Cisco Cisco Prime Optical 9.6 Getting Started Guide

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At-A-Glance
What Is the Value of Cisco Prime Optical?
Cisco Prime™ Optical is a carrier-class, multitechnology solution that integrates the 
end-to-end management of traditional optical networks and new carrier packet 
transport (CPT) networks. It is available as a standalone product or as a component 
of the Cisco Prime Carrier Management suite that drastically simplifies the design, 
provisioning, and management of carrier-grade networks.
Cisco Prime Optical manages the entire Cisco® optical portfolio, supporting:
•  Metro core, access, and edge products
•  Legacy time-division multiplexing (TDM) and dense wavelength-division multiplexing 
(DWDM) technologies
•  CPT system products
What Problems Does It Help Solve?
With the transition from TDM–based networks to packet transport, service providers 
around the world are facing tough operational challenges to meet the exponential growth 
in demand and changing market requirements. To help ensure profitability, business agility, 
and quality of service (QoS), they need a management system equipped to efficiently 
handle disparate technologies and devices that make up this complex and ever-evolving 
optical network. Cisco Prime Optical meets these challenges. See Figure 1.
Figure 1.  Cisco Prime Optical Functions
Optical Network
Core to Edge, Mobile Backhaul, and Optical Transport Network
Cisco Prime Optical
Northbound
Interface 
Fault and 
Assurance
Security
Management
Performance
Management
Configuration and
Provisioning
Operation 
Support 
System 
Cisco Prime Optical
Cisco Prime Optical provides:
•  An intuitive GUI (consistent across the Cisco Prime Carrier Management suite) that 
promotes operator productivity and reduces training efforts 
•  Converged support for TDM, Wavelength Switched Optical Networks (WSON), DWDM, 
and Synchronous Optical Networks Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SONET/SDH)
•  Standards-compliant (CORBA TMF 814 v.3) northbound interfaces (NBIs) that enable 
fast and easy integration with third-party operations support system (OSS) software
•  Topology maps that display an accurate inventory of both optical and packet network 
devices and allow detailed drill-down to each device
•  Scalability with support for up to 5000 optical network elements (NEs)
•  Support for virtual machines, Linux and Cisco Unified Computing System™  
(Cisco UCS®)
What Are the Benefits of Cisco Prime Optical?
Business agility: Accelerates time to market of value added services including voice, 
video, and on-demand content delivery through operational scale and efficiency 
in network discovery, configuration, provisioning, troubleshooting, and change 
management
Service assurance: Helps enable rapid resolution of network issues through 
advanced fault diagnostics, real-time service-level agreement (SLA) performance 
monitoring, and security management
Lower total cost of ownership (TCO): Reduces both capital expenditures (CapEx) 
and operating expenses (OpEx) through turnkey integration with the other 
components of the Cisco Prime Carrier Management suite as well as standards-
based interfaces to third-party OSS applications
Why Cisco?
The Cisco Prime portfolio of IT and service provider management offerings empowers 
organizations to more effectively manage their networks and the services they deliver. 
Built on a service-centered foundation, Cisco Prime supports integrated lifecycle 
management through an intuitive workflow-oriented user experience, providing A-to-Z 
management for evolved programmable networks (EPNs), mobility, video, cloud, and 
managed services.
For more information about Cisco Prime Optical, contact your local account 
representatives or visit the overview at 
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