print. Data from the graphical reports can be filtered based on site, device family, or a particular managed device. Cisco Monitor Manager supports the following networkwide, easy-to-use graphical reports. See Figure 8.
• Alert report
• IP phone report, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, and Cisco Unity Express inventory report
• PSTN trunk utilization reports
• Device performance report
• Syslog report
• End-of-sale/end-of-life
• Device inventory report
• Configuration archive report
• Discovered devices report
• Device availability report
Figure 8. Cisco Monitor Manager Reports
Configuration Archive
The Cisco Monitor Manager GUI helps you perform on-demand backup and restore of startup configuration files for all the managed Cisco devices in your network. Its configuration archive feature also supports backup and restore of the VLAN database for all managed Cisco Catalyst® switches in the network. With this feature, network managers can also save running configurations to startup configurations before performing a manual backup. See Figure 9.
Figure 9. Cisco Monitor Manager Configuration Archive
Troubleshooting Tools
Cisco Monitor Manager provides effective troubleshooting tools such as traceroute, ping, and port search. The port search feature helps network administrators locate end stations like Cisco IP Phones, access points, and workstations on the network by specifying their MAC address or IP addresses. Traceroute and ping help debug and locate network connectivity-related conditions.
Device Support Levels
Table 1 lists the mapping between features and device support levels.
Table 1. Device Support Level
Features and Benefits
Table 2 lists the features and benefits of Cisco Monitor Manager.
Table 2. Features and Benefits
Product Specifications and Supported Devices
Table 3 lists product specifications for Cisco Monitor Manager, and Table 4 provides information about supported device software.
Table 3. Product Specifications
Table 4. Premium Support for Cisco Devices
* Indicates minimum software version supported by device family. Individual devices in the family may require later versions.
For more information about system requirements, please refer to the Cisco Monitor Manager 1.1.2 Quick Start Guide at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps7244/prod_installation_guides_list.html.
Cisco Monitor Manager Licensing
Cisco Monitor Manager is a licensed application that supports number-based and usage-based licensing.
Number-Based Licensing
Usage-Based Licensing
With each of the above "Medium" and "Small" licenses there are self-managed and VAR MSP-managed licenses.
- SMB Self-Managed License: Perpetual license that allows network managers to self-manage networks
- VAR MSP License: Yearly subscription license in which Cisco Monitor Manager is installed at the customer site, sending monitoring information to the MSP and working together with Cisco Monitor Director at the MSP's location for remote managing and proactive monitoring of the customer's network. For information on Cisco Monitor Director solution, please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/cmd.
Upgrade licenses allow you to scale your monitored network from 48 to 250 users or upgrade from a self-managed to an MSP-managed deployment. In a managed deployment, Cisco Monitor Manager operating as an agent for Cisco Monitor Director sends its license type and expiration status to Cisco Monitor Director at the MSP's site. The MSP can create license reports and proactively remind customers of upcoming renewals.
Ordering Information
Cisco Monitor Manager 1.1.2 is offered as a standalone application for SMBs. A 60-day free evaluation copy of Cisco Monitor Manager can be downloaded from http://www.cisco.com/pcgi-bin/tablebuild.pl/CiscoMM-crypto. License purchases following the trial period are required for continued use of the product. Please refer to the online product bulletins for further ordering details. Cisco Monitor Manager is available through regular Cisco sales and distribution channels worldwide. To place an order, visit the Cisco Ordering Homepage.
To purchase a perpetual license for use beyond the evaluation period, contact your nearest Cisco channel partner or reseller.
Table 5 lists ordering information for self-managed Cisco Monitor Manager 1.1.2.
Table 5. Ordering Information for Self-Managed Cisco Monitor Manager 1.1.2
Cisco Monitor Manager licensing options are also described in detail in the product bulletin under the Cisco Monitor Manager "Product Literature" section at: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps7244/prod_bulletins_list.html.
Please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/cmd for ordering information and part numbers on Cisco Monitor Director solution.
Service and Support
Using the Cisco lifecycle services approach, Cisco and its partners provide a broad portfolio of end-to-end services and support that can help increase your network's business value and return on investment. This approach defines the minimum set of activities needed, by technology and by network complexity, to help you successfully deploy and operate Cisco technologies and optimize their performance throughout the lifecycle of your network.
For More Information
For more information about Cisco Monitor Manager, visit http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps7244/index.html, or contact your local Cisco account representative.