Cisco Cisco Video Assurance Management Solution 2.0 Information Guide
Q&A
© 2009 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Q.
How does Cisco VAMS integrate with my existing OSS environment?
A.
Cisco VAMS is a modular architecture (Figure 1). The goal is to allow the customer to choose which aspects of
the solution are appropriate and to work with Cisco Advanced Services to define how this integrates with the
existing NMS/OSS environment. We have chosen a number of products to provide a fully tested, preintegrated
solution reference architecture. Customers may choose to purchase the entire reference architecture with
installation and deployment services only or may choose to take components of the VAMS solution with
integration services as required.
Figure 1. Cisco VAMS 2.0 Reference Architecture
Q.
How is Cisco VAMS different from video monitoring from third-party video probe vendors?
A.
Cisco has integrated third-party video probes into VAMS. Video probe monitoring devices are typically placed at
demarcation points through the video path. Examples are at the acquisition point, at the handoff from the super
headend to the network, at the handoff from the network to regional or local video headends, from these
headends back to the network, and from the transport network to the last mile/home environment.
By utilizing the Cisco probeless monitoring features of VAMS along with the knowledge from the multicast
control plane, the information from video probes can be further used and enhanced. By correlating these video
probe data sources with data sources in the network, it is possible to identify, isolate, and troubleshoot video
errors. The benefits are twofold, reducing the time to resolve issues in the transport network and eliminating the
network where it is not the cause of video errors. Both of these are cost-intensive exercises today.