Q. What is Cisco® VAR Managed Service Provider Solution?
A. Cisco VAR Managed Service Provider Solution is a comprehensive real-time management solution designed solely for Cisco partners operating in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market. This solution encompasses two complementary components-Cisco Monitor Director 1.1 and Cisco Monitor Manager 1.1. The combination of these two applications offers an economical and scalable migration path for Cisco partners to evolve into offering managed services for their customer networks. The startup package enables partners to remotely monitor up to 5 SMB customers economically and scale to supporting up to 50 SMBs as partner business expands.
Q. What is Cisco Monitor Director?
A. Cisco Monitor Director 1.1 is a centralized, proactive network management application for Cisco managed service providers planning to offer 24-hour, proactive voice and data network monitoring and management services to their SMB customers. It works in conjunction with the Cisco Monitor Manager application, which is deployed at many SMB corporate headquarters and remote offices. Cisco Monitor Manager collects customer network data and reports it back over a secure communication channel to Cisco Monitor Director, giving managed service providers secure access and visibility into the customer's network.
Q. What is Cisco® Monitor Manager?
A. Cisco Monitor Manager 1.1 is a management application designed solely for the needs of SMBs. It forms an onsite component of the VAR managed services offering and provides monitoring of key device parameters on Cisco SMB-class routers, switches, voice gateways, Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express, Cisco Unity® Express, security appliances, access points, and Cisco Unified IP phones. Cisco Monitor Manager also provides support for the newly introduced Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series for small businesses. It monitors the network 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and periodically polls and collects inventory and performance-monitoring data from the managed Cisco devices in the network.
Q. How does Cisco Monitor Director work with Cisco Monitor Manager?
A. Cisco Monitor Director works in conjunction with the Cisco Monitor Manager application to provide efficient, centralized network management across multiple distributed sites. Using multilayer filtering, Cisco Monitor Manager filters network-monitoring alerts from the various SMB sites and then sends those alerts over a secure connection to the Cisco Monitor Director application, which resides at the managed services provider's service center. Cisco Monitor Director establishes an overlay filtering scheme to give managed service providers only the targeted messages and alerts needed.
Q. What are the principal features of the Cisco VAR Managed Service Provider Solution?
A. Cisco VAR Managed Service Provider Solution provides the following key features and benefits to VAR managed service providers and their SMB customers:
• Ease of use and low initial investment; does not require time-consuming training
• Distributed architecture and intelligence for present and future network scalability
• Secure, reliable communication between VAR managed service providers and SMB customers
• Central customer dashboard for VAR managed service providers
• Voice and data network discovery and topology
• Networkwide inventory collection and reporting
• Cisco device performance monitoring
• In-depth syslog reporting
• Cisco IP telephony monitoring and reporting
• Interface status and traffic monitoring
• Reports
• Multilayer alert filtering capability
• Real-time alerts and notifications through e-mail and paging
• Configurable e-mail and pager addresses based on time-of-day setting
• Interface to common trouble-ticketing applications
• End-of-sale and end-of-life database reference and notifications
• Scheduled HTML-based automated e-mail monthly reports that include network alert summary, device-availability analysis, Top N Utilization reports, and network topology
• Integrated license report
Q. What kind of reports can I see using Cisco Monitor Director?
A. Cisco Monitor Director provides useful reports on alerts and syslogs generated in an SMB customer network. The reports are based on alert filters configured on the Cisco Monitor Director server. Periodic snapshot reports on inventory, topology, and performance are also provided. The following reports are available in Cisco Monitor Director:
• Inventory reports
• Network summary report
• Performance reports
• Fault reports
• End-of-sale and end-of-life reports
• Cisco Monitor Manager license reports
Q. What kind of reports can I obtain from Cisco Monitor Manager?
A. Cisco Monitor Manager provides the following reports for 24-hour proactive network monitoring:
• Alert Report
• IP Phone Report
• PSTN Trunk Utilization Reports
• Device Performance Report
• Syslog Report
• End-of-Sale/End-of-Life
• Device Inventory Report that includes data and Cisco Unified Communications devices such as Cisco Communications Manager Express and Cisco Unity Express
• Configuration Archive Report
• Discovered Devices Report
Q. Is communication between Cisco Monitor Director and Cisco Monitor Manager secure?
A. Cisco Monitor Director supports an HTTP over Secure Sockets Layer (HTTPS) server that always runs as a service and keeps listening for requests on port 443. The port is configurable by the managed service provider to provide a secure communication channel. All communications are initiated from Cisco Monitor Manager, which resides at the SMB customer's site, and are sent to the managed service provider's site using a shared key and 128-bit encryption. Keepalive polling, topologies, and rich alerts are sent across these communication channels through the same HTTPS connection.
Q. How many instances of Cisco Monitor Manager are supported by Cisco Monitor Director?
A. One copy of Cisco Monitor Director can support up to 50 instances of Cisco Monitor Manager located at remote SMB sites.
Q. What are the system requirements for Cisco Monitor Director?
A. Cisco Monitor Director can be installed on an Intel-based desktop or laptop computer with a minimum requirement of a Pentium IV 3 GHz processor, 2 GB RAM, and 1 GB of hard disk space. It is recommended to have 60 GB of hard disk space for storing historical fault data.
Q. What operating systems does Cisco Monitor Director support?
A. Cisco Monitor Director can be installed on any of the following operating systems:
• Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
• Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4
• Windows 2003 Server with Service Pack 1
Q. What are the system requirements for Cisco Monitor Manager?
A. Cisco Monitor Manager can be installed on an Intel-based desktop or laptop computer with a minimum requirement of a Pentium IV 1.2 GHz processor, 2 GB RAM, and 1 GB hard disk.
Q. What operating systems does Cisco Monitor Manager support?
A. Cisco Monitor Manager can be installed on any of the following operating systems:
• Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
• Windows 2000 Professional with Service Pack 4
Q. Can one installation of Cisco Monitor Director manage limited as well as standard deployments of Cisco Monitor Manager?
A. Yes. It is possible to have a mix of limited and standard deployments of Cisco Monitor Manager managed by one installation of Cisco Monitor Director. The total number of managed customers however should not exceed 50.
Q. What are the supported devices in Cisco VAR Managed Service Provider Solution?
A. Cisco Monitor Manager supports the following SMB-class Cisco routers, switches, firewalls, access points, and IP phones. Please see the Cisco Monitor Manager User Guide for the detailed list of supported devices and Cisco IOS® Software releases.
• Routers/Integrated Services Routers-Cisco 830, 850, 870, 1700, 1800, 1841, 2600, 2800, 3600, 3700, and 3800 Series
• Cisco Catalyst® Switches-Cisco Catalyst 2900XL, 2940, 2950, 2955, 2970, 3550, 3500XL, 3560, and 3750 Series, and Catalyst Express 500 Series
• Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Business
Q. What kind of licensing model does Cisco VAR Managed Service Provider Solution use?
A. For simplicity and ease of deployment, Cisco Monitor Director and Cisco Monitor Manager are offered as a single MSP monitoring packaged solution for VAR managed services.
The starter package for VAR managed services includes a perpetual license for the Cisco Monitor Director at the Partner site and five one-year annual subscription licenses for Cisco Monitor Manager deployment at the SMB sites. The annual subscription licenses are only activated at the time of registration; thus, various SMBs can be added at different times. An integrated license management monitoring and reporting feature is available on Cisco Monitor Director.
Q. How can a VAR managed service provider scale the number of managed customers?
A. Managed service providers can use MSP extension packages in order to scale the number of managed customers. These extension packages are available in counts of 5, 10, 15, and 25. These extension packages include one-year MSP subscription licenses for Cisco Monitor Manager. These annual subscription licenses are only activated at the time of registration; thus, various managed SMBs can be added at different times.
Q. Are software support contracts available and how are they ordered?
A. Yes. Customers can purchase a one-year Software Application Support (SAS) contract that provides Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) support, access to software maintenance patches on Cisco.com Software Center, and Cisco Monitor Director minor update releases.
Q. How do I order Cisco VAR Managed Service Provider Solution?
A. Cisco Monitor Manager and Cisco Monitor Director are available for purchase through regular Cisco sales and distribution channels worldwide.
To place an order, visit the Cisco Ordering Home Page.
For More Information
For more information about Cisco Monitor Director, visit http://www.cisco.com/go/sbnm, contact your local Cisco account representative, or send an e-mail to the Product Marketing group at ask-sbnm-pm@cisco.com.
