Cisco Cisco Prime Network 3.8 Leaflet
White Paper
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Network Element Polling with Cisco Active Network
Abstraction
Abstraction
Executive Summary
Cisco
®
Active Network Abstraction (ANA) is an extensible and scalable platform and product suite
that resides between the network elements and OSS management applications and provides
unified end-to-end network and service management for service provider and large enterprise
networks. Cisco ANA is part of the next-generation management system for the Cisco IP NGN
architecture.
In common with other service management solutions, the effectiveness of Cisco ANA in managing
a network is directly proportional to the timeliness and accuracy of data from the managed
network. For example, root causes cannot be identified and correlated to unless the system has
accurate and timely inventory and topology information, which needs to be collected and
discovered from the network.
Collecting such data comes at a cost. The devices must assign CPU cycles for responding to
management protocol requests and bandwidth for carrying this management data.
This white paper describes how Cisco ANA optimizes the way in which management data is
obtained from network devices. Extensive flexibility and configurability, in addition to smart and
adaptive polling mechanisms, help ensure that only required data is polled, at an optimal
frequency for the needs of accuracy, while not affecting devices and minimizing the management
protocol overhead.
Cisco Active Network Abstraction
Cisco Active Network Abstraction is a flexible and powerful multivendor device management
platform that facilitates advanced network and service management applications in a
multitechnology, multiservice network environment.
The core technology of Cisco ANA includes a unique virtual network element (VNE) abstraction
model that dynamically discovers and identifies device and network components reflecting the
near real-time state of network elements.
This abstraction model facilitates a broad set of embedded device management and network
abstraction features in Cisco ANA, while providing a rich set of platform and network mediation
services for advanced network and service management applications from Cisco and its partners.
The Cisco ANA approach scales directly alongside the physical network, allowing operators to
view and manage the complexities of multiple services in a multitechnology, multivendor network.
Figure 1 illustrates the main tiers of the Cisco ANA system. They are, from the bottom up:
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The managed network, composed of network elements from Cisco and other vendors
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The Cisco ANA unit servers, which provide the run-time environment for the VNEs (which
are illustrated in Figure 2)