Service Health Manager
CAMS Service Health Manager is fully integrated service fault and performance management software for real-time, correlated health management across RF, IP, and QoS. It is a powerful distributed software component of Proxilliant’s CAMS solution and resides on one or many servers depending on the service area covered.
The Service Health Manager provides configuration and coordinates all real-time activity of the CAMS Intelligent Access Controllers deployed throughout the network. It also provides correlated system monitoring of critical fault and performance indicators from distributed IACs, other network elements, as well as other critical systems and databases, delivering real-time service health views, performance analysis reports, and trouble ticket automation.
The Service Health Manager contains two core applications that work together to provide comprehensive service health:
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HFC Network Health Manager
The HFC Network Health Manager provides essential capability for intelligent and cost-efficient service assurance of the HFC Network for the delivery of highly-reliable, highly-available advanced service offerings such as VoIP, VOD, and IPTV.
It delivers on key requirements for comprehensive service assurance:
- Auto-discovery of DOCSIS network devices (CMs) within Intelligent Access Controller and amplifier regions
- Real-time, correlated fault monitoring of the physical HFC plant, for loss of signal (e.g., line cut, power failure, amplifier failure)
- Continuous signal level monitoring and alignment via pilots across amplifier/IAC regions within a fiber node network segment
- Real-time, correlated fault monitoring of signal quality (e.g. destructive ingress, low signal power)
- Real-time IP and QoS level fault monitoring correlation (e.g. sudden high packet error rates, sudden IAC CM group offline, common provisioning fault)
- Automated, as well as on-demand test and root-cause analysis of multiple ‘symptom’ events across RF, IP, and QoS layers
- Scope of failure determination across critical elements with customers and services effected
- Real-time correlated reporting and ticket automation of qualified events with complete actionable information
- Dynamic, focused performance monitoring of key performance indicators across technical layers and elements
- Real-time and historical service segment health analysis, service level threshold definitions, correlated reporting, and optional alarming/ticketing
- Dynamic operations policy configuration and with secure administration
- Quick integration with third-party OSS systems and network device configurations with advanced standard interfaces for fully integrated service operations solution
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Dynamic Ingress Manager
A critical sub-component of the CAMS Service Health Manager, the Dynamic Ingress Manager provides key software components for managing and administering the ingress detection, ingress analysis, ingress event and performance logging via the CAMS Intelligent Access Controllers. In addition, the Dynamic Ingress Manager provides powerful real-time and historical IAC regional performance analysis for pinpointing ingress characteristics and their source. By cross-referencing the comprehensive regional comparisons, field operations can be proactive in focusing on the worst performing areas.
The Dynamic Ingress Manager also provides key software functions for managing and administering the ingress suppression capability of the CAMS solution. It allows the user to evaluate specific ingress and signal characteristics and to specify technical criteria for real-time ingress detection, suppression, and ingress performance monitoring by the Intelligent Access Controllers.
The CAMS Dynamic Ingress Manager provides key aspects of precision ingress analysis and suppression, including:
- Dynamically configurable settings for precision signal analysis, ingress detection, and ingress event logging
- Dynamically configurable settings for automated ingress suppression and alarm reporting settings
- Event-based remote triggering of on-demand, high-rate ingress and signal analysis
- Continuous capture and logging of ingress and signal characteristics and events, including frequency, pulse length, and intensity of noise.
- Historical, graphical analysis, with configurable rules of ingress and signal characteristics within an IAC region, across IAC regions within a common fiber node, or across the entire regional HFC network
- Correlated analysis and reporting of ingress characteristics with signal performance and IP performance of the regional DOCSIS devices, as well as overall U/S channel performance
Common Software Infrastructure for HFC Network Health Manager and Dynamic Ingress Manager
The CAMS Service Health Manager also provides common core software infrastructure for the HFC Network Health Manager and Dynamic Ingress Manager applications. These include:
The CAMS Service Health Manager is built on a highly reliable, highly scalable, distributed monitoring, control, and test automation framework. This framework includes secure communication infrastructure for the coordination, monitoring and control (including real-time on-demand test features) of distributed Intelligent Access Controllers. It also includes scalable, distributed, real-time fault monitoring and logging, with scalable performance database logging and web-based reporting.
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Intelligent Alarm Management
The CAMS Intelligent Alarm Management components of the Service Health Manager provide powerful user features for intelligently interfacing with and correlating real-time events from CAMS IACs, as well as third-party HFC elements, element managers, and network management systems. In addition, events can be correlated across elements with operational policies over dynamic, configurable time periods to create validated, actionable alarms. Qualified alarms, based on additional configurable logic, can be enriched with real-time secondary status data, static configuration information, or dynamic provisioning data for complete scope of failure reporting – key requirements for intelligent, automated ticket creation and data field population.
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Correlated Performance Management
The CAMS Correlated Performance Management components of the Service Health Manager provide many powerful user features for intelligently interfacing with, correlating, and analyzing performance data from CAMS IACs, and their correlation with third-party HFC elements, IP-based element managers, dynamic QoS provisioning systems, and network management systems. Performance data can be correlated across elements with configurable operational policies and weighting of key indicators to create comprehensive and comparable measures of real-time network and service performance and performance trends. Qualified performance degradations (real-time or trend), based on configurable threshold logic, can also be enriched with real-time secondary status data, static configuration information, dynamic provisioning data, and other performance data from third party systems for complete scope of performance reporting – key requirements for intelligent, correlated report creation and distribution.
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Service Level Management
The CAMS Service Level Management components provide multiple operational organizations to define and manage time-based service level thresholds. The scope of these service levels can span many different defined service regions for organizationally focused service health reporting. A Service Region can be defined as a physical HFC fiber node region (with coax, amplifiers, and devices below), a single IAC (amplifier) reqion, as well a single CMTS, head-end, or entire cable service area. However, they may also be as comprehensive as a complete service offering such as VoIP, VOD, or Digital Video, or as specific as a single individual customer. This allows the organizational flexibility within the various level of cable operations to manage independent service levels and reporting of service availability and service health across organizationally dependent service region definitions
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CAMS Configuration Management
The CAMS Configuration Management components provide powerful configuration management of the CAMS systems. This includes secure administration of CAMS static and dynamic configurations for all of the CAMS hardware and software components. This also includes configuration of built-in capabilities for rapid integration (and optional continuous importation) of configuration settings for accessing third-party elements such as CMTSs, element managers, network management systems, and other OSS systems.
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