TAVVE Solution Summary
TAVVE Software Company is at the forefront of business-oriented network management. With headquarters at North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, TAVVE has developed a suite of products that bring automated control to business networks, including fault management, root cause analysis, SLA monitoring, trending information, Web-based reporting, and operational tools. TAVVE’s innovative solutions enable network support personnel to control the network rather than letting the network control them.
TAVVE’s Products
tsc/EventWatch is a world-class, robust, self-configuring event correlation engine. It provides automated event/alarm management, root cause analysis, and notification. By minimizing the impact of network failures and providing the capability for proactive network management, tsc/EventWatch enables organizations to realize significant savings and return on investment (ROI).
tsc/PRM is a suite of snap-in, web-based performance reporting modules. From any browser on the network, users can surf tsc/PRM’s extensive network management web site to view real-time device profiles and availability, recent events, Top 25+ and rollup reports, threshold violations, trend analysis, and interface graphs. tsc/PRM provides information for proactively managing Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and can be configured to provide device-specific, business-oriented, or end-to-end views.
tsc/Automated Control is a bundle, combining tsc/EventWatch and tsc/PRM.
tsc/QuickView is a simple-to-use, self-configuring menuing system for network operations staff. It connects support personnel quickly and directly with essential tools, routines, and devices. By slashing training costs, saving staff time, and enabling administrators to capture, automate, and reuse senior technical expertise, tsc/QuickView provides an immediate ROI.
Today, when the network is down, your enterprise is down. Every minute of down time affects the bottom line of your enterprise. The faster a problem is clearly identified, the lower the impact on your business. Through sophisticated automation, our software minimizes the effects of network failures, increases corporate-wide productivity, and protects your business.
Return on investment for a typical installation is less than six months. The cost of TAVVE software is considerably less than the expense of a full-time employee for one year.
TAVVE Software Company is pleased to propose our products and services to Centralization Corporation. We have reviewed your current requirements and have solutions that match these needs today.
Specific Solutions for Centralization Corporation
TAVVE Software Company has the comprehensive network monitoring and alerting solution required by Centralization Corporation. Following is a description of how TAVVE products will meet your needs:
Your Requirement: Automated Device Checking and Alerts
TAVVE’s tsc/EventWatch provides comprehensive event/alarm management without costly in-house development. It constantly monitors your network, focusing on any problems instantly. Using sophisticated event correlation, it determines the root cause of the problem, then notifies the appropriate staff member. By notifying support personnel of network problems before users get frustrated, tsc/EventWatch drastically reduces calls to your help desk. With it, you become proactive instead of reactive; controlling your network than letting your network control you. The automation provided by tsc/EventWatch yields significant savings for your organization, resulting in easy justification by network staff of return on investment (ROI).
tsc/EventWatch is a powerful self-configuring event correlation engine. It provides automated fault management, root cause analysis, and notification. Although many vendors and products have attempted root cause analysis, only tsc/EventWatch actually provides it, truly and accurately. We have a unique three-phase approach for finding, processing and resolving network failures. This consists of verification, correlation, and notification.
Within two minutes we can verify that a network failure is real and not transient. tsc/EventWatch systematically double-checks NMS monitoring. Networks, systems, or applications that are reported down are verified as actually being down. As each of these services is returned to the network, tsc/EventWatch automatically notifies you.
We then move to correlation, to determine the exact nature of the failure. Our ability to correlate to the switch level – Layer 2 – is an industry first. tsc/EventWatch correlates network data to pinpoint the exact source of failure rather than simply reporting all of the devices affected by the failure. No other product achieves TAVVE’s automation of Layer 2 and Layer 3 correlation of events.
Once the failure has been verified and its root cause discovered, we notify the network personnel responsible for resolving the problem, through paging, email, alerts, trouble ticketing, and log files. tsc/EventWatch contains a powerful filtering system for devices, components, and automatic notification, along with paging suppression. This prevents support personnel from being overwhelmed by event storms and allows them to focus on the root cause of an event.
Your Requirement: Monitor Intranet and Internet
TAVVE Software can continuously monitor your routers, switches, firewalls, remote access servers, RADIUS servers, web servers, SMTP/POP3 servers, DNS servers and Microsoft Windows NT server functions, on a 24-hour basis. Network operators can view their various business groups and departments by managing groups of devices and interfaces from any location.
The tsc/EventWatch correlation engine is not restricted to IP networks. In fact, the only limitations on the correlation engine are those that are specified in the correlation database. This database can be configured to correlate to other protocols as well as to the componentry inside devices. To support other protocols, the topology must become encoded and a verification command made available. To support device componentry, the appropriate relationships must become encoded. The correlation engine places no restrictions on object relationships: componentry of one type may be dependent upon componentry of a different type; and components can be dependent upon network protocol interfaces (or vice versa). Moreover, componentry on one device can be dependent upon componentry in another device. A database daemon, for example, may be dependent upon resources available on a different server. tsc/EventWatch’s ability to support additional protocols and device componentry represents a major advance in event correlation technology.
Your Requirement: Configurable Polling Intervals
The default verification period for tsc/EventWatch is two minutes. Although two minutes is sufficient for most networking device applications, a different time period can be configured via the Configuration Windows. For example, if Windows NT server automatic reboots should be ignored, a verification period of five minutes would be more effective.
The verification command by default is the common ping command. If tsc/EventWatch is being used to verify a condition other than an IP node or interface down, a different verification command can be specified. A TCP ping command can be used for verifying a TCP service, and an SNMP query command can be used to verify a failed component. Pings can also be configured in protocols other than IP. The verification command does not have to hit the wire physically; a reasonable verification command can be issued that simply checks the status in a key file or database. In fact, a verification command does not have to be executed at all.
The Configuration Windows enable users to configure both the verification time interval and its frequency. By default, tsc/EventWatch executes a ping command four times over a two-minute period. However, if zero pings are specified over a two-minute period, the verification processor waits two minutes for the condition to go away; if the failure condition is not restored, the verification processor concludes that the failure is real.
Whatever the configured frequency, when a failure continues to be reported throughout the complete verification period, tsc/EventWatch concludes that the failure is real and not transient. It is only then—with the verification process completed—that tsc/EventWatch moves on to the correlation phase.
Your Requirement: Automatic Alerts
Once a failure has been verified and its root cause discovered, tsc/EventWatch notifies the network personnel responsible for resolving the problem. Five standard notification options come preinstalled:
- issue an alphanumeric page
- send an e-mail
- display an alert in a pop-up red box
- log the event to a file
- communicate with trouble ticket software
Using the Configuration Windows, users can mix and match these options.
Notification Groups
In all but the smallest of organizations, different support personnel must be contacted when different parts of the network go down. In most enterprises, for example, the router support group is separate from the server support group. In some enterprises, support is so segmented that multiple groups may support the same equipment type, but different individual equipment parts (these groups may be organized geographically, politically, or functionally). However the organization divides responsibility for the equipment, tsc/EventWatch creates notification groups to match equipment with the responsible personnel.
Generally speaking, each tsc/EventWatch group monitors different equipment (although overlap between groups is allowed) with different notifications (paging, e-mail, pop-up red box, and log). The end result is that when a failure occurs in the network, tsc/EventWatch notifies the support personnel responsible for resolving the problem. It is not necessary for tsc/EventWatch itself to perform notification; with the trouble ticket interface, notifications specific to a group can be handled by the trouble ticketing software.
Time Savings
With this intelligent verification of an alarm condition, a trouble ticket can be initiated with assurance that duplicate and false tickets are virtually eliminated. For every automatically generated trouble ticket that is accurate and valid, the support staff can gain approximately three to five minutes of time per ticket. For every false ticket generated, they stand to lose five to seven minutes of time per ticket.
Your Requirement: Free Up Personnel Resources
tsc/Automated Control
tsc/Automated Control is a bundle comprised of tsc/EventWatch and tsc/PRM.
Because tsc/EventWatch is self-configuring and self-maintaining, it saves a significant amount of time for network managers and operators. True network failures are identified within two minutes. tsc/EventWatch installs in less than thirty minutes, providing immediate, tangible benefits for network operations staff.
TAVVE’s tsc/PRM is a suite of snap-in, web-based performance reporting modules. It enables network staff to access crucial device and enterprise information from any Web browser on the network. With TAVVE’s tsc/PRM, you can surf through layers of vital information covering networks, services, and applications. This allows you to implement policies proactively, preventing rather than simply reacting to problems. It also saves you money by predicting problems before they occur.
The significant productivity benefit of tsc/PRM results from its ability to allow you to classify groups of devices.
Web Grouping
Business unit groups can easily be defined to specify the organization of the network for which events and performance report(s) will be viewed via the web interface. The typical uses of the grouping capabilities are to match critical and /or marginal error events and performance data to the organizational lines of your company(s).
For example, you can define managed Business Unit views that correspond to:
- support teams
- departments
- divisions
- regions
- Network Operations Center
- server(s) and applications
- sub-areas such as backbones, WANs, and server clusters
The three key benefits of this Web grouping are:
- Reduced Help Desk Interaction
- Service Level Management and Information Distribution
- Capacity Planning and Trending
Reduced Help Desk Interaction
When an employee encounters a problem, the first person notified is usually the employee’s immediate supervisor. The supervisor will typically verify the problem, then contact the Help Desk and ask if they know of any problems in the network that may be causing this problem.
Instead of calling the Help Desk, the supervisor(s) can now open a web browser and see an up-to-the-minute status of networked systems and applications. This popular option provides a quick report showing the health of the network in non-technical terms with links to further explanations. Managers and non-technical people use this page to get a quick idea of where, if anywhere, a network problem exists and how it might be effecting them. All devices shown on this page have been verified as down and have triggered appropriate notification to support group(s).
Service Level Management and Information Distribution to Business Units
With the end-user in mind, service levels are presented as a percent of the device availability. Managers in charge of maintaining networks and systems find this report particularly useful. This option keeps track of all devices’ up and down times and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR). It produces a report which displays when devices were unavailable throughout the month. In addition to detailing each outage, there is also an aggregate percentage of historical data coverage. This option takes the mystery out of the XX.XX% and provides accurate percentages for SLA and device availability reporting.
The report may be customized by defining thresholds exceeded XX% of the time, and/or Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and/or Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF).
Capacity Planning and Trending
When groups are used to organize an application, or business process grouping, the resulting information can be invaluable. Baselines of historical traffic patterns for network groups provide an essential planning and management tool. These baselines are the standard against which network traffic patterns can be evaluated, and they are used by the TAVVE Capacity Planning and Trending modules to predict future network upgrades. This grouping and aggregation of historical data can be used to enable proactive capacity planning practices.
The "Financial Justification" section, below, describes the different ways TAVVE can help you free up Network Operations resources for other uses.
Your Requirement: Launch Custom Application
TAVVE software provides the facility to launch a custom application when an alert is received.
How is TAVVE Software Unique?
Although many vendors and products have attempted to perform root cause analysis, very few actually deliver this capability. Some employ mathematical or systems models formed in the academy. Others are based on simple event filtering schemes. Only tsc/EventWatch provides true and accurate root cause analysis. tsc/EventWatch is a customer-driven solution that was developed in real-world environments and tested for years on actual, complex networks. Its developers have dealt with and solved a host of network problems that theory-based solutions cannot account for.
This chart describes how TAVVE Software Company positions itself against four other vendors, by objectively describing features and functions of the different software. By putting quality performance reporting and event management together, TAVVE is clearly the industry leader. We are the only one who does both, and does it well.
In the category of performance reporting, TAVVE is the only vendor to provide real-time, instead of historical, information.
Industry View: Enterprise Performance and Event Management Vendors & Products
|
TAVVE Auto- mated Control |
Con- cord Net- work Health |
Desk- talk Trend |
SMARTS In- Charge |
Avista Nerve- Center |
|
|
Perform- |
Real Time | Historical | Historical | None | Batch |
|
Fault Manage- |
Auto- mated |
None | None |
Topology- limited |
Rules-based |
|
Auto- mation (Ease of Use) |
Point and Click |
Program- mable Batch |
Program- mable Batch |
Point only | Manual |
| SLAs: Capacity and Dataflow |
Compre- hensive |
Batch Pro- cessing |
Batch Pro- cessing |
None |
Batch Pro- cessing |
|
Platform |
HP OpenView, TME10 NetView | Stand Alone | Stand Alone | Stand Alone | Stand Alone |
|
Pricing |
Node- based |
Port- based |
Collected Data | Creative |
Port- based |
|
Frame Relay WAN Support |
Per- formance and Co- relation |
Per- formance |
Per- formance |
Co- relation |
Co- relation |
|
Switch Co- relation |
Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
TAVVE is the only vendor to provide automated fault management. Our software is self-configuring and self-maintaining, eliminating the requirement to create and maintain a costly rule-based structure. We do this on a real-time basis, in two and a half minutes, regardless of the size of the network. Other vendors do correlation, but it’s limited by topology, so that depending upon the configuration and the size of the network, they take anywhere from up to an hour or longer to pinpoint a problem. Their disadvantage is that when networks change, the rules have to be changed, resulting in constant rewrites. TAVVE is automatically self-configuring, changing as your network changes.
Everything TAVVE does is web-based, point and click, and easy. With our competitors’ products you can program what you want to see, but you have to run the reports and wait, instead of getting the information real-time. Extensive customization is required to generate new reports.
In the area of Service Level Agreements, TAVVE is unique in our ability to provide comprehensive system-level support.
Today, TAVVE runs on Tivoli TME 10 NetView and Hewlett-Packard OpenView, who have a significant installed base. IT professionals are disenchanted with their capabilities but loathe to make a massive the network management system (NMS) change. TAVVE breathes new life into OpenView and NetView, and picks up where IBM and HP left off. Furthermore, TAVVE does not rely on the device database provided by the network NMS platform. Rather, TAVVE creates its own database of devices. This means that unlike other products that rely completely on the NMS to provide device or interface information, TAVVE will discover devices (such as routers) that are unknown to the NMS.
TAVVE’s pricing model is based on the number of nodes, as opposed to the number of interfaces or ports, or the amount of data collected. Our customers prefer this, and that’s why we do it.
We provide performance and correlation across the WAN and frame relay WAN.
Sample Price Quotation
Note: This is sample pricing only. Your actual pricing will be driven by the number of nodes on your network, and your choice of products. For example, you might choose to purchase only tsc/EventWatch, or you might also choose tsc/PRM.
|
Centralization Corp., Inc. July 15, 1999 |
|
Qty |
Part No. |
Description |
Price |
|
1 |
TAC.400 |
tsc/Automated Control license A jumpstart solution combining event correlation and performance reporting: 100 node licenses for verification and correlation to root cause of failures on network, followed by notification; and 100 node licenses for performance reports, trend analysis, graphs, device reports,SLA reports, top 25 reports, documentation, and more. |
$24,995 |
|
Software Subtotal: |
$24,995 |
||
|
SSM509 |
Standard Annual Maintenance 8x5 technical support, software updates. |
$3,749 |
|
|
Services Subtotal: |
$3,749 |
||
|
Total Investment: |
$24,744 |
General Financial Justification
Implementing TAVVE software will provide Centralization Corporation with significant savings and benefits, both tangible and intangible. The intangible benefits, difficult to quantify but significant nonetheless, include the following:
When your network is down, your entire enterprise is down. Every minute of down time directly affects your bottom line. TAVVE software minimizes network downtime and the effects of network failures, and thereby increases the productivity of every person in your company.
Proactive network management, finally possible with TAVVE software, allows you to solve problems before they happen. Your network’s behavior and performance becomes predictable. This results in lower frustration levels for everyone, and allows you to better use your staff resources to address critical network design, planning, and implementation issues.
Specific tangible benefits to be derived from implementing TAVVE software pertain to potential cost savings with Centralization Corporation management staff. They are as follows:
Increased network staff efficiency
Network Operations Center (NOC) staff can become more effective. tsc/EventWatch fault notification module automatically notifies staff of critical problems, increasing efficiency.
Conservative savings estimate: 1/2 man year $37,500
Consistency across existing NMS system(s)
TAVVE provides a single, automated, consistent approach to the management of diverse networks and operating systems.
Conservative savings estimate: 1/2 man year $37,500
TAVVE reporting allows you to identify capacity problems and outages, and report them to management by leveraging the information stored in the TAVVE historical data repository.
Conservative savings estimate: 1/2 man year $37,500
Ability to troubleshoot more quickly
TAVVE swiftly pinpoints the exact cause of network failure, then automatically notifies the appropriate support personnel. It enables you to view only that vital network information which concerns you, taking you directly to the root cause of trouble areas.
Conservative savings estimate: 1/4 man year $18,750
TOTAL Conservative savings estimate, per year $131,250
The RFP - See the RFP to which the vendors responded.
The responses:
|
Avtech Dartmouth INS Ipswitch Knozall |
Loran MediaHouse NextPoint RGE Ripple |
RiverSoft (in Word format) Tally Systems Tavve Tessler |
RELATED LINKS
The RFP and responses from other vendors
Review and buyer's guide: Network monitoring and alerting
An in-depth look at several apps; database of detailed specs on 46 tools; and a forum on the technology.
