pcrf

Document Number:

Revision:

Released:

Camiant™

Multimedia Policy EngineCable Manager

User’s Guide

DOC–10001

AR

June 2009

Copyright © 2004–2009 Camiant, Inc., All Rights Reserved

This guide is produced and copyrighted by Camiant, Inc. Any use or reproduction of the contents of this manual without the prior written consent of Camiant, Inc. is strictly prohibited.

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Camiant, Inc.200 Nickerson RoadMarlborough, MA 01752 USA508.486.9996

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Contents

About This Guide ............................................................. viiIntended Audience ...................................................................................................... viiConventions ................................................................................................................ viiRelated Documentation .............................................................................................. viiiContacting Camiant...................................................................................................... ixCustomer Comments ................................................................................................... ix

1 Introduction ...................................................................... 11

The Multimedia Policy Engine...................................................................................... 12Overview ............................................................................................................. 12

Understanding Policy Rules.......................................................................................... 14Overview of Major Tasks ............................................................................................. 15The MPE Manager....................................................................................................... 16

Organizing Policy Rules ........................................................................................ 16GUI Overview ...................................................................................................... 16Specifications for Using the GUI........................................................................... 17GUI Icons............................................................................................................. 17Shortcut Selection Keys ....................................................................................... 18

2 Managing Policy Servers................................................ 19

Policy Server Profiles.................................................................................................... 20Creating a Policy Server Profile............................................................................. 20Configuring or Modifying a Policy Server Profile................................................... 22

Configuring Protocol Options on the Policy Server....................................................... 24Deleting a Policy Server Profile ............................................................................. 26

Policy Server Groups.................................................................................................... 27Creating a Policy Server Group ............................................................................ 27Adding a Policy Server to a Policy Server Group ................................................... 28Creating a Policy Server Subgroup ....................................................................... 29Renaming a Policy Server Group .......................................................................... 30Removing a Policy Server Profile from a Policy Server Group................................. 31Deleting a Policy Server Group............................................................................. 32

Configuring SSL Certificates ........................................................................................ 33Configuring Hostnames and Hosts....................................................................... 33Generating a Certificate on Each Server ............................................................... 33Exporting the Local Certificate ............................................................................. 33Importing the Peer Certificate .............................................................................. 33

Reapplying the Configuration to a Policy Server........................................................... 34Checking the Status of a Policy Server ......................................................................... 36Policy Server Reports ................................................................................................... 38

Multimedia Policy Engine Cable Manager User’s Guide iii

CONTENTS

Cluster Information Report................................................................................... 40Policy Statistics ..................................................................................................... 42Protocol Statistics ................................................................................................. 43

Policy Server Logs ........................................................................................................45The Policy Log ...................................................................................................... 46The Event Log ...................................................................................................... 48Alerts ................................................................................................................... 52

3 Protocol Routing.............................................................. 53

PCMM Routing Architectures ......................................................................................54Configuring PCMM Routing ........................................................................................55

4 Managing Network Elements....................................... 57

Creating a Network Element........................................................................................58Modifying a Network Element.............................................................................. 60Deleting Network Elements .................................................................................. 61Finding a Network Element .................................................................................. 63

Configuring Options for Network Elements .................................................................64CMTS................................................................................................................... 64

Working with Network Element Groups ......................................................................66Creating a Network Element Group ..................................................................... 66Adding a Network Element to a Network Element Group..................................... 67Creating a Network Element Subgroup ................................................................ 68Deleting a Network Element from a Network Element Group ............................... 69Renaming a Network Element Group ................................................................... 70Deleting a Network Element Group or Subgroup.................................................. 71

Associating a Network Element with a Policy Server.....................................................72Adding Network Elements to the MPE Manager ..........................................................74

Using the OSSI XML Interface............................................................................... 74Importing an XML File to Input Network Elements................................................ 74Exporting an XML File .......................................................................................... 75

5 Managing Application Profiles .................................... 77

Creating an Application Profile ....................................................................................78Modifying an Application Profile..................................................................................80Deleting an Application Profile ....................................................................................80

6 Managing Traffic Profiles .............................................. 81

Creating a Traffic Profile ..............................................................................................82Modifying a Traffic Profile............................................................................................84Deleting a Traffic Profile ..............................................................................................85Working with Traffic Profile Groups.............................................................................86

Adding a Traffic Profile to a Traffic Profile Group.................................................. 86Deleting a Traffic Profile from a Traffic Profile Group............................................ 86Modifying a Traffic Profile Group Name ............................................................... 86Deleting a Traffic Profile Group ............................................................................ 86

iv Multimedia Policy Engine Cable Manager User’s Guide

CONTENTS

7 Event Messaging .............................................................. 87

Overview..................................................................................................................... 88Configuring Global Settings for Event Messaging ........................................................ 90

Configuring Local Policy Server Settings for Event Messaging............................... 92The Record Keeping Server.......................................................................................... 94

Creating an RKS Profile........................................................................................ 94Modifying an RKS Profile ..................................................................................... 95Deleting an RKS Profile ........................................................................................ 95

8 Management Agent Servers ......................................... 97

Creating a Management Agent Profile ........................................................................ 98Modifying a Management Agent Profile ............................................................ 100Deleting a Management Agent Profile ............................................................... 101Reapplying a Management Agent Profile Configuration..................................... 101

Management Agent Tasks......................................................................................... 102Using the Management Agent Event Log Viewer....................................................... 105

Filtering the Event Log ....................................................................................... 107

9 Managing Policy Rules.................................................. 109

Creating, Evaluating, and Deploying Policy Rules ....................................................... 110Creating Policy Rules ......................................................................................... 110Evaluating Policy Rules ....................................................................................... 111Deploying Policy Rules ....................................................................................... 113

Creating a New Policy ............................................................................................... 116Creating Time-Dependent Policy Rules ............................................................... 120Modifying a Policy ............................................................................................. 121Deleting a Policy ................................................................................................ 122

Policy Templates........................................................................................................ 123Creating a Policy Template ................................................................................ 123Modifying a Policy Template .............................................................................. 125Deleting a Policy Template................................................................................. 126

Managing a Policy Group .......................................................................................... 127Creating a Policy Group..................................................................................... 127Adding a Policy to a Policy Group ...................................................................... 128Removing a Policy from a Policy Group .............................................................. 129Changing the Sequence of Policies within a Policy Group .................................. 131Displaying Policy Details Contained Within a Policy Group.................................. 133Deploying a Policy/Policy Group to Policy Servers ............................................... 134Removing a Policy from a Policy Group on a Policy Server .................................. 135Removing a Policy/Policy Group from a Policy Server .......................................... 136Changing the Sequence of Deployed Policies or Groups .................................... 137

Importing and Exporting Policies, Policy Groups, and Templates ................................ 138Importing Policies .............................................................................................. 138Exporting Policies............................................................................................... 140

The Policy Log ........................................................................................................... 141

10 Managing Network Topology ..................................... 143

The Network Topology Map...................................................................................... 144

Multimedia Policy Engine Cable Manager User’s Guide v

CONTENTS

Network Element Components .......................................................................... 144Viewing the Map ............................................................................................... 145Laying Out the Map Automatically ..................................................................... 147Viewing Alerts.................................................................................................... 149

Network Path Management.......................................................................................152Creating a Path .................................................................................................. 152Modifying a Path................................................................................................ 154Deleting a Path .................................................................................................. 154

11 Managing User Licenses............................................... 155

Displaying Installed Licenses.......................................................................................156Displaying Individual Licenses ............................................................................. 157

Installing a License.....................................................................................................158Assigning Licenses to a Policy Server................................................................... 159

Tracking Licenses.......................................................................................................161Viewing the License Tracking Summary Report................................................... 161Viewing the License Tracking Detail Report ........................................................ 163

12 System Administration ................................................ 165

Configuring System Settings......................................................................................166Using Import/Export...................................................................................................168Viewing MPE Manager Cluster Reports......................................................................169Viewing the Event Log...............................................................................................172

Modifying the Event Log Configuration.............................................................. 173Viewing the Audit Log...............................................................................................174

Defining Audit Log Search Parameters................................................................ 176Exporting or Purging Audit Log Data .................................................................. 177

Viewing the Alert Log................................................................................................178Managing Scheduled Tasks........................................................................................180

Configuring a Scheduled Task ............................................................................ 182User Management.....................................................................................................184

Configuring Roles .............................................................................................. 184Creating a New Role .......................................................................................... 184Modifying a Role................................................................................................ 186Deleting a Role................................................................................................... 187Creating a New Scope........................................................................................ 188Modifying a Scope ............................................................................................. 189Deleting a Scope ................................................................................................ 189Creating a User Profile ....................................................................................... 190Modifying a User Profile ..................................................................................... 192Deleting a User Profile........................................................................................ 193Changing a Password......................................................................................... 194Locking and Unlocking User Accounts................................................................ 195

Glossary ........................................................................... 197

Index ................................................................................. 205

vi Multimedia Policy Engine Cable Manager User’s Guide

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

This guide describes how to use the Multimedia Policy Engine (MPE) Manager to configure and manage MPE devices. The information in this guide is presented as follows:

■ “Introduction” on page 11

■ “Managing Policy Servers” on page 19

■ “Managing Network Elements” on page 57

■ “Managing Application Profiles” on page 77

■ “Event Messaging” on page 87

■ “Management Agent Servers” on page 97

■ “Managing Policy Rules” on page 109

■ “Managing Network Topology” on page 143

■ “Managing User Licenses” on page 155

■ “System Administration” on page 165

■ “Glossary” on page 197

Intended Audience

This guide is intended for the following trained and qualified service personnel who are responsible for operating MPE devices:

■ System operators

■ System administrators

Conventions

Your view of the product may vary from the figures used as examples in this guide; the pages that you see depend on your configuration or application.

The MPE is the Camiant policy server. The terms policy server and MPE are synonymous.

Multimedia Policy Engine Cable Manager User’s Guide vii

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

The following conventions are used throughout this guide to emphasize certain information, such as user input, page options and output, and menu selections.

Italics —I ndicates book titles and user input variables.

Monospace — Indicates program output.

Monospace bold — Indicates user input.

Monospace italics — Indicates variables in commands.

Note: This icon indicates helpful suggestions or references to other documents.

CAUTION: This icon notifies you to proceed carefully to avoid damaging equipment or losing data.

WARNING: This icon warns you to proceed carefully to avoid injury.

Related Documentation

The following guides provide additional information for the configuration and use of Camiant products:

■ Cable Product Release Notes

■ Hardware Installation Guide

■ Software Installation Guide

■ Service User Interface User’s Guide

Note: This version of the document supersedes the application note Configuring the MPE for Use with Diameter Rx/Gq Interfaces in a PCMM Environment, DOC-00060, revision A1, November 2007.

The following documents are useful for reference:

■ PCMM specifications PKT-SP-MM-I02 and IO3

■ PKT-SP-DQOS-I12-050812 - PacketCable™ Dynamic Quality-of-Service Specification

viii Multimedia Policy Engine Cable Manager User’s Guide

Customer Comments

Contacting Camiant

Camiant Inc. maintains a site on the World Wide Web where you can find information on our company and its products. Use the following URL:

http://www.camiant.com

To obtain technical tips or support, contact the Camiant Customer Service Department at 508-486-9996 and selection Option 3 for Customer Support. You can also contact us using the following URL:

http://www.camiant.com/support

Customer Comments

Customer comments are not only welcomed, they are encouraged. Please take a moment and let us know how we are doing. To do this, respond in one of the following ways:

E-mail your comments to [email protected]

FAX your comments to 508-486-9595, attention Technical Publications

Multimedia Policy Engine Cable Manager User’s Guide ix

1INTRODUCTION

This chapter provides an overview of the Camiant Multimedia Policy Engine (MPE), which manages multiple network-based client sessions; the network in which the MPE operates; policies; and the MPE Manager, which controls MPEs and associated applications.

This chapter discusses the following topics:

■ The Multimedia Policy Engine

■ Network Environment

■ Understanding Policy Rules

■ Overview of Major Tasks

■ The MPE Manager

Multimedia Policy Engine Cable Manager User’s Guide 11

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The Multimedia Policy Engine

The MPE includes a simple, powerful, and flexible policy rules engine. Through the use of policy rules, you can modify the behavior of an MPE dynamically as it processes protocol messages.

Overview The core function of the MPE network is to establish service flows between the subscribers and application servers that provide multimedia services, as shown in Figure 1:

Figure 1: The MPE Manager and MPEs

A service flow is activated only after the contents of its QoS request are examined and approved by the MPE. If approved, the request is forwarded to the intended destination network node.

For example, when a subscriber wishes to open an IP-streaming session, the following actions occur:

1 An application receives the subscriber's request and sends a QoS request to the MPE for the associated network element, requesting that certain

12 Multimedia Policy Engine Cable Manager User’s Guide

The Multimedia Policy Engine

network resources be provisioned in order to be used for the application.

2 The MPE examines the QoS request before it gets to the network element and processes the request against the policy rules within its policy repository. The MPE then makes a decision based on the defined policy rules to accept or reject the request.

3 Depending on the decision made, the MPE performs one of the following actions:

■ Accepts the QoS request and forwards it to the network element, where the required network resources are provisioned, allowing the service flow for IP-streaming to be admitted and activated.

■ Rejects the QoS request, in which case, an error message is sent back to the application and no service flow is established.

Note: When provisioned resources are no longer required and deleted, the network resources are recovered for use elsewhere.



Understanding Policy Rules

A policy rule is an if-then style rule that has a set of conditions and actions. If the conditions are met, the actions are performed. You can create policy rules within the MPE Manager, using a wizard that contains a large number of conditions and actions to assist you in the construction of policy rules. Once you create policy rules, you deploy them to the MPE.

You can combine policy rules to provide additional power and flexibility. When there are multiple policy rules, the order in which the policy rules are evaluated can also influence the policy server behavior, so the order of evaluation is also configurable through the MPE Manager. You can also organize policy rules into groups in order to simplify the management of the policy rules.

The following are sample scenarios for which you might use policy rules:

■ You can modify the contents of protocol messages using policy rules. For example, you could use a policy rule to override the requested bandwidth parameters in a request.

■ You can create policy rules that track the use of resources for devices in the network and implement limits on how those resources are used. For example, some cable modems have limits on the number of dynamic flows that they can support. Using policy rules, you can ensure that a cable modem does not exceed this limit.

■ Some protocols allow for the provisioning of default QoS parameters for subscribers. With these protocols, policy rules could be used to implement subscriber tiers where different subscribers have different bandwidth available.

■ You can configure policy rules to monitor the reservation of bandwidth on network elements and notify operators when an element exceeds certain threshold levels.

■ In many protocols, the policy server acts as an intermediary between the Application Managers (AMs) and the QoS enforcement devices. Many of these QoS enforcement devices implement proprietary features that are activated through the use of standard (or non-standard) fields in protocol messages. Using policy rules, you can activate these proprietary features on behalf of the AMs, thus allowing them to use these features without modification.


Overview of Major Tasks

Overview of Major Tasks

The major tasks involved in using the MPE are as follows:

1 Create a Policy Server profile, which defines the configuration of an MPE. This step is described in Chapter 2.

2 Configure attributes on the policy server. This step is described in Chapter 2.

3 Create network element profiles, including protocol options, for each network element to be managed. This step is described in Chapter 4.

4 Specify which policy server will manage which network elements. This step is described in Chapter 4.

5 Create application profiles, which specify protocol information to associate each request with an application. This step is described in Chapter 5.

6 Create traffic profiles, which define default settings for protocol messages. This step is described in Chapter 6.

7 Create policy rules. This step is described in Chapter 9.

8 Deploy the policy rule from the MPE Manager to a policy server. This step is described in Chapter 9.



The MPE Manager

The MPE Manager provides centralized management and administration of policy rules, MPE devices, and associated applications, all from a single management console. This management console is web-based and supports the following features and functions:

■ Configuration and management of MPEs and additional Camiant products

■ Definition of network components

■ Creation, modification, deletion, and deployment of policy rules

■ Monitoring of individual product subsystem status

■ Administration and management of MPE Manager users

Organizing Policy Rules If you are working with multiple policy rules, the MPE Manager includes several features to simplify the management of those rules.

The order in which rules are evaluated is important. The MPE Manager allows you to configure the evaluation order of policies (see “Evaluating Policy Rules” on page 111).

The MPE Manager provides a policy template feature to simplify the creation of multiple policies that have similar conditions and actions. Once you create a policy template, you can use it to create additional policies. See “Creating a Policy Template” on page 123 for a complete description of the rocess.

The MPE Manager also provides a policy grouping feature. Policies can be organized into groups and the groups can be used to simplify the process of deploying policies to policy servers (see “Creating a Policy Group” on page 127).

GUI Overview The MPE Manager uses an intuitive and highly portable Graphical User Interface (GUI) supporting industry-standard web technologies (SSL, HTTP, HTTPS, and XML). Figure 2 shows the structure of the MPE Manager GUI.


The MPE Manager

Figure 2: Structure of the MPE Manager GUI

■ Navigation Pane — Provides access to the various available options within the MPE Manager.

■ Content Tree — Contains an expandable/collapsible listing of all the defined items for a given selection. For content trees that contain a group labeled ALL, you can create customized groups that display on the tree.

The content tree section is not visible with all navigation selections.

■ Work Area — Contains information that relates to choices in both the navigation pane and the content tree. This is the area in which you perform all work.

Specifications for Usingthe GUI

Camiant recommends the following:

■ Web Browsers —

❏ Internet Explorer 6 or higher, on Windows XP

❏ SVG Plug-in for Windows-IE. To download this plug-in point your Web browser to:

http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/mainframed.html

■ Monitor — 1024 x 768 or higher

Note: When using the MPE Manager for the first time, Camiant recommends that you change the default username and password to a self-assigned value. See “Changing a Password” on page 194 for information on this procedure.

GUI Icons The MPE Manager provides easy to use icons for removing, deleting, or changing the sequential order of the items displayed.

Navigation Pane

Content Tree

Work Area



Remove icon — When visible in the work area, selecting the scissors icon removes an item from the group it is associated with. The item is still listed in the ALL group and any other group that it is currently associated with. For example, if you remove policy server PS_1 from policy server group PS_Group2, PS_1 still displays in the ALL group.

Delete icon — When visible in the work area, selecting the trash can icon deletes an item, removing it from the MPE.

Note: Deleting an item from the ALL folder also deletes the item from any associated group. A delete verification window opens when this icon is selected.

Move icon — The up/down arrow icons are displayed when it is possible to change the sequential order of items in a list.

Shortcut Selection Keys The MPE Manager uses the following standard browser techniques for selecting multiple items from a list:

■ Shift/click — selects two or more consecutive items. To do this, select the first item, then Shift/click on a second item to select both items and all items in between.

■ Control/click — selects two or more non-consecutive items. To do this, hold down the Ctrl key as you click on each item.


2MANAGING POLICY SERVERS

This chapter describes how to use the Multimedia Policy Engine (MPE) Manager to configure and manage policy servers in a network.

Note: The MPE is the Camiant policy server. The terms policy server and MPE are synonymous.


■ Multimedia Policy Server Profiles

■ Policy Server Groups

■ Configuring Protocol Options on the Policy Server

■ Configuring SSL Certificates

■ Reapplying the Configuration to a Policy Server

■ Checking the Status of a Policy Server

■ Viewing Policy Server Reports

■ Viewing and Configuring Policy Server Logs


CHAPTER 2: MANAGING POLICY SERVERS

Policy Server Profiles

A policy server profile contains the configuration information for a policy server. The MPE Manager stores policy server profiles in a configuration database. Once you define profiles, you can deploy them to policy servers (MPE devices) across the network.

The following subsections describe how to manage policy server profiles. For information on deploying defined policies to a policy server, see “Deploying a Policy/Policy Group to Policy Servers” on page 134.

Creating a Policy ServerProfile

To create a policy server profile:

1 From the navigation pane, select Configuration. The content tree displays a list of policy server groups; the initial group is ALL.

2 From the content tree, select the ALL group. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, click Create Policy Server. The New Policy Server Administration page opens.

4 Enter values for the configuration attributes (Figure 3 shows an example):

■ Name — Name assigned to the policy server.

■ Host Name / IP Address — Registered domain name or IP address assigned to the policy server.

■ Description / Location (optional) — Information that defines the policy server function or location.

■ Secure Connection — Designates whether or not to use the HTTPS protocol. See the Service User Interface User’s Guide for a description of how to configure SSL (HTTPS).

■ Type — Defines the policy server type:

❏ Camiant — The policy server is an MPE device and can be fully managed by the MPE Manager.

❏ Unmanaged — The policy server is not an MPE device and therefore cannot be actively managed by the MPE Manager. This selection is useful when a Camiant MPE device is routing traffic to a non Camiant policy server.

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The MPE Manager retrieves any preexisting configuration from the newly defined MPE device. This can be useful when installing a new MPE Manager into an existing network.

For most protocols to function correctly, once a policy server profile is created, you must go to the Policy Server tab and configure the attribute information (see “Configuring SSL Certificates” on page 33) and associate network elements with the server (see “Associating a Network Element with a Policy Server” on page 72).



Figure 3: New Policy Server Administration Page



Configuring orModifying a Policy

Server Profile

To configure or modify a policy server profile:


2 From the content tree, select the policy server. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area. Figure 4 shows an example.

The page contains the following tabs:

■ System — Defines the system information associated with this policy server — the name, host name or IP address, information about the policy server, and whether or not the policy server uses a secure connection to any management system (such as the MPE Manager).

■ Reports — Displays various statistics and counters related to the physical hardware of the cluster, policy execution, and network protocol operation.

Note: Reports cannot be modified.

■ Logs — Displays the Policy Log, Event Log, and Alert configurations.

■ Policy Server — Lets you associate applications and network elements with the policy server and configure protocol information.

■ EM — Lets you view and configure event messages.

■ Routing — Lets you organize large networks of policy servers into a hierarchical configuration, applicable for network designs with either centralized application architectures, or distributed application architectures.

■ Policies — Lets you manage policies that are deployed on the policy server.

■ DHCP — Lets you configure DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol).

3 Select the tab that contains the information you want to modify and click Modify.

4 When you finish your modifications, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes).



Figure 4: Policy Server Administration Page



Configuring Protocol Options on the Policy Server

To configure protocol options on a policy server:


2 From the content tree, select the desired policy server. The Policy Server Administration page opens.

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, select the Policy Server tab. The current configuration options are displayed. Figure 5 shows an example.

4 Click Modify and define options as necessary (described in Table 1).

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes).

Figure 5: Policy Server Tab


Configuring Protocol Options on the Policy Server

Table 1: Policy Server Protocol Configuration Options

Attribute Description

Associations

Applications The applications associated with this policy server. To modify this list, click Manage.

Network Elements The network elements associated with this policy server. To modify this list, click Manage.

Network Element Groups The network element groups associated with this policy server. To modify this list, select or deselect groups.

Configuration

Management Agent Visible if your network contains management agents. For more information, see Chapter 8.

PCMM

Validate the application When enabled, all PCMM requests are checked to ensure that there is an application defined that can be associated with the request (typically by matching the AMID in the request). If there is no such application, the request is rejected by the policy server.

Validate the service class When enabled, any PCMM requests that refer to a Service Class Name in a traffic profile are checked to ensure that the service class is known to be valid for the destination CMTS.

Validate the gate ID When enabled, all PCMM requests that refer to an existing gate are checked against the policy server's database of existing gates. If the request refers to a gate ID that does not exist, then it is rejected without forwarding to the CMTS.

Validate traffic profile envelopes

When enabled, all PCMM requests that include traffic profiles are checked to ensure that the parameters for the Authorized, Reserved and Committed envelopes are valid, as defined in the PCMM Specification.

Enable MGPI Enable Multiple Grants Per Interval (MGPI) for all Rx applications. By default, not selected (that is, MGPI is disabled).

Note: If MGPI is enabled, flow aggregation begins with the next call that creates or modifies an application flow.

Upstream Service Flow Limit for Triggering MGPI

The number of upstream service flows above which MGPI is triggered. A value from 1 through 99; the default is 8.

Maximum Number of Grants per Interval

The maximum number of grants per interval allowed on one gate (that is, the maximum number of sub-flows aggregated on one service flow). A value from 2 through 99; the default is 8.

Diameter

Diameter Port The default is 3868.

Diameter Realm The policy server's domain of responsibility (for example, galactel.com).

Diameter Identity The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the policy server (for example, mpe3.galactel.com).

Diameter PCMM AMID This is the AMID used when requests are received from an Application Function (AF) that are translated to PCMM. This AMID must be unique among all the AMIDs that are used by any PCMM Application Managers (AMs) in your network. The default is 3472.

Diameter PCEF Default Profile

Defines the bandwidth parameters that are used when establishing a default traffic profile for a Policy and Charging Enforcement Function (PCEF). These parameters can be overridden by configuring policy rules that apply different profiles.

Diameter AF Default Profiles

Define the bandwidth parameters that are used when a request from an Application Function (AF) does not contain sufficient information for the policy server to derive QoS parameters. These profiles are defined per media type: Default, Audio, Video, Data, Application, Control, Text, Message, and Other. The Default profile is used when a profile for a media type is not defined. To specify values, create Diameter profiles in the general profile configuration.



Deleting a Policy ServerProfile

Deleting a policy server profile from the ALL group also deletes it from any associated group.

To delete a policy server profile:


2 From the content tree, select the ALL group. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area, displaying all defined policy servers; for example:

3 Use one of the following methods to select the policy server profile to delete:

■ From the work area, click the Delete icon located next to the policy server profile you want to delete.

■ From the policy server group tree, select the policy server; the Policy Server Administration page opens. Click the System tab; the System tab opens. Click Delete.

You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this Policy Server?” Click OK to delete the policy server profile (or Cancel to cancel the request).


Policy Server Groups


For organizational purposes, you can aggregate the MPEs in your network into groups. The groups are displayed in the network topology map and can be used to define authorization scopes. The following subsections describe how to manage policy server groups.

Creating a Policy ServerGroup

To create a policy server group:



3 On the Policy Server Administration page, click Create Group. The Create Group editor page opens.

4 Enter the name of the new policy server group. The name cannot contain quotation marks (") or commas.

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The new group appears in the content tree.



Adding a Policy Server toa Policy Server Group

To add a policy server to a policy server group:


2 From the content tree, select the desired policy server group. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area, displaying the contents of the selected policy server group.

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, click Add Policy Server. The Add Policy Server page opens, displaying the policy servers not already part of the group. Figure 6 shows an example.

4 Click on the policy server you want to add; use the Ctrl or Shift keys to select multiple policy servers.

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to cancel the request). The policy server is added to the selected group.

Figure 6: Add Policy Server Page



Creating a Policy ServerSubgroup

You can create subgroups to further organize your policy server network. To add a policy server subgroup to an existing policy server group:


2 From the content tree, select the desired policy server group. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area, displaying the contents of the selected policy server group.

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, click Create Sub-Group. The Create Group page opens (Figure 7).

4 Enter the name of the new subgroup. The name cannot contain quotation marks (") or commas (,).

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The subgroup is added to the selected group.

Figure 7: Create Group Page



Renaming a Policy ServerGroup

To modify the name assigned to a policy server group or sub-group:


2 From the content tree, select the desired policy server group or sub-group. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, click Modify. The Modify Group page opens (Figure 8).

4 Enter the new name in the Name field. The name cannot contain quotation marks (") or commas (,).

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to cancel the request). The group is renamed.

Figure 8: Modify Group Page



Removing a Policy ServerProfile from a Policy

Server Group

Removing a policy server from a policy server group or sub-group does not delete the profile. To delete a policy server profile, see “Deleting a Policy Server Profile” on page 26.

To remove a policy server profile from a policy server group or sub-group:


2 From the content tree, select the desired policy server group or sub-group. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area, displaying the contents of the selected policy server group or sub-group:

3 Remove the desired policy server profile using one of the following methods:

Note: The policy server is removed immediately; there is no confirmation message.

■ Click the Scissors icon located next to the policy server you want to remove.

■ From the content tree, select the policy server; the Policy Server Administration page opens. Click the System tab; the System tab opens. Click Remove.

The policy server is removed from the group or sub-group.



Deleting a Policy ServerGroup

Deleting a policy server group also deletes any associated sub-groups. However, any policy server profiles associated with the deleted groups or sub-groups remain in the ALL group. You cannot delete the ALL group.

To delete a policy server group or subgroup:


2 From the content tree, select the desired policy server group or sub-group. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area, displaying the contents of the selected policy server group or sub-group; for example:

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, click Delete. You are prompted, “Are you sure you want to delete this group?”

4 Click OK (or Cancel to cancel the request). The group is deleted.


Configuring SSL Certificates

Configuring SSL Certificates

The Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol is a point-to-point secure transport mechanism that provides authentication, message integrity, and confidentiality. It relies on the exchange of certificates that allow two systems to interact with a high level of security. To configure a server certificate, you must perform the following steps:

1 Configure hostnames and hosts

2 Generate a certificate on each server

3 Export the local certificate

4 Import the peer certificate

These steps are accomplished using the Service User Interface. For the actual procedures needed to accomplish each step, see the Service User Interface User’s Guide. The sections that follow provide a high-level view of the process for each function.

Configuring Hostnamesand Hosts

Before SSL certificates can be generated, hostnames (local) must be configured for both servers, and host entries must be entered for the other (remote) server. To do this, see “Network Maintenance” in the Service User Interface User’s Guide, and complete the following:

1 Configure a hostname for the local server.

2 Add the remote server as a host.

3 Ping both servers using the hostname command to test for connectivity.

Generating a Certificateon Each Server

Certificate creation is performed on each server (local and remote). When creating the certificate, ensure that the alias used matches the hostname of the server the certificate is being created on. Also, the default password of changeit must be used throughout the creation process, or the certificates will not work. See “Create server certificate” in the Service User Interface User’s Guide.

Exporting the LocalCertificate

Export the certificate to the keystore, where it will be copied via SCP to the remote server. See “Configure SSL” in the Service User Interface User’s Guide.

Importing the PeerCertificate

Import the certificate that was previously exported from the remote server to the local keystore. You must reboot the cluster for the new certificate to take affect. See “Configure SSL” in the Service User Interface User’s Guide.



Reapplying the Configuration to a Policy Server

The MPE Manager lets you reapply the configuration to each policy server. When you reapply the configuration, the MPE Manager reconfigures the corresponding MPE device completely with every configuration field, ensuring that the MPE device configuration matches that within the MPE Manager. This action is not needed during normal operation but is useful in the following situations:

■ When all blades within a failed MPE device are replaced, the new blades come up initially with default values. (The Service User Interface User’s Guide describes how to restore both single-server and clustered configurations.) Reapplying the policy server’s configuration lets you redeploy the entire configuration rather than reconfiguring the MPE device field by field. You should also apply the Rediscover Cluster operation to the MPE Manager to re-initialize the Cluster Info Report for the policy server, thereby clearing out the failed blades’ status.

■ After performing a software upgrade on an MPE device, Camiant recommends that you reapply the configuration from the MPE Manager to ensure that the upgraded MPE device and the MPE Manager are synchronized.

■ There are situations in which it is possible for an MPE device configuration to become out of sync with the MPE Manager; for example, when a break in the network causes communication to fail between the MPE Manager and a given MPE device. If such a condition occurs, the MPE Manager displays the policy server status as “Configuration Mismatch.” In this case, reapplying the MPE device configuration brings the MPE device back into synchronization with the MPE Manager.

To reapply the configuration associated with a policy server:



3 From the group ALL, select the desired policy server. The Policy Server Administration page displays information for that policy server. Figure 9 shows a sample.

4 On the Policy Server Administration page, select the System tab and click Reapply Configuration. The profile information is saved to the policy server.


Reapplying the Configuration to a Policy Server

Figure 9: Policy Server Administration Page



Checking the Status of a Policy Server

The MPE Manager lets you view the status of policy servers, either in a network (all policy servers within a network) or individually.

■ Group View — Select ALL from the policy server content tree to view all the defined policy servers or select a specific policy server group or sub-group to view just the policy servers associated with the group. The display in the work area includes a status column that indicates if a policy server cluster is in one of the following states:

❏ On-line — Both policy server blades in the policy server cluster are operational.

❏ Degraded — One policy server blade has failed, but the policy server cluster continues to function with its one remaining blade. The cluster is operating in simplex mode, that is, a stand-by hardware blade is not available.

Note: If a blade is labeled Degraded, but the blade detail does not show any failed or disconnected equipment, the blade is performing a database synchronization operation; until the synchronization process has completed, the blade cannot perform as the master blade. Subsequently, for High Availability to operate correctly in a clustered system, the master blade of the cluster must not be rebooted unless the slave blade is in the “On-line” state.

❏ Failed — A policy server is no longer functioning properly.

❏ Off-line — Communication to the policy server cluster has been lost.

❏ Non-service Affecting Failure — One or more blades are in a Degraded state in which a blade is disconnected (see previous note).

■ Policy Server Profile View — Select a policy server from the content tree, then click the System tab to view the policy server’s current operating status (On-line or Off-line) and profile configuration.

Figure 10 shows an example of a Group View in which one of the servers is off line.


Checking the Status of a Policy Server

Figure 10: Group View

Note: The MPE Manager’s status for a cluster is the only reliable indicator of a cluster’s state (such as “On-line” or “Degraded”), as opposed to the HA status display in the SUI.



Policy Server Reports

The Reports tab lets you view a hierarchical set of reports that you can use to monitor both the status and the activity of a specific policy server. Figure 11 shows a sample Reports tab for a policy server.

Each report page provides the following information:

■ Mode — The Mode field displays a summary of the current type of information that is in the report.

■ Buttons — The buttons let you navigate between reports, or control the information displayed within the report. The buttons differ from one report page to the next. The following list describes the buttons that are available on all report pages:

Note: The buttons displayed vary depending on your configuration.

❏ Show Absolute/Deltas — Switches between “absolute mode” (which displays the statistics since the last reset) and “delta mode” (which displays changes in the statistics during the last 10-second refresh period).

❏ Reset All Counters — Resets the statistics for the current report page back to initial values (usually 0 for most statistics).

❏ Rediscover Cluster — Rediscovers the cluster, deleting any failed blades that have been removed from service.

❏ Pause/Resume — Stops or restarts automatic refreshing of displayed information. The refresh period is 10 seconds.

❏ Cancel — Closes the report page and returns to the parent report page.

The MPE Manager also displays various statistics and counters related to the following:

■ Cluster Information — Information about the physical components that make up a cluster.

■ Policy Statistics — Information about the execution of policy rules.

■ Protocol Statistics — Information about the active network protocols.



Figure 11: Policy Server Reports Tab



Cluster InformationReport

The fields that are displayed in the Cluster Information Report section include the following:

■ Status — The status of the cluster. For a summary of the possible status values, see “Checking the Status of a Policy Server” on page 36.

■ Failures — The number of cluster failures that have occurred.

■ Uptime — The total uptime for the cluster.

Also within the Cluster Information Report is a listing of all the blades contained within the cluster, including the following blade-specific information:

■ Overall — Displays the current status, number of failures, and total uptime for the blade.

■ Utilization — Displays the blade CPU, memory, and disk utilization percentages.

The Service LED button activates an LED on the blade, which allows for identification of the physical blade in the chassis of the cluster.

Figure 12 shows a sample Cluster Information Report.

Figure 12: Cluster Information Report



Blade Information Report You can select the blade identifier (MAC address) for any blade in the Blades table to display the Blade Information Report page, showing detailed information about that blade's physical and logical interfaces. Figure 13 shows a sample Blade Information Report.

When you finish viewing the report, click Cancel to return to the previous display.

Figure 13: Blade Information Report

d



Policy Statistics The Policy Statistics section summarizes policy rule activity within the policy server. This is presented as a table of statistics for each policy rule that is configured for the policy server.

The statistics included are:

■ Name — The name of the policy being polled.

■ Evaluated — The number of times the conditions in the policy were evaluated.

■ Executed — The number of times the policy actions were executed. This implies that the conditions in the policy evaluated to be true.

■ Ignored — The number of times the policy was ignored. This can happen because the policy conditions refer to data which was not applicable given the context in which it was evaluated.

Figure 14 shows a sample.

Figure 14: Sample Policy Statistics



Protocol Statistics The Protocol Statistics section summarizes the protocol activity within the policy server. This information is presented as a table of statistics for each protocol. In some cases, a protocol is broken down into sub-entries to distinguish between the different types of protocol activity.

The Protocol Statistics include the following:

■ Connections — If the protocol is a connection-oriented protocol, this represents the current number of established connections using each protocol.

■ Total client messages in / out — The total number of incoming/outgoing messages received/sent using each protocol.

For each entry in the Protocol Statistics table, you can select the name of the entry to see a detailed report for that entry. For most protocols, this report page displays a set of statistics that break down the protocol activity by message type, message response type, errors, and so on.

Many of the protocol report pages also include a table that summarizes the activity for each client or server with which the policy server is communicating through that protocol. These tables also let you select a specific entry to further examine detailed protocol statistics that are specific to that client or server.

Since many of these statistics contain detailed protocol-specific summaries of information, the specific definitions of the information that is displayed are not included here. For more specific information, see the appropriate technical specification that describes the protocol in which you are interested (see “Related Documentation” on page viii).

Figure 15 shows a sample.

Figure 15: Sample Protocol Statistics

d



For example, for VoD devices, the Reports tab displays the following information:

■ Total messages in/out — Total number of messages sent/received from all VoD servers. This includes reserve requests, release requests, and status (synchronization) messages.

■ Session count — Total number of session requests received by this device, whether successful or not. A session teardown does not decrement this value. (To see the current active session count, refer to the network element statistics for each VoD server, which are listed below this block of counters.)

■ Session success count — Number of successful reserve requests (defined as a single reserve request followed by an ACK from the MPE device) since the last reset.

■ Session failures — Number of failed session requests (defined as a single reserve request from a VoD server followed by a NAK from the MPE device).

Additionally, for individual VoD network elements, the Reports tab displays the following information:

■ Network Element — Unique identifier for this device.

■ Session count — Number of active sessions handled by this device.

■ Session success count — Number of successful reserve requests (defined as a single reserve request followed by an ACK from the MPE) by this device since the last reset.

■ Upstream bandwidth — Current reserved upstream bandwidth allocated for this device.

■ Downstream bandwidth — Current reserved downstream bandwidth allocated for this device.

Note: Statistical information is returned from the MPE device as a series of running “peg counts.” To arrive at interval rate information, such as session success and failure counts, two intervals are needed to perform the difference calculation. Also, statistical information, such as session activation counts, is kept in memory and is therefore not persisted across the cluster. After a failover, non-persistent metrics must be repopulated based on resampling from the newly active master server. Therefore, when an MPE device is brought on line, or after a failover, one or more sample periods will display no statistical information.


Policy Server Logs

Policy Server Logs

The log files contain information, viewable through a log viewer, for the MPE device. The information in the log files records the activity of the Policy Rules Engine; logs event and alerts; and provides you with an indication of the state of the MPE device that can alert you to potential problems. From this tab you can view and configure the logs for an individual MPE device.

To view the logs:

1 From the navigation pane, select Configuration. The content tree displays a list of policy server groups.

2 From the content tree, select the desired policy server. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, select the Logs tab. Log information, including the log levels, is displayed. Figure 16 shows an example.

The available logs are:

■ Policy log

■ Event log

■ Alerts

Figure 16: Policy Server Logs Tab



The Policy Log The policy log records the activity of the Policy Rules Engine within the selected MPE device.

To display the policy log, click Policy Log. The log appears in the work area; Figure 17 shows an example.

To update the policy log display with the most recent data, click Refresh. To close the display, click Cancel.

You can configure the severity of messages that are written to the policy log. To configure the policy log display:

1 From the Logs tab, click Modify. The Modify Settings fields open in the work area.

2 In the Policy Log Level field, select the minimum severity level to record from the drop-down list:

■ Severe

■ Warning

■ Info

■ Config

■ Fine

■ Finer

■ Finest



Policy Server Logs

Figure 17: Policy Log



The Event Log The Event Log displays the various events generated by the MPE device. You can configure the severity as well as the destination(s) of messages that are written to the event log.

Viewing Events To view log information using the Event Log Viewer:


2 From the content tree, select the policy server. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, select the Logs tab. Log information is displayed.

4 Click View Event Log. The Event Log Viewer page opens. While data is being retrieved, an in-progress message appears. Figure 18 shows a sample.

All events contain the following information:

■ Date/Time — Time when the event occurred. This time is relative to the server time.

■ Blade — MAC address of the blade reporting the event.

■ Module — Name of the module reporting the event:

❏ PS — Policy Server

❏ HA — High Availability

❏ Manager — MPE Manager

❏ Scheduled Tasks — Task Manager

■ Code — The event code. For information about event codes and messages, see the Event Log Messages Reference Guide.

■ Severity — Severity level of the event.

■ Message — The message associated with the event. If there is additional information available, the event entry shows as a link. Click on the link to see additional detail in the frame below.

5 You can filter the events displayed using the following:

■ Start Date/Time — Clickithe calendar icon, select the desired starting date and time, then click Enter.

■ Event Log Timeline — If you have configured multiple log files, the Event Log Timeline lets you select one of them. Click on a segment to start the search within the log file represented by that segment.

■ Modules — Filter by originating module (such as DC, HA, Scheduled Tasks, or Manager). Only events from the selected module(s) appear.


Policy Server Logs

■ Severity — Filter by severity level. Events with the selected severity and higher are displayed. For example, if the severity selected is Warning, the event log displays events with the severity levels Warning, Error, Critical, Alert, and Emergency.

■ Contains — Enter a test string to search for. For example, if you enter “connection,” all events containing the word “connection” appear.

After entering the filtering information, click Refresh. The selected events are displayed.

Figure 18: Event Log Viewer Page

Refreshing the display Events that occur after the Event Log Viewer starts are not visible until you refresh the display. To refresh the display, click one of the following buttons:

■ Refresh — Applies filter settings and refreshes the display. This displays the most recent log entries that fit the filtering criteria.

■ Refresh Default — Removes all filtering values and refreshes the display. This displays the most recent log entries.

■ Next/Prev — Once the number of event log entries exceeds the page limit, pagination is applied. Use the Prev and Next buttons to navigate through the event log entries. When the Next button is not visible, you have reached the most recent log entries.

■ Close — Closes the Event Log Viewer.



Configuring the Event Log

To configure the event log:


2 To modify event log settings, click Modify. The Modify Log Settings page opens.

3 In the Modify Event Log Settings section of the page, configure the following:

■ Event Log Level — indicates the severity of messages that are written to the event log files. These severity levels correspond to syslog message severities from RFC 3164. Adjusting this setting allows any new events, at or above the configured severity, to be recorded in the Event Log. Valid levels are:

❏ Emergency — Provides the least amount of logging, recording only those events causing the system to be unusable.

❏ Alert — Action must be taken immediately in order to prevent an unusable system.

❏ Critical — Events causing service impact to operations.

❏ Error — Events describing any internal, non-service impacting, or error.

❏ Warning — Messages that, if left unattended, may cause service impact. This is the default value.

❏ Notice — Provides messages that may be of significant interest that occur during normal operation.

❏ Info — Informational messages that occur during normal operation. This setting slows down MPE processing.

❏ Debug — Provides the greatest amount of logging. This setting is not recommended except in controlled environments.

CAUTION: Consider the implications of changing the default logging level. Lowering the log level setting from its default value (for example, from “Warning” to “Info”) causes more events to be written to the log files and can adversely affect performance. On the other hand, raising the log level setting (for example, from “Warning” to “Alert”) can cause you to miss important events.

This setting determines what messages are forwarded. For example, if this setting is defined as “Warning,” a Debug message is not forwarded, even if a forwarding server is set to accept it.

■ Event Log File Size (in KB) — Sets the maximum size of the event log file, from 512 KB to 32768 KB.

■ Number of Log Files — Select a number from 2 through 8 to specify the number of event logs saved in addition to the active event log file.

■ Event Log Forward IP Address 1 — Event log entries can be forwarded to multiple syslog servers; this sets the first syslog server address. If you do not want to forward events to this server, leave


Policy Server Logs

the default address of 0.0.0.0. To filter the log level sent to this server, select a level; all messages at or above this value are forwarded. The default level is “Warning.”

■ Event Log Forward IP Address 2— Sets the second syslog server address. If you do not want to forward events to this server, leave the default address of 0.0.0.0. To filter the log level sent to this server, select a level; all messages at or above this value are forwarded. The default level is “Warning.”

■ Event Log Forward IP Address 3 — Sets the third syslog server address. If you do not want to forward events to this server, leave the default address of 0.0.0.0. To filter the log level sent to this server, select a level; all messages at or above this value are forwarded. The default level is “Warning.”

■ Event Log Forward IP Address 4 — Sets the fourth syslog server address. If you do not want to forward events to this server, leave the default address of 0.0.0.0. To filter the log level sent to this server, select a level; all messages at or above this value are forwarded. The default level is “Warning.”

■ Event Log Forward IP Address 5 — Sets the fifth syslog server address. If you do not want to forward events to this server, leave the default address of 0.0.0.0. To filter the log level sent to this server, select a level; all messages at or above this value are forwarded. The default level is “Warning.”

■ Event Log Forward Facility — Indicates the facility to associate with a forwarded event log message; this setting is only applicable when one or more Event Log Forwarding IP addresses is configured.

The facility values correspond to syslog message facilities from RFC 3164:


Name Syslog Code Facility

LOCAL 0 16 local use 0







Note: Local use 7 is reserved for Linux boot messages.



Alerts Alerts are issued when your network topology nears or exceeds the maximum bandwidth limits set. For information on how alerts are displayed, see “Viewing Alerts” on page 149.

To configure alerts:


2 In the Alert Configuration area, select or deselect Enable Alerts.


3PROTOCOL ROUTING

Routing enables the MPE device to forward requests to other policy servers for further processing. The following routing messages and protocols are supported:

■ PacketCable MultiMedia (PCMM) messages


■ PCMM Routing Architectures

■ Configuring PCMM Routing


CHAPTER 3: PROTOCOL ROUTING

PCMM Routing Architectures

There are two architectures you can employ with PCMM routing: Hierarchical and Mesh.

■ Hierarchical — There is a top-level MPE and one or more bottom-level MPE clusters. A PCMM message is sent to the top-level MPE, which then forwards the message to the appropriate MPE below based on the subscriber IP address in the message.

■ Mesh — There is a set of two or more MPE clusters, but there is no top-level cluster. If you imagine three MPE clusters arranged in a triangle, a PCMM message coming into any one of these clusters can be forwarded out to any of the other two MPE clusters. Each cluster points to the other cluster.

In either architecture, a PCMM message is handled by the MPE cluster to which it is sent. For example, in the hierarchical architecture, if a PCMM message comes into the top-level MPE cluster, that cluster handles the message itself if the appropriate CMTS is associated with it. The message does not have to be forwarded.


Configuring PCMM Routing

Configuring PCMM Routing

To configure PCMM routing:

1 From the navigation pane, select Configuration. The content tree displays a list of policy server groups.


3 On the Policy Server Administration page, select the Routing tab. The PCMM Routing configuration settings are displayed.

4 Click Modify. The Modify Routing Configuration page opens (Figure 5).

5 Set the following values:

■ Execute Policies for Routed Traffic — If this checkbox is enabled, the policy server applies its locally configured policies to any requests before forwarding them to another policy server. Typically, this feature is disabled, as the policy server that is receiving the request is also applying policies. However, in an environment where you apply different types of policies within the two policy servers this might be useful. Enabling this feature typically causes a reduction in the performance of the routing feature.

■ Downstream Policy Servers — This is a list of policy servers to which this policy server can forward requests. You can change this setting by clicking on the policy servers in the list. Highlighted policy servers are included; others are not.

■ Subnets — This is a read-only field that is visible only if you have selected an MPE in the Downstream Policy Server list; it lists all the subnets associated with the Downstream policy servers.



CHAPTER 3: PROTOCOL ROUTING

Figure 19: Modify Routing Configuration Page


4MANAGING NETWORK ELEMENTS

This chapter describes how to manage network elements within the MPE Manager. This chapter discusses the following topics:

■ Creating a Network Element

■ Configuring Options for Network Elements

■ Working with Network Element Groups

■ Associating a Network Element with a Policy Server

■ Adding Network Elements to the MPE Manager

A network element is a high-level device, server, or other entity within your network for which you would like to use the MPE to manage Quality of Service (QoS). Examples include a cable modem termination system (CMTS), a packet-switched data network (PDSN), a router, a server, or a zone. Once you have defined a network element in the MPE Manager, you associate it with the MPE device that you will use to manage that element.

There are also lower-level entities within the network that the MPE device manages that are not considered network elements. These are sub-elements, such as a channel within a CMTS or an interface on a router, or devices that are connected directly to network elements, such as a cable modem connected to a CMTS. Typically, there is no need to define these lower-level entities because once a network element is associated with an MPE device, the lower-level devices related to that network element are discovered and associated automatically.

Create a network element profile for each device you are associating with an MPE device. After defining a network element in the MPE Manager, you must configure its protocol options. The options available depend on the network element type.

Once you define network elements, you can combine them in network element groups.


CHAPTER 4: MANAGING NETWORK ELEMENTS

Creating a Network Element

You must create a network element for each device associated with any of the MPEs within the network. To create a network element:

1 From the navigation pane, select Network Elements. The content tree displays a list of network element groups; the initial group is ALL.

2 From the content tree, select the network element group in which you want to define the network element. (See “Working with Network Element Groups” on page 66 for information on creating network element groups.) The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Network Element Administration page, click Create Network Element. The New Network Element page opens (Figure 20).

4 Enter information as appropriate for the network element:

■ Name (required) — The name you assign to the network element. Enter up to 250 characters.

■ Host Name/IP Address (required) — Registered domain name or IP address assigned to the network element.

■ Backup Host Name — Alternate address that will be used if communication between the MPE device and the network element’s primary address fails.

■ Description/Location — Any information that helps identify the network element within the network. Enter up to 250 characters.

■ Type (required) — Select the type (and, as appropriate, the sub-type) of network element.

■ SNMP Read Community String — A password-like field that allows read-only access to the network element’s MIBs used for SNMP polling. If a value is not entered, SNMP data is not collected from this network element.

■ Capacity — The bandwidth allocated to this network element.

■ Links to other Network Elements — Specifies the links (paths) to other network elements.

5 Select a policy server to associate it with this network element (see “Associating a Network Element with a Policy Server” on page 72).

6 To add a network element to a network element group, select the desired group (see “Adding a Network Element to a Network Element Group” on page 67).

7 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The network element is displayed in the Network Element Administration page.



Figure 20: New Network Element Page



Modifying a NetworkElement

To modify a network element:


2 From the content tree, select the desired network element. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Network Element Administration page, click Modify. The Modify Network Element page opens (Figure 21).

4 Modify network element information as required. For a description of the fields contained on this page, see “Creating a Network Element” on page 58.


Figure 21: Modify Network Element Page



Deleting NetworkElements

Deleting a network element from the ALL group also deletes it from any associated group.

To delete a network element:


2 From the content tree, select the ALL group. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area, displaying all defined policy servers; for example:

3 From the work area, click the Delete icon located next to the network element you want to delete.

You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this Network Element?” Click OK to delete the network element (or Cancel to cancel the request).



Bulk delete To perform a bulk delete:


2 From the content tree, select ALL. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Network Element Administration page, click Bulk Delete. The Bulk Delete Network Elements page opens. Figure 22 shows an example. By default, the Search Pattern entry box is empty; enter an asterisk to generate a global search.

4 Select the desired network elements or network element groups to delete.

5 Click Bulk Delete to delete the network element or group from the MPE Manager and all the associated policy servers, or Cancel to cancel the request.

Figure 22: Bulk Delete Network Elements Page



Finding a NetworkElement

The MPE Manager Search function lets you find a specific network element located within a large network element configuration. To search the MPE Manager for a particular network element:


2 From the content tree, select ALL. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Network Element Administration page, click Search. The Network Element Search Criteria window opens (Figure 23).

Figure 23: Network Element Search Criteria Window

4 Enter the desired search criteria:

■ Name — The name assigned to the network element.

■ Hostname/IP Address — The domain name or IP address of the network element.

■ Description — The information pertaining to the network element that helps identify it within the network. Enter up to 250 characters.

Note: Searches are not case sensitive. Criteria can be entered using the wildcard characters '*' and '?'.

5 After entering all search criteria, click Search (or Cancel to cancel the request). The search results are displayed; for example:



Configuring Options for Network Elements

The following subsections describe how to configure options for a given network element type.

Note: Configuration changes made in the MPE Manager could potentially be reverted on an MPE device if the scheduled run time of the OSSI Distributor task on the Management Agent is before the scheduled rule time for the MPE Manager. The discrepancy is resolved when the OSSI Distributor Task runs on the MPE Manager.

CMTS To configure options for a CMTS:


2 Select a network element from the content tree. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Network Element Administration page, select the CMTS tab and then click Modify. The Modify Network Element page opens. Figure 24 shows a sample.

4 Configure the following information:

■ Configuration Features

❏ PCMM Enabled — Indicates whether the CMTS supports PCMM or not. If this is enabled and this network element is associated with a policy server, the policy server establishes a PCMM connection to the CMTS. If this is disabled and this network element is associated with a policy server, this invokes a special feature of the policy server called Camiant Admission Control (CAC) for this CMTS. When CAC mode is turned on for a CMTS, if the policy server receives any PCMM messages that should be sent to that CMTS, the policy server generates simulated responses for those messages rather than rejecting them.

❏ DQOS Enabled — Use this checkbox to indicate that the policy server should establish a DQOS connection to the CMTS.

CAUTION: Enable this option only if you are using DQOS in the MPE and the CMTS is configured to accept a DQOS connection. If this feature is enabled, and the CMTS is not configured to accept the connection, many error messages can be written to the policy server logs as the MPE repeatedly tries to establish the DQOS connection.

■ Subnets

❏ Subnets Configured Manually — Within this field you can add or delete subnets.

❏ Subnets Discovered via SNMP — This read-only field displays subnets that were discovered using SNMP. If additional subnets need to be added, they can be added by using the Subnets Configured Manually field.


Configuring Options for Network Elements

❏ Subnets Configured via OSS — This read-only field displays subnets that were imported via the OSS interface to the MPE Manager.


Figure 24: Modify Network Element Page



Working with Network Element Groups

Creating a NetworkElement Group

Network element groups let you organize network elements.

To create a network element group:


2 From the content tree, select the ALL group. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Network Element Administration page, click Create Group. The Create Group editor page opens.

4 Enter the name of the new network element group. The name cannot contain quotation marks (") or commas (,).

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The new group appears in the content tree.



Adding a NetworkElement to a Network

Element Group

Once a network element group is created, you can add individual network elements.

To add a network element to a network element group:


2 From the content tree, select the desired policy server group. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area, displaying the contents of the selected network element group.

3 On the Network Element Administration page, click Add Network Element. The Add Network Element page opens, displaying the network elements not already part of the group. Figure 25 shows an example.

4 Click on the network element you want to add; use the Ctrl or Shift keys to select multiple network elements.

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to cancel the request). The network element is added to the selected group.

Figure 25: Add Network Element Page



Creating a NetworkElement Subgroup

You can create subgroups to further organize your network element network. To add a network element subgroup to an existing network element group:


2 From the content tree, select the desired network element group. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area, displaying the contents of the selected network element group.

3 On the Network Element Administration page, click Create Sub-Group. The Create Group page opens (Figure 26).

4 Enter the name of the new subgroup. The name cannot contain quotation marks (") or commas (,).

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The subgroup is added to the selected group.

Figure 26: Create Group Page



Deleting a NetworkElement from a Network

Element Group

Removing a network element from the ALL group removes it from all other groups and subgroups. Removing a network element from a network element group or subgroup does not delete the network element from the ALL group, from which it can be used again if needed.

To remove a network element from a network element group or subgroup:


2 From the content tree, select the desired network element group or subgroup. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area, displaying the contents of the selected network element group or subgroup:

3 Remove the network element using one of the following methods:

■ On the Network Element Administration page, click the Delete icon located next to the network element you want to remove.

■ From the content tree, select the network element; the Network Element Administration page opens. Click the System tab; the System tab opens. Click Delete.

You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete the Network Element?” Click OK (or Cancel to cancel your request). The network element is removed from the group or subgroup.



Renaming a NetworkElement Group

To modify the name assigned to a network element group or subgroup:


2 From the content tree, select the network element group or subgroup. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Network Element Administration page, click Modify. The Modify Group page opens (Figure 27).

4 Enter the new name in the Name field. The name cannot contain quotation marks (") or commas (,).

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to cancel the request). The group is renamed.

Figure 27: Modify Group Page



Deleting a NetworkElement Group or

Subgroup

Deleting a network element group also deletes any associated subgroups. However, any network elements associated with the deleted groups or subgroups remain in the ALL group. You cannot delete the ALL group.

To delete a network element group or subgroup:

1 From the navigation pane, select Network Elements. The content tree displays a list of network element groups.

2 From the content tree, select the network element group or subgroup. The Network Element Administration page opens in the work area, displaying the contents of the selected network element group or subgroup; for example:

3 On the Network Element Administration page, click Delete. You are prompted, “Are you sure you want to delete this Group?”

4 Click OK (or Cancel to cancel the request). The group is deleted.



Associating a Network Element with a Policy Server

To associate a network element with a policy server:



3 On the Policy Server Administration page, select the Policy Server tab. In the Associations section of the page, the network elements associated with this policy server are displayed.

4 Click Modify. The Modify Policy Server page opens. Figure 28 shows an example.

5 To the right of the list of network elements in the Associations section, click Manage. The Select Network Elements window opens:

6 Select the desired network elements and click -->. To select multiple entries, use the Ctrl and Shift keys.

7 When you finish, click OK (or Cancel to discard your changes). The selected network elements are added to the list of network elements managed by this MPE device.

8 To associate a network element group with the policy server, select the group from the list of network element groups located under Associations.



Associating a Network Element with a Policy Server

Figure 28: Modify Policy Server Page



Adding Network Elements to the MPE Manager

In addition to defining network elements manually, you can add network elements to the MPE Manager using the OSSI XML Interface or by importing or exporting from an XML file. This section describes the XML bulk import process and the OSSI XML Interface (OSSI).

Using the OSSI XMLInterface

The OSSI XML interface provides access to raw data in the system directly via HTTP. The system data is entered and returned as XML documents in accordance with defined schemas. The schema for the input XML is provided to specify exactly which attributes of a network element are permitted on import, as well as the formatting for those attributes.

You can also define network element groups as part of the XML file and imported within the same file. Groups let you define a logical organization of network elements within the MPE Manager at the time of import. Group structures include not only group attributes, but also relationships between groups, subgroups, and elements.

The OSSI XML interface is divided into two areas:

■ Topology Interface — Allows you to query and manage network elements within the system

■ Operational Measurements (OM) Interface — Allows you to retrieve statistical data from the system

For detailed information, see the OSSI XML Interface Definition.

Importing an XML File toInput Network Elements

During the import process, network elements are read one at a time from the user-specified XML file. Each network element is then validated and checked against the existing database for collisions. Collisions are detected based on the network element name, which is considered a unique key to the element. If that network element already exists within the system, the existing element’s attributes are updated (overwritten) by the attributes specified in the XML file being imported. If that network element does not exist within the system, the network element is created and imported as a new network element.

Camiant recommends that you export the existing database of network elements before starting an import to ensure that you can recreate the previous state if necessary (see “Exporting an XML File” on page 75).

To use an XML file to input defined network elements:

1 From the navigation pane, select Import/Export. The Import/Export page opens in the work area (Figure 29).

2 On the Import/Export page, click Browse and locate the XML import file.

3 Click Import.

Following the import, status messages provide the total counts of all successful imports, updates, and failures. Click Details (the button is


Adding Network Elements to the MPE Manager

below the status messages) to open a window containing detailed warnings and errors for each object. The error messages contain identifying information for the XML structure that caused the error, allowing you to pinpoint and fix problems in the XML file.

Figure 29: Import/Export Page

Exporting an XML File The Export feature outputs an XML file containing structures for all network elements, interfaces, subnets, links, and network element groups within the MPE Manager, in the same schema used on import. This allows you to export to an XML file and then import that same file, performing a restore or backup. The export file can also be transferred to a third-party system.

To export an XML file:

1 From the navigation pane, select Import/Export. The Import/Export page opens in the work area.

2 On the Import/Export page, select the type of export: Network Elements, Traffic Profiles, Charging Servers, Tiers, Time Periods, Applications, or Entitlements.

3 Click Export. You are prompted, “Do you want to open or save this file?”

4 Click Save and save the file to the desired location (or Cancel to cancel the request).


5MANAGING APPLICATION PROFILES

This chapter describes how to manage application profiles within the MPE Manager. This chapter discusses the following topics:

■ Creating an Application Profile

■ Modifying an Application Profile

■ Deleting an Application Profile

An application is a service that you provide (typically to users of your network) for which you would like to manage quality of service (QoS). Examples include services like VoIP telephony, video on demand (VoD), and gaming. Once you have defined an application in the MPE Manager, you associate it with the policy servers that will manage that application.

When you are providing application services in your network, there are usually one or more servers within your network that are used to manage that service. These systems are referred to as Application Managers or Application Servers. When these systems are establishing a session that requires quality of service they issue a request to a policy server.

In defining an application in the MPE Manager, you specify protocol information that can be used by the policy servers to identify those Application Managers and thus associate each request with its associated application. This allows the policy server to apply policy rules to the request that you have defined for the associated application. Though configuring an application is optional, it can be very useful for creating policies.


CHAPTER 5: MANAGING APPLICATION PROFILES

Creating an Application Profile

To create an application profile:

1 From the navigation pane, select Application. The content tree displays the Applications group.

2 Select the Applications group. The Application Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Application Administration page, click Create Application. The New Application page opens (Figure 4).

4 Enter the following application profile information:

■ General Configuration

❏ Name — Name assigned to the application (for example, Rx).

❏ Description/Location (optional) — Any information that helps identify the application.

❏ Connection IP Address(s) — Enter the IP addresses that are used by Application Managers for this application. Click Add to include the IP address in the connection list; to remove an address from the list, select it and click Delete.

❏ Latency Sensitive — Select this option if the application is latency sensitive.

■ License Tracking

❏ Tracked — Select Yes (the default) to track the application’s sessions associated with a license. Otherwise, select No.

❏ Flows per Session — Specifies the number of upstream and downstream sessions (1 to 4) that are allocated to this application.

❏ License Timeout — Specifies the duration of time for which this application requires a license. The default is 240 minutes (4 hours).

■ PCMM

❏ Application Manager IDs — Enter the PCMM AMIDs that are used by Application Managers for this application. Click Add to define multiple values. To delete an existing value, select it from the list and click Delete.

❏ Session Class IDs — Enter the Session Class IDs that are used by AMs for this application. Click Add to define multiple values. To delete an existing value, select it from the list and click Delete.

■ Diameter

❏ Diameter Identity — Enter the Diameter identity (typically a fully qualified domain name) or identities used by application functions for this application. Click Add to define multiple values. To delete an existing value, select it from the list and click Delete.


Now you can associate the application with the profile of the desired policy server (see “Managing Policy Servers” on page 19).


Creating an Application Profile

Figure 30: New Application Page


CHAPTER 5: MANAGING APPLICATION PROFILES

Modifying an Application Profile

To modify an application profile:



3 On the Application Administration page, select the application profile you want to modify and click Modify. The application profile editor page opens.

4 Modify the application profile information as necessary. See the previous section for a description of the fields contained within this page.


Deleting an Application Profile

To delete an application profile:



2 On the Application Administration page, select the application profile you want to delete.

3 Delete the application profile using one of the following methods:

■ From the work area, click the Trash Can icon located next to the profile you wish to delete.

■ From the Applications tree, select the application and click Delete.

You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this Application?” Click OK to delete the application profile from the MPE Manager and all policy servers (or Cancel to cancel the request).


6MANAGING TRAFFIC PROFILES

This chapter defines how to manage traffic profiles in the MPE Manager. This chapter discusses the following topics:

■ Creating a Traffic Profile

■ Modifying a Traffic Profile

■ Deleting a Traffic Profile

■ Working with Traffic Profile Groups

A traffic profile is a set of values defined for a set of parameters that are used in protocol messages within the MPE device. Typically, these traffic profile values are used to define the Quality of Service (QoS) for sessions that are managed by those protocol messages.

Traffic profiles are used in the MPE device under several situations; for example:

■ They define default settings for protocol messages (see “Configuring SSL Certificates” on page 33)

■ They modify protocol messages thus modifying the QoS for sessions managed by those messages (see “Creating a New Policy” on page 116)

A traffic profile can be applied by a policy rule trigger, or a traffic profile can be applied by default if no policy rule is triggered.

Each traffic profile has a type associated with it. Since each protocol supports different parameters for controlling QoS settings, the available MPE parameters depend on the underlying protocol. Therefore, each profile type is associated with a single protocol, but a single protocol can support multiple profile types.

You can create multiple traffic profiles of the same type, as the values of the parameters for each profile determine the actual QoS that is associated with that profile.

For example, one possible set of traffic profiles is as follows:

■ Default — Default predefined profile

■ P2P — profile for peer-to-peer traffic

■ RATE_LIMIT_128K — profile to limit download rate to 128 Kbps

■ RATE_LIMIT_64K — profile to limit download rate to 64 Kbps


CHAPTER 6: MANAGING TRAFFIC PROFILES

Creating a Traffic Profile

To create a traffic profile:

1 From the navigation pane, select Traffic Profiles. The content tree displays the Traffic Profiles group.

2 Select the Traffic Profiles group.The Traffic Profile Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Traffic Profile Administration page, click Create Traffic Profile. The New Traffic Profile page opens (Figure 31).

4 Enter the following information:

■ Name — The name assigned to the profile.

■ Traffic Profile Type —

❏ Best Effort

❏ Diameter QoS

❏ Downstream

❏ Non-Real-Time Polling

❏ RSVP Flow Spec

❏ Real-Time Polling

❏ Service Class

❏ Unsolicited Grant

❏ Unsolicited Grant with Activity Detection

■ Protocol Fields — The set of protocol fields contained within the Traffic Profile page varies depending on the Traffic Profile Type selected.



Creating a Traffic Profile

Figure 31: New Traffic Profile Page



Modifying a Traffic Profile

To modify a traffic profile:

1 From the navigation pane, select Traffic Profiles. The content tree opens.

2 From the content tree, select the Traffic Profiles group. The Traffic Profile Administration page opens.

3 Select the profile you want to modify and click Modify. The New Traffic Profile page opens (Figure 32).

4 Modify profile information as required. For a description of the fields contained on this page, see “Creating a Traffic Profile” on page 82.

5 When you finish, click Save.

Figure 32: Modifying a Traffic Profile


Deleting a Traffic Profile

Deleting a Traffic Profile

To delete a traffic profile:

1 From the navigation pane, select Traffic Profiles. The content tree opens.

2 From the content tree, select the Traffic Profiles group. The Traffic Profile Administration page opens.

3 Select the traffic profile you want to delete.

4 Delete the traffic profile using one of the following methods:

■ From the work area, click the Trash Can icon located next to the traffic profile you want to delete.

■ From the content tree, select the traffic profile and click Delete.

5 You are prompted, “Are you sure you want to delete this Traffic Profile?” Click OK to delete the traffic profile or Cancel to cancel the request.



Working with Traffic Profile Groups

The creation of traffic profile groups is consistent with the group creation for any other component within the MPE Manager. To create a traffic profile group, see “Creating a Policy Server Group” on page 27 for a basic understanding of the group creation process.

Once the traffic profile group is created, it can be populated with individual traffic profile profiles.

Adding a Traffic Profileto a Traffic Profile Group

Adding traffic profiles to a traffic profile group is consistent with the addition of any other component within the MPE Manager. To add a traffic profile to a traffic profile group, see “Adding a Policy Server to a Policy Server Group” on page 28 for a basic understanding of the addition process.

Deleting a Traffic Profilefrom a Traffic Profile

Group

Deleting traffic profiles from a traffic profile group is consistent with the deletion of any other component within the MPE Manager. To delete a traffic profile from a traffic profile group, see “Removing a Policy Server Profile from a Policy Server Group” on page 31 for a basic understanding of the deletion process.

Note: This procedure only removes a traffic profile from a group folder. It does not delete the traffic profile from the ALL group folder, so it can be used again if needed.

Modifying a TrafficProfile Group Name

Modifying a traffic profile group name is consistent with the modification of any other group name within the MPE Manager. To modify a traffic profile group name, see “Renaming a Policy Server Group” on page 30 for a basic understanding of the modification process.

Deleting a Traffic ProfileGroup

Deleting a traffic profile group is consistent with the deletion of any other group within the MPE Manager. To delete a traffic profile group, see “Deleting a Policy Server Group” on page 32 for a basic understanding of the deletion process.

Note: In doing a group deletion, only the traffic profile group is removed. The traffic profiles assigned to the group remain in the ALL group.


7EVENT MESSAGING

This chapter describes how to use the MPE Manager to configure and manage Event Messaging and the Record Keeping Server that receives the messages.


■ Overview

■ Configuring Global Settings for Event Messaging

■ Configuring the Record Keeping Server


CHAPTER 7: EVENT MESSAGING

Overview

Event messaging is the standard mechanism (as defined in PCMM specification PKT-SP-MM-I03) by which an external server can be notified when certain PCMM events occur. The external server that is notified is referred to as a Record Keeping Server (RKS). These event messages (EMs) are then correlated by the RKS to derive service billing information, network resource usage patterns, capacity planning, and so on.

Note: Most of the behaviors described in this chapter are standard behaviors defined in PCMM specification PKT-SP-MM-I03. For more specific details on the algorithms or protocols involved in event messaging, refer to the PCMM specification.

In the PCMM architecture, event messages can be sent from a policy server or a CMTS. A CMTS sends event messages only when instructed to do so by the policy server (via signaling that is part of the PCMM protocol). This is determined on a per-gate basis — the policy server only instructs the CMTS to send event messages for gates for which it is also sending event messages. An AM does not send any event messages, but it can request the policy server to send them for any gates that it creates. This is accomplished by including a special object (called an Event Generation Info object) with the gate creation request.

Event message algorithm The policy server uses an algorithm to determine if it should send event messages. As mentioned previously, this algorithm also determines whether the policy server will instruct the CMTS to send event messages.

The algorithm is as follows:

1 If Event Messaging support is disabled, then no messages are sent.

2 If the required Event Messaging attributes are not configured, then no messages are sent. The required attributes are the FEID Domain and the Element ID.

3 If the AM has included an Event Generation Info object with a gate creation request, the contents of that object are examined:

■ If the object refers to an RKS that is configured on the policy server, the event messages are sent to that RKS for all operations performed on that gate.

■ If the object refers to an RKS that is not configured on the policy server, then it is ignored.

4 If a default RKS is configured on the policy server, then event messages are sent to the default RKS for all operations on that gate. If not, no event messages are sent.

If you want to ensure that event messages are sent for every operation that is performed, then configuring a default RKS will accomplish that. However, there is one important limitation to this type of configuration.


Overview

When an AM requests event messages to be sent as part of that request, it includes a piece of information called the Billing Correlation ID (or BCID). The purpose of this BCID is to make it easier for the RKS to correlate events that are associated with the same application session. Since this is initiated from the AM, it can use the same BCID to associate events for multiple gates together. Since most applications use multiple gates for a single application session, this is a very desirable feature.

When your event messages are generated by the policy server using a default RKS, there is no BCID that is available from the AM. In this situation, the policy server generates a unique BCID for each gate. Consequently. it is not possible to correlate multiple gates together when using this type of event messaging configuration.

Event messaging attributes Event messaging is configured in the MPE Manager by configuring a set of attributes. Each of these attributes is set either globally (shared by all policy servers) or on a per-policy-server basis. You can configure an attribute globally and then override it for a specific policy server.

For detailed instructions on setting these attributes for all policy servers, see “Configuring Global Settings for Event Messaging” on page 90 and “Configuring Local Policy Server Settings for Event Messaging” on page 92.



Configuring Global Settings for Event Messaging

To configure global event message settings:

1 From the navigation pane, select Event Messaging. The Event Messaging Administration page opens.

2 On the Event Messaging Administration page, click Modify. The Modify Event Messaging page opens. Figure 33 shows an example.

3 Configure the attributes as follows:

■ Enable — Indicates event messaging is enabled. If this value is set to Yes, event messages can be sent from the policy server (depending on the algorithm described earlier). If this value is set to No, event messages are not sent.

■ FEID Prefix — The 8-byte prefix used in the Financial Entity ID (FEID) in event messages. As defined in the PCMM specification, the first 8 bytes of the FEID constitute operator-defined data. If this value is not defined, these bytes are zero-filled.

■ FEID Domain — The domain name used in the FEID in event messages. As defined in the PCMM specification, this is the MSO's domain name, which uniquely identifies the operator for billing and settlement purposes. This domain name is limited to 239 characters.

■ Record Keeping Server List — The list of configured RKSs. If you are configuring event messaging in your network so that the AMs request event messages, then the RKSs configured in the AMs are configured in the policy server as well.

■ Default Record Keeping Server — Defines the default RKS for event messaging.




Figure 33: Modify Event Messaging Page



Configuring Local PolicyServer Settings for Event

Messaging

The MPE lets you configure how event messages are handled for a specific policy server. Local settings override global settings for event messaging.

To configure the Event Messages settings for a policy server:

1 From the navigation pane, select Configuration. The content tree displays a list of policy server groups; the default group is ALL.


3 On the Policy Server Administration page, select the EM tab. The current configuration settings are displayed.

4 Click Modify. The Modify Event Messaging page opens (Figure 34).

5 Configure the attributes as follows. Select the Overrides radio button to configure the value only for this policy server.

■ Element ID — This attribute is set on a per-policy-server basis. The Element ID is used when the policy server sends event messages. As defined in the PCMM specification, this is a 5-digit value (between 0 and 99999) that must be unique within the network among all elements that send event messages. Therefore, this value must be unique among all policy servers and CMTSs within your network.

■ Enable — Indicates event messaging is enabled. If this value is set to Yes, event messages can be sent from the policy server (depending on the algorithm described earlier). If this value is set to No, event messages are not sent.

■ FEID Prefix — The 8-byte prefix used in the Financial Entity ID (FEID) in event messages. As defined in the PCMM specification, the first 8 bytes of the FEID constitute operator-defined data. If this value is not defined, these bytes are zero-filled.

■ FEID Domain — The domain name used in the FEID in event messages. As defined in the PCMM specification, this is the MSO's domain name, which uniquely identifies the operator for billing and settlement purposes. This domain name is limited to 239 characters.

■ Record Keeping Server List — The list of configured RKSs. If you are configuring event messaging in your network so that the AMs request event messages, then the RKSs configured in the AMs are configured in the policy server as well.

■ Default Record Keeping Server — Defines the default RKS for event messaging.




Figure 34: Modify Event Messaging Page



The Record Keeping Server

An external server that receives event messages is known as a Record Keeping Server (RKS). To use event messaging, you must configure one or more RKSs, and then associate them with policy servers, either by adding them to the Record Keeping Server List, or by defining one as the default RKS.

When configuring an RKS, note that a single RKS may correspond to a single external server, but it may also correspond to a pair of external servers. This depends on how the RKS handles failover situations.

As defined in the PCMM Specification, an RKS is uniquely identified by the following:

■ Primary IP Address

■ Primary Port

■ Secondary IP Address

■ Secondary Port

If you have a single server that provides both a primary and secondary address, you can configure it as a single RKS. If you have two servers, each of which only provides a single IP address/port, then you could either configure both of them as a single RKS (that acts as a backup pair) or you could configure them as two separate RKSs, each with a Primary address/port and no Secondary address/port. However, if an RKS does not have a Secondary address/port, then that RKS will not be able to participate in the RKS failover mechanism as defined in the PCMM specification.

Creating an RKS Profile To configure an RKS profile, complete the following:

1 From the navigation pane, select Record Keeping Server. The content tree displays the Record Keeping Servers group.

2 Select the Record Keeping Servers group. The Record Keeping Server Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Record Keeping Server Administration page, click Create Record Keeping Server. The New Record Keeping Server page opens (Figure 35).


■ Name — Name assigned to the RKS profile.

■ Description/Location (optional) — Information pertaining to the RKS that helps identify it within the network or location.

■ Primary Address — IP address of the primary RKS.

■ Primary Port — IP port number of the primary RKS. The default port is 1813.

■ Secondary Address (optional) — IP address of the secondary RKS.

■ Secondary Port (optional) — IP port number of the secondary RKS. The default port is 1813.



The Record Keeping Server

Figure 35: New Record Keeping Server Page

Modifying an RKS Profile To modify an RKS profile:



3 On the Record Keeping Server Administration page, click on the RKS you wish to modify. Configuration information for that RKS is displayed.

4 Click Modify. The Modify Record Keeping Server page opens.

5 Modify configuration information as needed.


Deleting an RKS Profile To delete an RKS profile:



3 Delete the desired RKS profile using one of the following methods:

■ Click the Trash icon located next to the profile you want to delete.

■ From the content tree, select the profile; the Record Keeping Server Administration page opens. Click Delete.

You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this Record Keeping Server?”

4 Click OK (or Cancel to cancel the request). The RKS profile is deleted.


8MANAGEMENT AGENT SERVERS

This chapter describes how to configure and manage a Management Agent (MA) server.


■ Creating a Management Agent Profile

■ Management Agent Tasks

■ Using the Management Agent Event Log Viewer

The MA server is designed specifically for network architectures that require a distributed topology and collection framework. The MA server is not an actively managed device, but rather a distributed system that collects topology and network information for use with PCMM message routing and policy decisions.

The MA server sits between the MPE Manager and one or more MPEs. The number of MA servers and MPEs depends on the size of the network. The groupings that define the MPEs managed by an MA server and the MA servers managed by the MPE Manager depends on the layout of the network.

Using the MA server provides the following primary benefits:

■ A distributed framework, allowing the complete system to segment and process data in a parallel fashion.

■ A reduction in the management traffic across the backbone network.

All communication between the MPE Manager and the MA server is initiated by the MPE Manager, and, optionally, is performed over a secured interface.


CHAPTER 8: MANAGEMENT AGENT SERVERS

Creating a Management Agent Profile

To create an MA profile:

1 From the navigation pane, select Management Agent. The Management Agent Administration page opens in the work area.

2 On the Management Agent Administration page, click Create Management Agent. The New Management Agent page opens (Figure 36).

3 Enter the following profile information:

■ Name — Name assigned to the MA.

■ Host Name/IP Address — Registered domain name or IP address assigned to the MA.

■ Description/Location (optional) — Information that defines the MA’s function or location.

■ Secure Connection — Designates whether or not to use SSL, as a secure connection for this MA. See the Service User Interface User’s Guide for a description of how to configure SSL (HTTPS).

■ Policy Servers — Associates one or more policy servers with this MA server.




Figure 36: New Management Agent Page



Modifying aManagement Agent

Profile

To modify a management agent profile:


2 From the content tree, select the management agent you want to modify. The management agent is displayed in the Management Agent Administration page.

3 On the Management Agent Administration page, click Modify. The Modify System Settings page opens. Figure 37 shows an example.

4 Edit the profile information (see “Creating a Management Agent Profile” on page 98 for descriptions of these fields) as desired.


Figure 37: Modify System Settings Page



Deleting a ManagementAgent Profile

To delete a management agent profile:


2 Use one of the following methods to select the management agent profile to delete:

■ From the work area, click the Delete icon located next to the policy you want to delete.

■ From the policy group tree, select the policy; the management agent is displayed in the Management Agent Administration page. Click Delete.

You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this Management Agent?” Click OK to delete the management agent (or Cancel to cancel the request).

Reapplying aManagement Agent

Profile Configuration

To reapply a configuration to a management agent server:


2 Select the management agent you want to reapply. The management agent is displayed in the Management Agent Administration page.

3 On the Management Agent Administration page, click Reapply Configuration. The management agent profile information is pushed to the management agent server.

Note: The Reapply Configuration process can take up to 30 minutes. However, this process runs in the background and allows you to continue to use the MPE Manager, with the exception of the MA feature.



Management Agent Tasks

A set of configurable management agent tasks collect and distribute data:

■ Subnet SNMP Collector — The SNMP Subnet Collector task allows you to collect all subnet information residing on the CMTSs. This occurs by polling, via SNMP, all CMTSs for all subnets and then updating the MA with these subnets.

■ Service Class SNMP Collector — The Service Class SNMP Collector task allows you to collect all service class information residing on the CMTSs. This occurs by polling, via SNMP, all CMTSs for all service class information and then updating the MA with this information.

■ Subscriber SNMP Collector — The Subscriber SNMP Collector task allows you to use SNMP to poll the CMTSs for their subscriber topology data (such as CPE IPs, CM MACs, and channel data) and then to update the MA with this information.

■ CMTS Distributor — The CMTS Distributor task allows you to distribute CMTS, Subnet, and Service Class data to the MPEs.

■ Subscriber Distributor — The Subscriber Distributor task reads the subscriber topology data from the MA database and distributes it to the appropriate MPEs.

Managing ManagementAgent Tasks

To view the current MA task status and the current scheduled data processing:


2 From the content tree, select the desired management agent. The management agent is displayed in the Management Agent Administration page.

3 On the Management Agent Administration page, select the Tasks tab. The various configurable tasks are displayed. Figure 38 shows a sample.


Management Agent Tasks

Figure 38: Management Agent Tasks Tab

4 To view the status and the current execution schedule for a specific task, click the task name. Detailed information is displayed; for example:



5 Click one of the following buttons:

■ Reschedule — Reschedules when the task process starts:

❏ Click on the calendar Icon, select the date and time, and then click Enter.

❏ Define the run interval. Valid values are from 0 to 24 hours and 0 to 55 minutes (in 5-minute increments).

❏ Define the task, if any, that this task follows.

❏ When you finish, click Save to save the information to the MA (or Cancel to discard your changes).

■ Run Now — Runs the task process immediately.

■ Disable/Enable — Disables or enables this feature.

■ Refresh — Refreshes the current page.

■ Cancel — Ignores any information added and closes this page.


Using the Management Agent Event Log Viewer


To view the management agent event log or modify the MA Event Log viewer configuration:


2 From the content tree, select the desired management agent. The management agent is displayed in the Management Agent Administration page.

3 On the Management Agent Administration page, select the Logs tab. The current Event Log configuration is displayed. Figure 39 shows an example.

Figure 39: Management Agent Logs Tab

4 To view the Event Log or to define event log filtering, click the View Event Log link. The Event Log Viewer page opens. Figure 40 shows an example.



Figure 40: Event Log Viewer



Filtering the Event Log You can filter the events that display using the following:

■ Event Log Timeline — Narrows the time from which event logs are displayed by allowing you to select a region in the timeline.

■ Start Date/Time — Click the calendar icon, select the date, enter the desired time, and click Enter.

■ Modules — Allows you to sort by module (such as DC). Only events from the selected module(s) appear.

■ Severity — Allows you to filter by severity level. Event logs with the selected severity and higher are displayed. For example, if the severity selected is Warning, the event log displays events with the severity levels Warning, Error, Critical, Alert, and Emergency.

After entering the filtering information, click one of the following buttons:

■ Refresh — Applies filter settings and refreshes the event log display.

■ Refresh Default — Refreshes the event log display to its original default values.

■ Next/Prev — Once the number of event log entries exceeds the page limit, pagination is applied. Use the Prev/Next buttons to navigate through the event log entries.

■ Close — Closes the event log viewer.

All events contain the following information:

■ Date/Time — Time when the event occurred. This time is relative to the server time.


■ Module — Name of the module reporting the event.

■ Code — The event code.


■ Message — The message associated with the event. If there is additional information available, the event entry shows as a link. Click on the link to see additional detail in the frame below.


9MANAGING POLICY RULES

This chapter describes how to create policy rules and policy groups. This chapter discusses the following topics:

■ Creating, Evaluating, and Deploying Policy Rules

■ Creating a New Policy

■ Policy Templates

■ Managing a Policy Group

■ Import/Export Policies, Policy Groups, Templates

■ Policy Log


CHAPTER 9: MANAGING POLICY RULES

Creating, Evaluating, and Deploying Policy Rules

The following topics provide an overview of how policy rules are created, evaluated, and deployed.

Creating Policy Rules Policy rules are created (and modified) using the Policy wizard in the MPE Manager. Understanding how a policy rule is structured is helpful in understanding some of the other policy management concepts.

When you define a policy rule, you select from a list of available conditions and actions. Most of the conditions and actions are parameterized (they contain placeholders that may be replaced with specific values to allow you to customize them as needed). For example, consider the following policy rule:

where the device will be handling greater than 100 upstream reserved flows

apply profile Default Downstream Profile to requestcontinue processing message

This policy rule has two policy actions. The first action provides parameters that let you define a specific traffic profile to be applied. The second action instructs the policy server to evaluate the remaining rules within the policy rules list, as opposed to immediately accepting or rejecting the request.



Evaluating Policy Rules To write policy rules, it is important to understand how they are evaluated by the Policy Rules Engine, and how the engine fits into the protocol message processing within the policy server.

If you review the set of policy conditions that are available in the Policy wizard, one thing you will discover is that there are not many protocol-specific conditions. Although it is possible to write protocol-specific policy rules, the Policy Rules Engine itself does not have any protocol knowledge. Instead, it deals with a set of abstractions that are mapped to the underlying protocol messages that are being processed.

When the policy server receives a protocol message, the policy server performs the initial processing of that message and then determines whether or not the message is one that should be processed by the Policy Rules Engine. As a general rule, protocol messages that are either requesting bandwidth, or modifying previous requests for bandwidth, are processed by the Policy Rules Engine. Most other protocol messages are not. For example, a protocol message that releases bandwidth is typically not processed by the policy rules because there is no reason to prevent or modify that action.

Once a request is identified as a candidate for the policy rules, the policy server then attempts to associate as much information with the request as possible. For example:

■ Which network elements will be impacted if the request is allowed to proceed?

■ Which application is associated with the request?

■ Which user is associated with the request?

The reason for collecting this information is to make it available to the policy rules. The information that can be associated is largely dependent on the protocol in question, how much information is provided in the protocol message, and on the amount of network topology information that has been provisioned into the policy server.

When the process of associating information with the request is complete, the policy server analyzes the information and maps it into two important abstractions that are central to the functioning of the Policy Rules Engine:

■ A list of network devices that the request impacts. A network device is any network element, or any logical or physical sub-component of a network element, or any other network equipment. Examples include: a router, a router interface, a PDSN, etc.

■ A list of flows associated with the request. A flow is a logical representation of a Quality of Service (QoS) enforcement point that is used for a specific purpose (typically in a single direction - upstream vs. downstream). A flow is usually characterized by a collection of bandwidth parameters. Different protocols may have a different number of flows associated with requests. For example, PCMM messages have only one flow per request, DQOS messages have one or two flows per request (for each direction), RADIUS-S messages have two flows per request.



After constructing these two lists, the Policy Rules Engine applies the policy rules according to the following algorithm:

For each network device:For each flow that is being created or modified:

Evaluate all policy rulesEnd

End

It should be clear from this algorithm that a single message can result in a policy rule being evaluated multiple times. This point is important to understand to ensure that the policy rules you write operate in the way you intended.

When there are multiple policy rules defined, they are always applied in the same order. The only exception is when the policy actions indicate that policy evaluation should be terminated. The policy actions are divided into two types:

■ Optional actions

■ Required actions

You must select one, and only one, of the required actions when the rule is created. This action determines the end result of the execution of the policy rule. If optional actions are defined in a policy rule, they are always performed before the required action. The required actions are:

■ Reject message — The Policy Rules Engine aborts the normal processing for this protocol message. For most protocols this results in the immediate termination of policy rule processing and some type of error response message being sent back to the originator of the request.

The reject message can contain a numeric code (an integer between 0 and 65535) defined during policy creation that the MPE returns to define the reason for the rejection (see “Creating, Evaluating, and Deploying Policy Rules” on page 110).

■ Continue processing message — The Policy Rules Engine applies the optional actions and continues processing policy rules.

■ Accept message — The Policy Rules Engine skips the rest of the policy rules and immediately forwards the protocol message on to the next processing step (this varies depending on the protocol).

Note: If a policy rule rejects a message, an event log message and a syslog message are generated. Also, an alert is generated which appears on the Network Topology page (it does not appear in the top-level alert log).



Deploying Policy Rules Deploying a policy (or policy group) is the act of transferring the policy from the MPE Manager to a policy server. Once deployed, the policy rules defined within the policy or policy group are used as decision making criteria by the policy server.

Figure 41 shows how policies P1 through P7 are created on the MPE Manager and then deployed individually to different policy servers within the network. Each of the policies are associated individually with the policy servers where they are deployed. In the example, each policy server displays the policies that have been deployed to them and the order in which they are applied to policy requests, from top to bottom.

Figure 41: Policy Deployment

Figure 42 shows how the same library of policies can be grouped first and then deployed as policy groups. When a policy group is created, the policies are arranged in the order in which they are to be evaluated. Grouping policies makes deployment of multiple policies easier and helps to ensure consistency in how policies are applied to policy requests on different policy servers.



Figure 42: Policy Group Deployment

When you first create a policy rule, that rule exists only within the MPE Manager. Once the policy rule is deployed, any change to the policy rule is automatically redeployed when you complete your changes. Automatic redeployment also applies to policy groups as well. Any changes to a policy group triggers automatic redeployment. If you add a policy rule that was not previously deployed to a policy group that is deployed to one or more policy servers, then the rule is deployed automatically to those policy servers.

Figure 43 shows what happens when a policy (P3) is modified and then its associated groups (PG-1 and PG-3) are redeployed automatically.



Figure 43: Policy Redeployment



Creating a New Policy

Individual policies are created within the Policy Library. When you create a policy, the Policy wizard steps you through the process of defining the policy’s attributes. The attributes the Policy wizard displays depend on your configuraiton and selections.

Navigate through the Policy wizard using the Back, Next, or Cancel buttons, or by clicking on the desired option in the navigation line at the bottom left of the window.

The following procedure describes how to create a new policy, using the following simple policy as an example:

If the media type is audio, then reject the message

To create a new policy:

1 From the navigation pane, select Policy Library. The content tree displays a list of policy library groups; the initial group is ALL.

2 From the content tree, select the ALL group. The Policy Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Policy Administration page, click Create Policy. The Create New Policy window opens (Figure 44).

Figure 44: Create New Policy Window

4 Select the starting point for the new policy:

■ Blank — The policy is created from the beginning, without any pre-defined attributes.

■ Use Template — The policy is created based on a user-defined template that has one or more partially or completely pre-defined



policy attributes. (see “Creating a Policy Template” on page 123). This template can be modified as needed.

■ Copy Existing Policy — The policy is created based on the defined attributes of an existing policy, which are then modified as needed, with a different name assigned to the policy.

5 Click Next (or Cancel to close the wizard without saving the policy). The Conditions page opens.

6 Select the desired policy conditions. As a condition is selected, it is displayed in the Description area located at the bottom of the page; for example:

Policy conditions are organized into the following categories:

■ Request — Related to specific fields or operations in protocol messages (requests)

■ Application — Related to the application that is associated with a request

■ Network Device Identity — Lets you identify specific network devices that are affected by the policy rule

■ Network Device Usage — Lets you make decisions based on network device resource usage

■ Mobility — Specific to protocols that deal with users that are mobile within the network

■ User — Related to the user or account associated with a request

■ Time Of Day — Based on the time at which requests are issued



7 If a policy condition requires further input, it displays red underlined text. Click the text to open a popup window, from which you can do one of the following:

■ Select one or more predefined options.

■ Enter a variable value (such as the traffic bit rate or the number of gates).

When you finish, click OK (or Cancel to discard your changes). The popup window closes and the input is added to the policy condition.

8 When you finish defining policy conditions, click Next (or Cancel to close the wizard without saving the policy). The Actions page for this policy opens.

9 Select the required action that the MPE should execute if the policy request matches the defined conditions of the policy; for example:



10 When you finish, click Next (or Cancel to close the wizard without saving the policy). The Policy Name page opens:

11 Assign a unique name (where uniqueness is not case sensitive) to the new policy.

12 Click Finish to complete the policy generation process and close the window (or Cancel to close the wizard without saving the policy). The policy information is saved to the MPE Manager.

After creating the policy, you can do one of the following:

■ Add the policy to a policy group (see “Adding a Policy to a Policy Group” on page 128).

■ Deploy the policy to one or more of the MPEs (see “Deploying a Policy/Policy Group to Policy Servers” on page 134).



CreatingTime-Dependent Policy

Rules

You can define policy rules that take effect either at or during time periods. Time is specified in two ways: as a condition within a policy, or using a defined time period. In addition, the MPE Manager supports time-of-day triggers.

Time Conditions Time conditions appear on the Conditions page of the Policy wizard:

Select a condition to add it to the policy rule. Selecting more than one condition combines them as logical additions (that is, condition and condition). You can specify the following:

■ Start and end times — For example, where the current time is between 18:00 and 23:59.

■ Weekdays or weekend days — Weekdays are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; weekend days are Saturday and Sunday.

■ Day — You can select a specific day of the week (for example, where today is Saturday).

■ Time periods — To specify a defined time period, select the condition where the current time is within the specified time period. Click on specified and then select the time period from the pop-up window. You can include or exclude the time period using the operator is or is not.



Modifying a Policy Policies can be modified and then redeployed to the desired MPEs. When a policy that resides in multiple policy groups is modified, the changes are propagated throughout the various groups.

To modify an existing policy:



3 Select the policy and click Modify. The Policy wizard window opens.

4 Edit the desired policy information from one or more of the Policy wizard pages. See “Creating a New Policy” on page 116 for details on the fields within the Policy wizard.

5 When you finish, click Finish (or Cancel to discard your changes) to complete the policy modification procedure and close the wizard.

The modified policy is now ready to be added to a policy group (see “Adding a Policy to a Policy Group” on page 128), or deployed to one or more of the MPEs (see “Deploying a Policy/Policy Group to Policy Servers” on page 134).

Note: Redeployment of this policy is automatically performed to those MPE devices where the policy was initially deployed.



Deleting a Policy Policies, policies within a policy group, and entire policy groups can be removed from an MPE device when they are no longer needed. Because the policy still resides on the MPE Manager, it can be redeployed at a later date, if needed. If a policy is no longer needed by the network, it can be deleted from the MPE Manager as well.

Note: Deleting a policy from the MPE Manager automatically removes the policy from all associated MPE devices.

To delete a policy:

1 From the navigation pane, select Policy Library. The content tree displays a list of policy groups; the initial group is ALL.

2 From the content tree, select the ALL group. The Policy Administration page opens in the work area, displaying all defined policies.

3 Use one of the following methods to select the policy to delete:

■ From the work area, click the Delete icon located next to the policy you want to delete.

■ From the policy group tree, select the policy; the Policy Administration page opens. Click Delete.

You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this Policy?” Click OK to delete the policy (or Cancel to cancel the request).

To remove a deployed policy from a policy server, see “Removing a Policy/Policy Group from a Policy Server” on page 136.


Policy Templates

Policy Templates

The MPE Manager lets you create policy templates to simplify the creation of multiple policies that have similar conditions and actions. A policy template is similar to a policy, except that some (or all) of the parameters in the conditions and actions are not completely defined. Those parameters are defined later, when you use the policy template to create policy rules.

The Policy Template wizard is used to create or modify a policy template. This wizard is similar to the Policy wizard; however, the Policy Template wizard allows parameters to be only partially defined. For example, a template may only be configured for policy requests requiring bandwidth above a certain value, but not define the exact bandwidth value. You then must specify a specific bandwidth value when you use the template to create the new policy rule.

Creating a PolicyTemplate

To create a new policy template:

1 From the navigation pane, select Template Library. The content tree displays the Template Library group.

2 Select the Template Library group. The Template Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Template Administration page, click Create Template. The Create New Policy Template window opens (Figure 4).

4 Select the base policy or policy template with which to begin:

■ Blank — No policy template attributes are pre-defined.

■ Use Policy Template — Use an existing template with pre-defined attributes. Modify the template as needed, then save the template with a new template name.

■ Copy Existing Policy — Use an existing policy. Modify the policy as needed, then save the policy as a policy template.

5 Edit the desired policy information from one or more of the Policy wizard pages. See “Creating a New Policy” on page 116 for details on the fields within the Policy wizard.

6 When you finish, click Finish to save the policy template and close the window (or Cancel to discard your changes and close the window).



Figure 45: Create New Policy Template Window


Policy Templates

Modifying a PolicyTemplate

Modifying a policy template does not modify previously configured policies.

To modify an existing policy template:

1 From the navigation pane, select Template Library. The content tree displays the Template Library group.

2 Select the Template Library group. The Template Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Template Administration page, click Modify. The Modify Policy Template window opens (Figure 46).

4 Click Back to retrieve and modify the desired template information.

5 When you finish, click Finish to save the modified template and close the window (or Cancel to discard your changes and close the window).

Figure 46: Modify Policy Template Window



Deleting a PolicyTemplate

To delete a policy template:

1 From the navigation pane, select Template Library. The Template Administration page opens in the work area, displaying all defined policy templates.

2 Use one of the following methods to select the policy template to delete:

■ From the work area, click the Delete icon located next to the policy template you want to delete.

■ From the template library, select the template; the Template Administration page displays the template. Click Delete.

You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this template?” Click OK to delete the policy template (or Cancel to cancel the request).


Managing a Policy Group


The MPE Manager lets you create policy groups. Policy groups are an organizational aid that provide a flexible policy management and deployment tool. Policies are saved to a group in the order in which the policy server applies them to a policy request. If needed, the sequential order in which a group’s policies are applied to policy requests can be modified. You can save a policy to multiple policy groups and add a policy to, or remove it from, a policy group at any time.

Creating a Policy Group To create a new policy group:



3 On the Policy Administration page, click Create Group. The group naming field opens in the work area; for example:

4 Enter the name to assign to the new group, then click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The new group information is saved to the MPE Manager and displayed in the content tree.



Adding a Policy to aPolicy Group

To add one or more policies to a policy group:



3 On the Policy Administration page, click Modify. The Policy Administration page opens in the work area; for example:

4 Click Add Policy. The available policies are displayed:

5 Select the desired policy to add to this group and click Add (or Cancel to cancel the request).

Note: Policies are applied to messages in the order in which they appear in the group. You can change the sequential order as desired (see “Changing the Sequence of Deployed Policies or Groups” on page 137).

6 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The added policies are displayed in the policy group tree.

Now you can deploy the policy group to the policy servers (see “Deploying a Policy/Policy Group to Policy Servers” on page 134).

Note: If this group had been deployed previously, it is automatically redeployed at this time, ensuring the policy servers are synchronized once again with the MPE Manager.



Removing a Policy froma Policy Group

Removing a policy from a policy group that has been saved to the MPE Manager only removes the policy from that selected policy group. The policy itself remains in the ALL group, as well as any other group it had been added to. (To remove a policy from all groups of the Policy Library, see “Deleting a Policy” on page 122.)

To remove a policy from a policy group:


2 From the content tree, select the desired policy group. The Policy Administration page opens in the work area.

3 Remove the desired policy using one of the following methods:

■ From the content tree, select the desired policy group and the desired policy within the group. Its profile information is displayed. Click Remove.

■ From the content tree, select the desired policy group and the desired policy within the group. Its profile information is displayed. Click Modify.

Select the Scissors icon located next to the policy you want to remove.



After a policy is removed from a policy group, the modified group is ready to be deployed to the policy servers (see “Deploying a Policy/Policy Group to Policy Servers” on page 134).

Note: This modified policy group is redeployed at this time, ensuring the policy servers are synchronized once again with the MPE Manager.



Changing the Sequenceof Policies within a

Policy Group

Policies are applied to policy requests in the order in which they are deployed to a policy server. The sequential ordering of policies, both inside and outside of a policy group, can be modified. For procedures on this operation, see “Changing the Sequence of Deployed Policies or Groups” on page 137.

When policies are applied to a message, the sequential order in which they appear in the group is the order in which they are applied.

To change the order of the policies within a group:


2 From the content tree, select the desired policy group. The Policy Administration page opens in the work area (with policies in their current sequential order).

3 On the Policy Administration page, click Modify. The Manage Policies page opens (Figure 47).

4 Use the up and down arrow icons to change the sequential positioning of a policy within the group.

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The modified group is ready to be deployed to the policy servers (see “Deploying a Policy/Policy Group to Policy Servers” on page 134).

Note: This modified group is redeployed at this time, ensuring that the policy servers are synchronized once again with the MPE Manager.



Figure 47: Manage Policies Page



Displaying Policy DetailsContained Within a

Policy Group

To display the policies within a policy group:



3 Click Show Details. The configured policies, including the configured parameters for the policies are displayed. Figure 48 shows an example.

Figure 48: Policy Group Details



Deploying a Policy/PolicyGroup to Policy Servers

The basic procedure for deploying either a policy or a policy group is the same. The following procedure uses the example of deploying a policy group:


2 From the content tree, select the policy group to deploy. The Policy Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Policy Administration page, click Deploy. The policy server tree is displayed, listing all possible target policy servers and server groups (you can expand the tree view if necessary).

4 Select the desired target policy servers or server groups.

5 Click Deploy (or Cancel to cancel the request). The policy information is saved to each selected policy server. A message indicating that the deployment process was successful is displayed.



Removing a Policy froma Policy Group on a

Policy Server

Removing a policy from within a policy group that was deployed to a policy server is a function of the Policy Library. The policy group is modified on the MPE Manager, then redeployed. (To remove the entire policy group from a policy server, see “Removing a Policy/Policy Group from a Policy Server” on page 136.)

To remove a policy from a policy group and then redeploy the group:



3 Remove the desired policy using one of the following methods:

■ From the Policy Library tree, select the policy. The Policy Administration page displays the profile information. Click Remove.

■ On the Policy Administration page, click Modify and then select the Scissors icon located next to the policy you want to remove.



Removing a Policy/PolicyGroup from a Policy

Server

Removing a deployed policy or policy group from a policy server is performed using the Policy Server function of the MPE Manager.

To remove a policy/policy group from a policy server:


2 From the content tree, select the policy or group to remove. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, select the Policies tab.

4 Click Modify. The Manage Policies page opens (Figure 49).

5 Select the Scissors icon located next to the policy or policy group that you want to remove.

6 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to cancel the request). The policy or policy group is redeployed to the policy server, minus the removed policy or policy group.




Changing the Sequenceof Deployed Policies or

Groups

Changing the sequential order of deployed policies or policy groups is performed directly on a policy server using the Policy Server function.

To change the sequential order:


2 From the content tree, select the policy to reorder. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, select the Policies tab.

4 Click Modify. The Manage Policies page opens in the work area. Figure 50 shows an example.

5 Use the Up and Down arrow icons to change the sequential positioning of the policies and policy groups.

6 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to cancel the request). The policies and policy groups are redeployed to the policy server in their new sequential order. A confirmation message displays in the work area.




Importing and Exporting Policies, Policy Groups, and Templates

Policies, policy groups, and templates can be exported from the MPE Manager for backup purposes. These items are exported as a whole and cannot be exported individually, as every policy, policy group, and policy template that resides on the MPE Manager is saved to a single file when performing the export function.

For information only, exported policies are marked with policy version numbers as well as the version number of the MPE Manager software under which they were created. This does not affect importation of policies created under different versions of the MPE Manager.

Importing Policies To import a policy file to the MPE Manager:

1 From the navigation pane, select Policy Import. The Import/Export page opens (Figure 51).

2 On the Import/Export page, click Browse to locate the policy file to import.

3 Select the desired collision handling option:

■ Delete all before importing — All policies, policy groups, and templates currently on the MPE Manager are deleted first, then the imported versions are saved to the policy server.

■ Overwrite with imported version — All items are imported. If the MPE Manager currently contains any policies, policy groups, or templates using the same names as the ones being imported, they are overwritten with the imported versions.

■ Reject any that already exist — All items are imported except for imported versions with the same name as any Policy, policy group, or Template currently on the MPE Manager.

■ Any collisions prevent all importing — No items are imported if any of the imported versions has the same name as any policy, policy group, or template currently on the MPE Manager.

4 Click Import.

If you try to import an invalid file you are prompted with a validation error: “You must correct the following error(s) before proceeding: There is a problem with the import file. The name is required, the file must be present, and the file must be in the correct format.”


Importing and Exporting Policies, Policy Groups, and Templates

Figure 51: Import/Export Page


Exporting Policies To export the policies that reside on the MPE Manager:

1 From the navigation pane, select Policy Import. The Import/Export page opens.

2 On the Import/Export page, click Export. The File Download window opens:

3 Click Save (or Cancel to close the window and cancel the request). The Save As window opens.

4 Assign a name to the policy file (the default is PolicyExport.xml), use the browse function to map to the desired drive location, then click Save. The Download Complete window opens, indicating the policies were successfully exported.

5 Select Close to close the Download Complete window.

The Policy Log

The Policy Log

The Policy Log is used primarily by support personnel for debugging purposes. To view the Policy Log:


2 From the content tree, select the policy server. The Policy Server Administration page opens in the work area.

3 On the Policy Server Administration page, select the Logs tab.

4 Click the Policy Log link. The Policy Log file is displayed. Figure 52 shows an example.

5 Optionally, select one of the following function buttons:

■ Refresh — Stops or restarts automatic refreshing of displayed information.

■ Cancel — Ignores any changes made and closes the report page.

Figure 52: Policy Log


10MANAGING NETWORK TOPOLOGY

This chapter describes how to manage the MPE network topology and monitor network elements. This chapter discusses the following topics:

■ The Network Topology Map

■ Network Path Management


CHAPTER 10: MANAGING NETWORK TOPOLOGY

The Network Topology Map

The network topology map allows you to do the following:

■ Graphically view network elements

■ View and monitor bandwidth and sessions for the network elements

■ Visualize the MPE to network element connectivity

Note: In Cable mode, you can view network elements, access all topology layouts, and monitor alerts; you cannot show statistics on a node. In SPC mode, you can access all network topology options.

Network ElementComponents

The network topology map uses the following icons for components:

Indicates an MPE device.

Indicates that an upper-level group exists. Double click to move up a level.

Indicates a sub-group.

Represents a network element (the icons that display depend upon your network element configuration).

Allows you to view an alert.

Allows you to add a note to an alert.

Allows you to resolve an alert.



Viewing the Map To view the current network topology:

1 From the navigation pane, select Topology. The Network Topology page opens. Figure 53 shows an example.

Note: If this is the first time you have viewed the Network Topology, click within the map to activate the view. You are presented with a stacked display of the network elements.

Figure 53: Network Topology Map — Initial View

2 You have a number of viewing options:

■ To arrange icons on the map manually, drag and drop them as desired.

■ To view a sub-network, double-click the desired element; for example:



Note: It can take several double clicks to drill down into a network element group that contains many (100 or more) network elements.

■ To view the network element name, place the cursor over the desired network element; for example:

■ To display node statistics, right-click on the desired network element and select Show Statistics on Node:

3 When you finish, right-click and select Layout > Save Layout. The layout is saved. If the configuration is not saved, the map reverts back to its last saved configuration the next time you open it.

To arrange the map automatically, see “Laying Out the Map Automatically” on page 147.



Laying Out the MapAutomatically

You can arrange icons by dragging them around the map. You can also automatically organize the map by network element layout or network topology. To lay out the map automatically:

1 From the navigation pane, select Topology. The Network Topology page opens.

2 Right-click, and from the pop-up menu that opens select Layout. Figure 54 shows an example.

3 Select a layout format:

■ Layout > Random

■ Layout > Circular

■ Layout > Tree (right-click on desired component that is the root of the tree)

4 When you finish, right-click and select Layout > Save Layout. The layout is saved. If the configuration is not saved, the map reverts back to its last saved configuration the next time you open it.



Figure 54: Topology Map Automatic Layout Options



Viewing Alerts The Network Topology Map contains the network alerts that are issued when your topology nears or exceeds the maximum bandwidth limits set. Figure 55 shows an example.

To modify the filtering used on network alerts:

1 Select the Start and End Date/Time by clicking on the calendar next to each.

2 Select a Severity filter level, indicating the severity of messages to filter the view on:

■ All — Displays all alert levels.

■ Emergency — Displays only those events causing the system to be unusable.

■ Alert — Action must be taken immediately in order to prevent an unusable system.

■ Critical — Provides events causing service impact to operations.

■ Error — Displays events describing any internal, non-service impacting, or error.

■ Warning (default) — Displays messages that if left unattended can cause service impact.

■ Notice — Provides messages that may be of interest that occur during normal operation.

■ Info — Informational messages that occur during normal operation. This option slows down MPE performance.

■ Debug — Used by Customer Support.

CAUTION: Consider the implications of changing the default alert level. Lowering the alert level setting from its default value (for example, from “Warning” to “Info”) causes more events to be displayed and can adversely affect performance. On the other hand, raising the alert level setting (for example, from “Warning” to “Alert”) can cause you to miss important alerts.

3 Select the Source (IP address) for the alert.

4 Select the state (Active or Resolved) for the alert.

5 After you have entered the filtering information, click Filter to refresh the Network Alert display.



Figure 55: Network Alerts

Table 2 describes the fields contained in an alert.

From within the Alert Viewer you can view further details, comment on, and resolve alerts.

Table 2: Network Alert Viewer Fields

Field Description

Date/Time Indicates the time the alert was received.

Severity Indicates the severity of the alert.

Text The user readable text of the alert.

Count The number of times this alert was received (and duplicated).

First Occurrence The time this alert was first received.

Source The IP address/FQDN of the device this alert came from.



Viewing Alert Details Network-based alerts can be viewed in the topology map through a warning signal displayed next to the icon for a network element, and an animation highlighting a path through the network.

1 From the navigation pane, select Alerts. The Alert Viewer window opens.

2 Click on the binoculars icon to the right of the alert. The warning symbol and animated path, highlighted, are displayed:

Adding a Comment to anAlert

To add a comment to an alert:


2 Click on the Wordpad icon to the right of the alert. The Comments page opens.

3 Enter the desired comment and then click Submit (or Cancel to close the window and discard your changes).

Resolving an Alert To resolve an alert:


2 Click on the checkmark icon (to the right of the alert). You are prompted, “Are you sure you want to resolve this Alert?”

3 Click OK to resolve the alert (or Cancel to leave the alert unchanged).



Network Path Management

To optimize traffic flow, you can define the paths traffic takes between network elements (see Chapter 4) as a series of hops. You can create, modify, or delete a path.

Creating a Path To create a path:

1 From the navigation pane, select Paths. The Path Administration window opens.

2 Click Create Path. The New Path Configuration page opens:

3 Define the following:

■ Name — Name of the network path.

■ Description/Location (optional) — Description of the path. Enter up to 250 characters.

■ Hops — Click Manage; the Select From Available Interfaces window opens, listing the network elements defined within this MPE Manager system:


Network Path Management

❏ Select from the list of available network elements. To search for specific elements, type a search string in the Search Pattern field. You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard character representing any string, or a question mark (?) as a wildcard character representing any single character. Searches are case insensitive. Click Filter to search.

❏ Once you have selected a network element, click Add to add it to the list of hops within the network path. (You can only add an element to the path once.) The order is significant; to move an element within the list, select it and click Up or Down.

❏ To remove a network element from the path, select it and click Remove.

❏ When you finish defining the path, click OK (or Cancel to discard your changes).The Select From Available Interfaces window closes.

4 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The path is saved.



Modifying a Path To modify a path:

1 From the navigation pane, select Paths. The Path Administration window opens.

2 Select the path to modify. Path details are displayed.

3 Click Modify. The Modify Path page opens:

4 Modify configuration information as necessary.

5 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to discard your changes). The message “Path updated successfully” is displayed.

Deleting a Path To delete a path:

1 From the navigation pane, select Paths. The Path Administration window opens:

2 Click the trash can icon next to the path you want to delete. You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this Path?”

3 Click OK (or Cancel to close the window and cancel the request). The path is deleted.


11MANAGING USER LICENSES

This chapter describes how to configure and track user licenses within the MPE Manager.

Note: By default, only admin users can access the licensing feature (see “Configuring System Settings” on page 166). Also, licenses are assigned in increments of 1000 (refer to “Assigning Licenses to a Policy Server” on page 159).


■ Displaying Installed Licenses

■ Installing a License

■ Tracking Licenses

The licensing feature takes into account which applications are covered by the licenses, gates that have run too long, and the conversion from gates to sessions. This task also determines daily, weekly, and quarterly maximums. When the task determines a weekly maximum, it also calculates an interim quarterly maximum, as if it were the last week in the quarter. If the policy server has exceeded the defined license limit, an alert is issued through the alert tracking subsystem.


CHAPTER 11: MANAGING USER LICENSES

Displaying Installed Licenses

To display installed licenses, from the navigation pane select Configuration. The License Administration page opens in the work area, listing all configured licenses. Figure 56 shows an example.

Figure 56: License Administration Page

The following information displays on this page:

■ Serial Number — The License Serial Number assigned by Camiant.

■ Sessions — The maximum allowed number of sessions, as defined for this license.

■ Unassigned/Assigned — Displays if this license is associated with an MPE device.


Displaying Installed Licenses

Displaying IndividualLicenses

There are two ways in which you can display individual licenses:

■ Clicking on the license within the Content Tree.

■ Clicking on the license within the License Administration section.

Figure 57 shows a sample license.

Figure 57: Sample License

Within this page, the configuration and policy server association is displayed. Note that the Configuration values contained within this page are pre-defined by Camiant and the customer and cannot be modified within the MPE Manager.



Installing a License

You must obtain a license from Camiant before you can install one on the MPE Manager.

To install a license:

1 From the navigation pane, select Configuration (under License). The License Administration page opens in the work area.

2 From the content tree, select the Licenses group.

3 On the License Administration page, click Install License. The Install License page opens (Figure 58).

4 Enter the following information exactly as defined in the Camiant license:

■ Serial Number — The serial number assigned by Camiant.

■ Customer Name — The customer name.

■ Sessions — The number of bundled licenses.

■ Date Issued — The date that the licenses become available.

■ Key — The generated key provided.


Figure 58: Install License Page


Installing a License

Assigning Licenses to aPolicy Server

Once a license is assigned to a policy server, the license cannot be removed. A license may be reallocated once an MPE device is deleted from the MPE Manager.

If a license is not assigned to a policy server, or if additional licenses exist, the quantity remaining displays as unassigned within the License Administration page. Figure 59 shows an example.

Figure 59: Display of Unassigned Licenses

In this example, the license with the serial number UNV-5788185 has 3000 licenses allocated, but only 1000 are assigned to a policy server. The other 2000 licenses are unassigned.

To assign licenses to a policy server:

1 From the navigation pane, select Configuration (under License). The License Administration page opens in the work area.

2 From the content tree, select the Licenses group. License information is displayed.

3 Select the license within either the content tree or the work area. The configured license information is displayed, including the number of assigned licenses, and to which policy server the licenses are assigned; for example:



4 Click Assign. The Assign License page opens with a drop-down menu of available policy servers.

5 Select the desired policy server from the list.

6 When you finish, click Assign (or Cancel to discard your changes). The bundle of licenses is committed to the policy server.


Tracking Licenses

Tracking Licenses

Tracked licenses within the MPE are displayed in the following reports:

■ License Tracking Summary Report — displays license information for all policy servers.

■ License Tracking Detail Report — displays license information for a specific policy server for a specific quarter.

Viewing the LicenseTracking Summary

Report

The License Tracking Summary Report displays the policy servers that are using the Camiant Licensing feature. These policy servers are displayed, one per line and sorted according to the policy server name.

Note: This report also displays the deleted policy servers.

To view the License Tracking Summary Report, from the navigation pane, select Tracking Report. The License Tracking Summary Report opens in the work area. Figure 60 shows an example.

The report contains the following fields:

■ Policy Server Name — The name of the policy server using the licensing feature. This name is also used to link the License Tracking Summary Report to the License Tracking Detail Report.

■ Licensed Sessions — The total number of licensed sessions allocated to the designated policy server.

■ Current Peak Sessions — The maximum number of current sessions at any one given time for the current quarter.

■ Maximum Prior Quarter — The maximum quarterly average peak for the prior quarter.

If an MPE exceeds its licensed sessions, its row displays red text.



Figure 60: License Tracking Summary Report


Tracking Licenses

Viewing the LicenseTracking Detail Report

When you select a specific policy server within the License Tracking Summary Report, the License Tracking Detail Report displays for the selected policy server.

The License Tracking Detail Report displays one line for each day in the selected quarter. For each week, there is a section break, with a line for the week. The breaks exist for all weeks but the weekly summary lines exist only for weeks that fall entirely within the quarter. At the bottom of the report, the quarter's average weekly peak opens.

This report displays data for the current quarter but can be used to view previous and next quarters, depending on the data being displayed.

To view the License Tracking Detail Report:

1 From the navigation pane, select Tracking Report. The License Tracking Summary Report page opens in the work area.

2 On the License Tracking Summary Report page, select a policy server. The License Tracking Detail Report page opens. Figure 61 shows an example.

3 To view reports for a different quarter, use one of the following buttons:

■ Next Quarter — Displays the License Tracking Detail Report for the next quarter. This action is inactive if the report currently displayed is the current quarter.

■ Previous Quarter — Displays License Tracking Detail Report for the previous quarter. This action is inactive if the report currently displayed is the first quarter for which there is data.

4 When you finish, click Cancel. The License Tracking Detail Report page closes and returns you back to the License Tracking Summary Report page.



Figure 61: License Tracking Detail Report Page

The following provides descriptions for the information contained within the License Tracking Detail Report:

■ Date — The start date for the recorded line.

■ Peak Time — The time the peak value was reached.

■ Peak Sessions — The peak number of sessions. This value is a daily or weekly maximum, depending on the time frame represented by the line.

■ Licensed Sessions — The total number of licensed sessions allocated to this policy server.

If a line is over the allotted session limit, the text displays in red.

In addition to the lines for the daily peaks, this report displays information when data was missing in the data collection process. If there is missing data for a day, the report displays a line containing the following data:

■ Start time of data gap

■ End time of data gap


12SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION

This chapter describes functions reserved for MPE Manager system administrators. These functions are listed as options under the System Administration section of the navigation pane.

Some options are visible only when you are logged in with administrative rights to the MPE Manager. However, the Change Password option is available to all user privilege levels (viewer, operator, and administrator).


■ Configuring System Settings

■ Using Import/Export

■ Viewing Cluster Reports

■ Using the Event Log

■ Configuring and Viewing Audit Logs

■ Viewing the Alert Log

■ Managing Scheduled Tasks

■ User Management


CHAPTER 12: SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION

Configuring System Settings

Within the MPE Manager you can define the settings that control session timeout, account inactivity duration, invalid login actions, and the alert destination.

To define system settings:

1 From the navigation pane, select System Settings. The System Settings page opens in the work area.

2 On the System Settings page, click Modify. The System Settings page opens. Figure 62 shows an example.

3 Define the following configuration settings:

■ Idle Timeout (minutes; 0=never) — Defines the interval of time, in minutes, that a Web session is kept alive. The default value is 30 minutes; a value of zero indicates the session remains active indefinitely.

■ Account Inactivity Lockout (days; 0=never) — Defines the maximum number of days between successful logins after which a user is locked out. If the user fails to log in for the defined number of days, the user is locked out and cannot gain access to the system until the Systems Administrator restores user privileges. The default value is 21 days; a value of zero indicates no limit.

■ Maximum Concurrent Sessions Per User Account (0=unlimited) — The maximum number of times a defined user can be logged in simultaneously. A value of zero indicates no limit.

■ Alert Destination — The hostname or IP address of the target where all alerts should be sent from for the various servers in the network. Normally, this is the address of the MPE Manager.

4 Define the following invalid login threshold settings:

■ Enable — Enables login threshold control. By default, this feature is enabled; clear the check box to disable this feature.

■ Threshold Value (number of failed logins) — Defines the maximum number of consecutive failed logins after which action is taken. Enter a value from 1 through 500; the default is 3 attempts.

■ Action(s) on Threshold — The system action to take if a user reaches the invalid login threshold. By default, upon reaching the threshold, a “warning” level event is written to the event log, including the username submitted and the IP address from which the login attempts were made. To change the event level, select a different level from the list.

Select “Lock User” to prevent the user from logging in after reaching the invalid login threshold.



Configuring System Settings

Figure 62: System Settings Page



Using Import/Export

“Importing an XML File to Input Network Elements” on page 74 describes the import/export process in detail.


Viewing MPE Manager Cluster Reports


The MPE Manager includes a hierarchical set of reports that monitor the status of the MPE Manager cluster. To view cluster reports, from the navigation pane, select Reports. The Manager Reports page opens. Figure 63 shows an example.

At the top of each report page is the following:

■ Mode — The Mode field displays a summary of the current type of information that is in the report.

■ Buttons — The buttons allow you to navigate between reports or to control the information displayed within the report. The set of buttons differs from one report page to the next. The following list describes the buttons that are available across all of the report pages:

Note: The buttons displayed within these pages vary depending on your configuration.

❏ Show Absolute or Show Deltas — This button allows you to switch between absolute mode (which displays the statistics since the last reset) or “delta mode” (which displays changes in the statistics during the last 10 second refresh period).

❏ Reset All Counters — This button allows you to reset the statistics for the current report page back to initial values (usually 0 for most statistics).

❏ Rediscover Cluster — Rediscovers the cluster, deleting any failed blades which have been removed from service.

❏ Pause or Resume — Stops or restarts automatic refreshing of displayed information. The refresh period is 10 seconds.

❏ Cancel — Closes the report page and returns to the parent report page.

The fields that are displayed in the Cluster Information section include:

■ Status — The status of the blades. The possible status values are:

❏ On-line — All blades in the cluster are operational.

❏ Degraded — One blade has failed, but that the cluster continues to function with its remaining blade.

Note: If a blade is labeled Degraded, but the blade detail does not show any failed or disconnected equipment, the blade is performing a database synchronization operation. Note that until the database synchronization is finished, the relevant blade cannot perform as a master blade.

❏ Failed — A blade is no longer functioning properly.

❏ Non-service Affecting Failure — Indicates that one or more blades is in a Degraded state where an interface is disconnected (see previous note).



Figure 63: Manager Reports Page

■ Failures — The number of times the primary blade has failed.

■ Uptime — The total uptime for the cluster.

Also within the Cluster Information Report is a listing of all the blades contained within the cluster, including the following blade-specific information:

■ Overall — Displays the current status, number of failures, and the total uptime for the blade.

■ Utilization — Displays the blade CPU, Memory, and Disk utilization as percentages.

■ Service LED — This button activates an LED on the blade, which allows for identification of the physical blade in the chassis of the cluster.



Blade Information Report Within the Blades section of the Manager Reports page, you can select the blade identifier (MAC address) for any blade in the Blades table. This displays the Blade Information Report page, showing detailed information about that blade's physical and logical interfaces. Figure 64 shows an example.

Figure 64: Blade Information Report



Viewing the Event Log

The Event Log displays events generated by the MPE Manager.

To view the event log:

1 From the navigation pane, select Event Log. The Event Log page opens.

2 On the Event Log page, click View Event Log. The Event Log Viewer window opens, displaying the most recent log entries. While data is being retrieved, an in-progress message appears. Figure 65 shows an example.

Events contain the following information:

■ Date/Time — Time when the event occurred, relative to the server time.


■ Module — Name of the module reporting the event.

■ Code — The event code.


■ Message — The message associated with the event. If there is additional information available, the event entry shows as a link. Click the link to see additional detail in the frame below.

3 You can filter the events that appear using the following:

■ Start Date/Time — Click the calendar icon to open the calendar and clock, select the desired starting date and time, and click Enter.

■ Event Log Timeline — If you have configured multiple log files, the Event Log Timeline lets you select a log file. Click on a segment to start the search within the log file represented by that segment.

■ Modules — Filter by originating module (such as HA, Scheduled Tasks, or Manager).

■ Severity — Filter by severity level. Events with the selected severity and higher are displayed. For example, if the severity selected is Warning, the event log displays events with the severity levels Warning, Error, Critical, Alert, and Emergency.

■ Contains — Type a text string to search for. For example, if you type “connection,” all events containing the word “connection” are displayed.

When you finish, click Refresh.

4 Events that occur after the Event Log Viewer starts are not visible until you refresh the display. To see the most recent log entries:

■ Refresh — Starts a search. Filter settings are applied when Refresh is clicked.

■ Refresh Default — Cancels filtering criteria. Refreshes the display to its original default values (display the most recent log entries).

■ Next/Prev — Navigate through the event log entries. When the Next button disappears, you are viewing the most recent events.

■ Close — Closes the event log viewer.


Viewing the Event Log

Figure 65: Event Log Viewer

Modifying the Event LogConfiguration

To configure the event log display:

1 From the navigation pane, select Event Log. The log file manager page opens in the work area.

2 On the log file manager page, click Modify. The Modify Event Log Settings page opens.

3 Define the settings. For a description of the settings, see “The Event Log” on page 48.




Viewing the Audit Log

The MPE Manager lets you track and view the configuration changes within the system. Using the audit log, you can track and monitor each configuration event, affording you better system control.

To display the audit log:

1 From the navigation pane, select Audit Log. The Audit Log page opens in the work area.

2 On the Audit Log page, click Show All. The Audit Log opens. Figure 66 shows an example.

Figure 66: Audit Log

For a detailed description of an item, click the underlined description. The details of the event display. Figure 67 shows an example.

To filter search results, click Refine Search. (See “Defining Audit Log Search Parameters” on page 176.)



Figure 67: Audit Log Details



Defining Audit LogSearch Parameters

To define the search parameters used for the Audit Log:


2 On the Audit Log page, click Search. The Audit Log Search Restrictions Page opens (Figure 68):

Figure 68: Audit Log Search Restrictions Page

3 Define the following items, depending on how restrictive you desire the audit log search to be:

■ From/To — Specifies the start and end dates for this search.

■ Action by User Name(s) — Specifies the name of the user or users to audit.

■ Action on Policy Server(s) — Specifies the name of the policy servers to audit.

■ Audit Log Items to Show — Specifies an item to audit for display: Policy Server, Network Element, Network Element Group, Network Element Link, Application, Policy, Policy Group, Account, Tier, Path, Entitlement, License, User, Audit, and OM Statistics. You can specify three items; click More Lines to add an additional item.

■ Results Forms — Specifies the number of items per page to display, along with which data to display (most recent or oldest items).

4 When you finish, click Search. The Audit Log displays search results.



Exporting or PurgingAudit Log Data

You can export the audit log to a text file; the default filename is AuditLogExport.txt.

Exporting data To export data from the audit logs:


2 On the Audit Log page, click Export/Purge. The Export and Purge Audit Log Items page opens (Figure 69).

3 In the Items to Export section, select one of the following options:

■ Export All Items — Writes all audit log entries.

■ Export Through Date — Enter a date in the format mm/dd/yyyy, or click the Calendar icon to select a date from the pop-up window.

4 When you finish, click Export. A standard File Download window opens; you can open or save the export file.

Figure 69: Export and Purge Audit Log Items Page

Purging data To purge data from the audit logs:


2 On the Audit Log page, click Export/Purge. The Export and Purge Audit Log Items page opens

3 In the Items to Purge section, enter a date in the format mm/dd/yyyy, or click the Calendar icon to select a date from the pop-up window.

4 When you finish, click Purge. You are prompted: “Click ‘OK’ to purge all audit log items through: mm/dd/yyyy.”

5 Click OK (or Cancel to cancel the request). The data is purged from the audit log.



Viewing the Alert Log

The MPE Manager is a central management point for alerts generated asynchronously by the various servers within the Camiant system.

To view the alert log file, from the navigation pane, select Alerts. The Alert Viewer window opens. Figure 70 shows an example.

You can define filtering criteria using the following fields:

■ Start Date — Filter out alerts before a specific date/time. Click the calendar icon to specify a date/time.

■ End Date — Filter out alerts after a specific date/time. Click the calendar icon to specify a date/time.

■ Severity — Filter alerts by severity level; select a level (the default is All) from the drop-down list.

■ Source — Enter the IP address or FQDN of the device whose alerts you want to view.

■ State — Select Active or Resolved.

After entering filtering information, click one of the following buttons:

■ Filter — Refreshes the Alert Viewer display with the filtering applied.

■ Resolve — Resolves (removes) all displayed alerts. You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to resolve all filtered Alerts?” Click OK or Cancel.

■ Close — Closes the Alert Viewer window.

Alert fields Alerts contain the following information:

■ Date/Time — The most recent time this alert was triggered.

■ Severity — The severity of the alert:

❏ Emergency — The system is unusable.

❏ Alert — Take action immediately to prevent an unusable system.

❏ Critical — Service impact to operations.

❏ Error — Internal, non-service impacting error.

❏ Warning — Can cause a service impact.

❏ Notice — Messages of significant interest occuring during normal operation.

❏ Debug — Used by Customer Support.

■ Text — User-readable text of the alert.

■ Count — Number of times this alert was received (and duplicated).

■ First Occurrence — The first time this alert was triggered.

■ Source — IP address/FQDN of the device from which this alert was generated.


Viewing the Alert Log

Figure 70: Alert Viewer Window

Alert details To view details for an alert, click the binoculars icon to the right of the alert. A window opens displaying additional information; for example:

Annotation To add a comment to an alert, click the Wordpad icon to the right of the alert. The Add Comment window opens:

Enter your comment and click Submit.

Resolving an alert To resolve an alert, click the check-mark icon to the right of the alert. You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to resolve this Alert?” Click OK to resolve (remove) the alert or Cancel to leave the alert unchanged.



Managing Scheduled Tasks

The tasks in this section are scheduled to run at regular intervals, with some tasks scheduled to run after others. With this in mind, you can change the scheduling of these tasks to better manage network load or to propagate a network element change to the policy servers on demand. However, Camiant strongly recommends that you perform these tasks in the order in which they are listed or serious system problems can occur. Consult Camiant Product Support before changing any task’s order.

The tasks include:

■ Alert Aging — Ensures that alerts age out and are eventually removed from the MPE Manager. (The valid range is 1 to 365 days.)

■ Health Checker — Periodically checks the policy servers to ensure that they are online.

■ OM Statistics — Periodically retrieves Operational Measurement (OM) statistics from all policy servers.

The Operational Measurements XML interface retrieves operational counters from the system. The OM interface requires that the OM Statistics scheduled task is running on the MPE Manager. This task collects the operational counters from the MPEs in the network and records them in the MPE Manager's database; the data is then available for query via the OM XML interface. You can configure the task to poll at intervals between 5 minutes and 24 hours, with a default value of 15 minutes; the system keeps the data available for query for 1 to 30 days, with a default value of 7 days. The recommended settings for this task vary depending on the volume of data you are collecting.

When you request OM statistics, the data for the response is taken from the information that has been collected by this task. You must gather data via the OM Statistics scheduled task if you want data available for subsequent OM queries.

Most values returned as part of the response are presented as the positive change between the start time and end time. In order to calculate a response, you must have a minimum of two recorded values available; thus you must run the OM Statistics task at least twice in a given time period in order to provide any data through the OM XML interface. The OSSI XML Interface Definition document describes the OM Interface and the OM Statistics in detail.

■ OSSI Distributor (optional) — Reads from the database topology and subscriber data that has entered the MPE Manager via the OSSI Interface, and distributes the data to the MA servers.

■ Subnet SNMP Collector — Collects all subnet information residing on the CMTSs by polling, via SNMP, all CMTSs for all subnets and then stores them in the local database.

■ Service Class SNMP Collector — Polls, via SNMP, all CMTSs for the configured service classes and then stores them in the local database.



■ Subscriber SNMP Collector — Polls, via SNMP, all CMTSs for the configured subscribers and then stores them in the local database.

■ CMTS Distributor — Reads CMTS topology data from the MPE Manager local database and then distributes it to the appropriate policy servers within the system.

■ Subscriber Distributor — Reads subscriber data from the MPE Manager local database and then distributes it to the appropriate policy servers within the system.

■ CMTS MA Collector (optional) — Polls all of the MAs in the system for subnet and service class data on each CMTS.

■ PCMM Routing Distribution — Detects changes in the CMTS subnet information, and then forwards this information to any upstream policy servers configured in a routing hierarchy.



Configuring a ScheduledTask

To configure an individual task:

1 From the navigation pane, select Scheduled Tasks. The Scheduled Task Administration page opens in the work area. Figure 71 shows an example.

2 To display details about a task, click on its name; the current settings and status are displayed:

3 The options for this task are:

■ Reschedule — Click to reschedule the time that this task is performed on the MPE:

❏ Schedule by Interval (Next Run Time or Run Interval) — Defines the run interval for the task to follow. Valid run intervals are from 0 to 24 hours in 5-minute increments.

❏ Following another Task — Defines the run time as following the completion of another scheduled task; e.g., in the page above, you can see that Service Class SNMP runs after the Subnet SNMP Collector completes its run and Subscriber SNMP Collector runs after Service Class SNMP Collector completes its run.

■ Settings — Number of days to keep date; the default is seven days.



Figure 71: Scheduled Task Administration Page

■ Run Now — Runs the process immediately. You are prompted: “Click ‘OK’ to run this task now.” Click OK (or Cancel to cancel the request).

■ Disable or Enable — Disables or enables this process. If you click Disable, you are prompted: “Click ‘OK’ to disable this task.” Click OK (or Cancel to cancel the request); the task is disabled, and the button changes to Enable.

■ Refresh — Refreshes the page.

■ Cancel — Returns to the previous page.



User Management

The MPE Manager lets you configure the following user attributes:

■ Roles — What a user can do within the MPE Manager.

■ Scopes — Network element groups and policy server groups that provide a context for a role.

■ User Profiles — Once you define roles and scopes, you can apply them to user profiles.

Configuring Roles Assigning roles to the various users that access the MPE Manager lets you control who can configure and access what within the MPE Manager. The default roles are:

■ Viewer — Permits read-only access to functions associated with policy server management and configuration. Access is also permitted to limited system administration functions, such as Change Password.

■ Operator — Permits full read/write access to all functions associated with policy server management and configuration. Access is also permitted to all system administration functions except user administration.

■ Administrator — Permits full read/write access to all functions. You cannot delete the Administrator role.

Creating a New Role To configure a new role:

1 From the navigation pane, select User Management. The content tree displays the User Management group.

2 From the content tree, select the Roles group. The Role Administration page opens in the work area, displaying existing roles.

3 On the Role Administration page, click Create Role. The New Role page opens (Figure 72).


■ Name — The desired name for the new role.

■ Description/Location (optional) — The information pertaining to the role that would help identify it within the MPE Manager.

■ Policy Server Privileges — Defines access to the following policy server management functions, assigning each the privilege Hide, Read-Only, or Read-Write:

❏ Configuration

❏ Network Element

❏ Application

❏ Subscriber Tier

❏ Traffic Profiles

❏ Record Keeping Server and Event Messaging

❏ License Management


User Management

Figure 72: New Role Page

■ Policy Management Privileges — Defines access to policy management functions:

❏ Policy Library (with the privileges Hide, Read-Only, Read and Deploy, or Read, Deploy, and Write)

❏ Template Library (with the privileges Hide, Read-Only, or Read and Write)

■ System Administration Privileges — Define access to system administration functions:

❏ XML Import/Export (with the privileges Hide or Show)

❏ Operational Measurements (with the privileges Hide or Read-Only)

❏ User Management (with the privileges Hide, Read-Only, or Read-Write)

❏ Scheduled Tasks (with the privileges Hide or Read-Write)

❏ Event Log, Audit Log, & Alerts (with the privileges Hide, Read-Only, or Read-Write)




Modifying a Role To modify a role:


2 From the content tree, select the Roles group. The Role Administration page opens in the work area, displaying existing roles.

3 Select the role to modify. The Role page opens.

4 On the Role page, click Modify. The Modify Role page opens. Figure 73 shows an example.

5 Modify role information as necessary. See “Creating a New Role” on page 184 for a description of the fields contained within this page.


Figure 73: Modify Role Page


User Management

Deleting a Role

Note: You cannot delete a role that is in use.

To delete a role:


2 From the content tree, select the Roles group. The Role Administration page opens in the work area, displaying existing roles. Figure 74 shows an example.

3 Delete the role using one of the following methods:

■ From the work area, click the Trash Can icon located next to the role to delete.

■ From the content tree, select the role to delete (role information displays in the work area), then click Delete.

4 You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this Role?” Select OK to delete the role’s information from the MPE Manager (or Cancel to cancel the request).

Figure 74: Deleting a Role



Creating a New Scope The MPE Manager lets you configure scopes that contain selections of network element groups and policy server groups that provide a context for a role. The default scope, Global, contains all items within the MPE Manager. Once you define a scope you can apply it to a user.

To configure a new scope:


2 In the content tree, click Scopes. The Scope Administration page opens in the work area, displaying existing scopes.

3 On the Scope Administration page, click Create Scope. The New Scope page opens. Figure 75 shows an example.


■ Name — The desired name for the new scope.

■ Description/Location (optional) — The information pertaining to the scope that would help identify it within the MPE Manager.

5 Select the policy server groups that you want this scope to access.

6 Select the network element groups that you want this scope to access.


Figure 75: Scope Administration Page


User Management

Modifying a Scope To modify a scope:


2 In the content tree, click Scopes. The Scope Administration page opens in the work area, displaying existing scopes.

3 On the Scope Administration page, click on the scope you want to modify. The scope description opens.

4 Click Modify. The Modify Scope page opens.

5 Modify scope inormation as necessary.

6 When you finish, click Save (or Cancel to cancel the request).

Deleting a Scope To delete a scope:


2 From the content tree, click Scopes. The Scope Administration page opens in the work area, displaying existing scopes. Figure 76 shows an example.

3 Delete the role using one of the following methods:

■ From the work area, click the Trash Can icon located next to the role to delete.

■ From the content tree, select the role to delete (role information displays in the work area), then click Delete.

4 You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this Scope?” Select OK to delete the scope from the MPE Manager (or Cancel to cancel the request).

Figure 76: Deleting a Scope



Creating a User Profile The User Management functions include the tools necessary to create, modify, or delete system user profiles. See “Configuring Roles” on page 184 for more details.

The MPE Manager is configured initially with the following default profiles and passwords:

■ Viewer/policies

■ Operator/policies

■ Admin/policies (you cannot delete this profile)

Each default user profile has an associated role assigned to it. The Admin user is the only profile that cannot be deleted or have its username modified. Also, the admin user is the only user who can create, modify, or delete other users. The password assigned to the Admin user can be changed. For security reasons, Camiant recommends changing this value from its default value as soon as the system is installed.

Note: When logging in, the username is not case sensitive; however the password is case sensitive.

To create a new user profile:

1 Log in as Admin.


3 In the content tree, click Users. The User Administration page opens in the work area, displaying existing users.

Note: The Log Out All Users button is visible only to the admin user.

4 Click Create User. The New User page opens (Figure 77).

5 Define the following attributes:

■ Username — Assign a name to the user profile (this value is not case sensitive).

■ Description/Location (optional) — Provide additional information about the user profile.

■ Password — Assign a password to the user profile (this value is case sensitive and must contain at least six characters; alphabetic, numeric, and special characters are allowed).

■ Confirm Password — Re-enter the password to confirm the value entered above.

■ Role — Assign a role to the user profile.

■ Scope — Assign a scope to the user profile.



User Management

Figure 77: New User Page



Modifying a User Profile To modify a user profile:

1 Log in as Admin.



4 Select the desired user profile from the content tree. The profile information page opens.

5 Click Modify. The Modify User page opens. Figure 78 shows an example.

6 Modify the user profile as desired (see “Creating a User Profile” on page 190).


Figure 78: Modify User Page


User Management

Deleting a User Profile To delete a user profile:

1 Log in as Admin.


3 In the content tree, click Users. The User Administration page opens in the work area, displaying existing users; for example:

4 Delete the desired user profile using one of the following methods:

■ From the work area, select the Trash Can icon located next to the profile you want to delete.

■ From the Users tree, select the user profile that you want to delete (profile information displays in the work area), then click Delete.

5 You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to delete this user?” Click OK to delete the user profile (or Cancel to cancel the request).



Changing a Password The Change Password option lets users change their password. This system administration function is available to all users.

Note: The Admin user can change any user’s password. See “Modifying a User Profile” on page 192.

To change your password:

1 From the navigation pane, select Change Password. The Change Password page opens (Figure 79).


■ Current Password — The present value of the password.

■ New Password — The value of the new password (this value is case sensitive and must contain a minimum of six characters; alphabetic, numeric, and special characters are allowed).

■ Confirm Password — This value re-confirms the value of the new password.

3 When you finish, click Change Password. Your password is changed.

Figure 79: Change Password Page


User Management

Locking and UnlockingUser Accounts

A user is locked out after exceeding the login failure threshold, or if the Admin user locks the user out. A locked-out user sees the following message on the login page when attempting to log in: “Your account is locked. Please contact the Administrator.”

Note: The Admin account cannot lock the Admin account.

Locking an account To lock a user account:

1 Log in as Admin.



4 Click Lock. You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to lock out this user?”

5 Click OK (or Cancel to cancel the request). The account is locked. The page displays: “User account locked successfully.” The Lock button becomes an Unlock button. On the User Administration page, the user’s Locked Status changes to “Locked.”

Unlocking an Account To unlock a user account:

1 Log in as Admin.

2 From the navigation pane, select User Management.The content tree displays the User Management group.

3 Select the desired user profile from the content tree. The User Administration page opens.

4 Click Unlock. You are prompted: “Are you sure you want to unlock this user?”

5 Click OK (or Cancel to cancel the request). The account is unlocked. The page displays: “User account unlocked successfully.” The Unlock button becomes a Lock button. On the User Administration page, the user’s Locked Status changes to “OK.”


GLOSSARY

AM See application manager.

AMID An identifier within the PCMM protocol that uniquely identifies an application manager (AM). See also PacketCable Multimedia.

application A service provided to subscribers to a network; for example, voice over IP (VoIP), video on demand (VoD), video conferencing, or gaming. Camiant manages quality of service (QoS) of, and tracking quotas on, applications.

application manager A server within a network that is responsible for establishing and managing subscriber sessions associated with a specific application. Camiant application managers enable non-PCMM applications to request QoS enhancement on a PCMM access network and also provide protocol translation and session state history and tracking. Camiant application managers include the SIP AM and the BoD AM. See also PacketCable Multimedia.

Bandwidth on Demand(BoD)

An application that provides dynamic allocation of bandwidth; for example, a broadband speed promotion.

blade A computer designed to fit into a standard equipment rack.

BoD See Bandwidth on Demand.

B-RAS Broadband remote access server.

BSS A “back-end” (office) system; for example, a provisioning or billing system.

cable modem A device used to connect a computer to a cable TV service that provides Internet access. A cable modem is considered customer premises equipment, and connects to a cable modem termination system.


GLOSSARY

cable modemtermination system

(CMTS)

An edge device connecting to subscribers' cable modems in a broadband network.

cluster A group of computers operating as one system. A Camiant cluster supports High Availability (failover).

CMS Call management server.

CMTS See cable modem termination system.

COPS (Common OpenPolicy Service)

An IP protocol, defined by the IETF in RPF 2748, that supports policy control over QoS protocols. See also QoS.

COPS-PR (Common OpenPolicy Service for Policy

Provisioning)

A policy provisioning standard defined by the IETF in RPF 3084. See also B-RAS.

CPE Customer premises equipment; for example, a cable modem.

CRM Customer relationship management.

deep packet inspection(DPI)

A form of packet filtering that examines the data and/or header part of a packet as it passes an inspection point. The MPE uses DPI to recognize the application for establishing QoS or managing quota. See also packet inspection.

DHCP (Dynamic HostConfiguration Protocol)

A client/server protocol used by network devices to obtain the parameters (such as an IP address) necessary for operation in an IP network. DHCP allows devices to be added to the network with little or no manual configuration.

Diameter A protocol for authentication, authorization, and accounting, can also be used as a signaling protocol for mobility management which is typically associated with an IMS and/or wireless type of environment. Diameter is the successor to the RADIUS protocol. The MPE supports a range of Diameter interfaces, including Rx, Gx, Gy, and Ty.

DNS (Domain NameSystem)

A system for converting Internet host and domain names into IP addresses.

DOCSIS® (Data overCable Services Interface

Specification)

This specification defines the communication protocol(s) between cable modems and CMTSs, and was established by cable television network operators to facilitate data traffic over existing cable networks. See also cable modem termination system.

DPI See deep packet inspection.


DQOS (Dynamic Quality of Service)

DQOS (Dynamic Qualityof Service)

A COPS-based protocol that is part of the PacketCable standards used to communicate between a CMS and a CMTS for setting up voice calls. The MPE can be inserted between these two entities to apply additional policy rules as sessions are established. See also COPS, CMS, and CMTS.

dynamic tiering A policy that defines a temporary uplift of lower-tier subscribers to a higher tier, such as a temporary speed boost for downloads as a free sample.

edge router The router (sometimes called an “edge device”) that connects a carrier or service provider network to a subscriber. An edge router is a policy enforcement point.

FQDN (fully qualifieddomain name)

The complete domain name for a specific computer on the Internet (for example, www.camiant.com).

gate The logical representation of a policy decision that has been installed on a CMTS. See also CMTS.

Georedundancy Redundancy between two geographically separate MPE Manager systems.

High Availability (HA) The MPE is a dual-system cluster of identical hardware platforms that provides stateful failover in case of primary platform, disk, or Ethernet connection failure.

IMS See IP Multimedia System.

IP Multimedia System(IMS)

An architectural framework for delivering IP multimedia to mobile subscribers.

ISA (Interactive ServicesArchitecture)

An on-demand video protocol.

LDAP (LightweightDirectory Access

Protocol)

A protocol for providing and receiving directory information in a TCP/IP network.

MGPI (Multiple GrantsPer Interval)

The ability to map multiple application flows using identical UGS (Unsolicited Grant Service) traffic profiles destined for the same subscriber into a single flow at the DOCSIS (service flow) level. Supports applications interacting with an MPE device over a Diameter-based Rx interface. See also Diameter, DOCSIS.

MPE See Multimedia Policy Engine.


GLOSSARY

MPE Manager A centralized management interface to create policies, maintain policy libraries, configure, provision, and manage multiple distributed MPE policy servers, and deploy policy rules to MPE policy servers. The MPE Manager has a web-based interface.

MSO Multiple-service operators.

Multimedia PolicyEngine (MPE)

A PacketCable Multimedia qualified policy server. MPE is a high-performance, high-availability platform for operators to deliver and manage differentiated services over high-speed data networks. MPE includes a protocol-independent policy rules engine that provides authorization for services based on policy conditions such as subscriber information, application information, time of day, and edge resource utilization.

network device A physical piece of equipment or a logical (software) entity connected to a network; for example, CMTS, video distribution router, gateway router, or a link. This may also include sub-components of network elements (such as an interface) or lower-level devices such as cable modems or CPEs.

network element A high-level device (typically a router) or other entity within your network for which you want to use the MPE to manage QoS, such as a CMTS or PSDN.

network topology A map of physical equipment or logical entities in a network.

NGOD (Next GenerationOn Demand)

An on-demand video protocol.

OSSI (OperationsSupport System

Interface)

An interface to a “back-end” (office) system.

packet inspection Packet inspection (or shallow packet inspection) is a form of packet filtering that checks the header portion of a packet. See also deep packet inspection.

PacketCable Multimedia(PCMM)

An architecture, developed by CableLabs, for cable operators to deliver IP-based multimedia services that require QoS treatment.

PCMM See PacketCable Multimedia.

PCRF See policy and charging rules functions.

P-CSCF (Proxy-CSCF) Several roles of SIP servers or proxies, collectively called Call Session Control Function (CSCF), process SIP signaling packets in the IMS. A


PDF

Proxy-CSCF is a SIP proxy that is the initial interface between a mobile device and the IMS. See also IP Multimedia System and Session Initiation Protocol.

PDF See policy decision function.

policy rules A set of rules to administer, manage, and control access to network resources. A Camiant policy rule is a simple if-then statement consisting of one or more conditions that must be matched (for example, day of week, time of day, and wireless roaming status, subscriber entitlement) and actions to be taken (accept, reject, log, or continue to next policy). Policy rules are evaluated within the MPE, and the results are forwarded to the appropriate policy enforcement point.

Policy and ChargingControl Model (PCCM)

The ability to dynamically control access, services, network capacity, and charges in the network.

policy and charging rulesfunction (PCRF)

Performed within the policy server in support of wireless networks.

policy decision function A policy decision point for service-based local policy control of IP bearer resources. Policy decisions are made within the policy server.

policy enforcement point A logical entity, usually an edge device, that enforces policy decisions by permitting or blocking packet flow into the IP network.

policy group An ordered group of policies, organized for administration or deployment.

policy server A network element that interfaces with an application and makes policy decisions, such as authorization, entitlements, bandwidth, and QoS, based on the application's requirements and cable operator rule sets. The policy server is an element of the PCMM architecture. The Camiant policy server is the Multimedia Policy Engine (MPE). See also PacketCable Multimedia.

PSDN (packet-switcheddata network)

A publicly available data communications network supporting packet-switched data (that is, data formed into packets with source, address, and ordering information).

QAM device Quadrature Amplitude Modulation is an encoding scheme for high-definition television signals. A QAM device is remotely located from a CMTS, and performs downstream modulation. See also cable modem termination system.

Q-Insight A Camiant product that provides graphical reports on dynamic service activities of network elements, application utilization over time, and subscriber tier distribution.


GLOSSARY

QoS (Quality of Service) A resource reservation control mechanism that provides different priority to different applications, users, or data flows, or to guarantee a level of performance in a congested network.

RADIUS (RemoteAuthentication Dial-In

User Service)

A client/server protocol and associated software that enables remote access servers to communicate with a central server to authorize their access to the requested service. The MPE functions with RADIUS servers to authenticate messages received from remote gateways. See also Diameter.

RKS (Record KeepingServer)

A device that collects PacketCable event messages, used for accounting management in a PCMM network. See also PacketCable Multimedia.

SCP Secure CoPy, a Linux utility for securely transferring files between host systems.

Service User Interface(SUI)

A menu-based interface to the Camiant MPE, used to configure the MPE and manage system-level information.

Session InitiationProtocol (SIP)

A call-signaling IP protocol that enables Voice over IP (VoIP) and other text and multimedia sessions such as instant messaging, streaming video, and online games.

Simple NetworkManagement Protocol

(SNMP)

A network management protocol for devices on an IP network.

SIP See Session Initiation Protocol.

SIP AM The Camiant SIP Application Manager, which acts as a SIP forwarding proxy server with additional features to enable QoS for SIP user agents using the PCMM framework.

SNMP See Simple Network Management Protocol.

SOAP A protocol for exchanging XML-based messages over computer networks, normally using HTTP/HTTPS. SOAP forms the foundation layer of the web services protocol stack, providing a basic messaging framework upon which abstract layers can be built.

SSH (Secure Shell) A network client/server protocol that allows data interchange over a secure channel between two networked devices. Camiant supports, but does not recommend, SSH access to the Service User Interface.

STUN (Simple Traversalof UDP through NATS)

A TCP protocol for assisting devices behind a NAT (Network Address Translation) firewall or router with packet routing. Camiant supports STUN servers.


subscriber database

subscriber database Contains profiles of subscribers, including information such as the services for which subscribers have paid and are thus entitled to receive.

SUI See Service User Interface.

Universal Edge ResourceManager (UERM)

A Camiant product that manages edge devices to improve bandwidth efficiency in a QAM-based video network. See also QAM.

Upgrade Manager A Camiant product that manages software upgrades in a production network. The Upgrade Manager is the only supported method for upgrading Camiant systems.

Video on Demand (VoD) An interactive technology that allows subscribers to view programming in real time or download it to view later.

VoD See video on demand.

VoIP Voice over IP.

XML (eXtensible MarkupLanguage)

A text-based, general-purpose specification for creating custom markup languages, designed to facilitate the sharing of structured data between different information systems.


Index

Aabsolute mode 38account

Account Inactivity Lockout 166Administrator role 184Alert Aging task 180Alert Destination 166alert log

adding comment 179resolving alert 179viewing 178

Alerts 52AM, see application profileapplication 77Application Manager (AM) 14, 77application profile 77

creating 78deleting 80modifying 80

application server 77audit log

displaying 174exporting 177purging data from 177searching within 176

authorization scope 27

BBilling Correlation ID (BCID) 89Blade Information Report 41

CChange Password option 194Cluster Information Report 40cluster report 169CMTS Distributor task 102content tree 17

DDegraded status 36, 169

Multimedia Policy Engine Cable Manager User’s Guide

delta mode 38documentation

related viii

EEvent Generation Info object 88Event Log 48event log

forwarding 51level 173settings 50viewer 48

event log file 48, 172Event Log Timeline 48, 172event message 22event messages (EMs) 88event messaging

local settings 92

FFailed status 36, 169FCAPS 166Financial Entity ID (FEID) 90, 92

GGUI

content tree 17icons 17navigation pane 17overview 16shortcut keys 18work area 17

HHealth Checker task 180High Availability 36

IIdle Timeout 166invalid login threshold 166

Llockout, see user accountlog file 45

modifying 50Log Out All Users button 190

MMAC address 48Management Agent (MA) server 97management agent Event Log Viewer 105management agent profile

configuring tasks 102

205

INDEX

creating 98deleting 101modifying 100reapplying configuration 101

Maximum Concurrent Sessions 166MGPI (multiple grants per interval) 25MPE Manager 16

Alert Log 178and policy servers 19application profiles 77Audit Log 174checking status of policy server 36cluster reports 169Event Log 172Graphical User Interface (GUI) 16MA servers 97network elements 57network topology 143policy rules 109supported browsers 17system administration 165system settings 166traffic profiles 81user management 184

Multimedia Policy Engine (MPE) 11Event Log Viewer 48log files 45policy log 46, 48policy statistics 42protocol statistics 43reapplying configuration to 34status 36

Nnavigation pane 17network element 57

adding using OSSI XML interface 74associating with MPE 72bulk delete 62creating 58deleting 61finding 63modifying 60

network element group 66adding network element to 67creating 66creating sub-group 68deleting 71deleting network element from 69renaming 70

network element subgroupcreating 68

network pathcreating 152deleting 154modifying 154

network topology map 27, 144adding comment 151alerts 151laying out 147resolving alert 151viewing 145

Non-service Affecting Failure status 36, 169

OOff-line status 36OM Statistics task 180On-line status 36, 169Operational Measurements (OM) Interface 74Operator role 184OSSI Distributor task 64, 180OSSI XML interface 74

topology interface 74exporting XML file 75input network elements 74Operational Measurements (OM) Interface 74operational measurements (OM) interface 74

OSSI XML Interface (OSSI) 74

Ppassword 17

changing your 194path, see network pathpolicy

remove policy from group 135remove policy/policy group 136

policy group 109, 127adding a policy rule to 128changing the order of policy rules in 131creating 127deploying 134displaying policy rules in 133removing 136removing a policy rule from 129, 135

Policy Library 116policy log 46, 48policy rule 14, 109

actions 112conditions 117creating 116deploying 134deploying (example) 113evaluation 111group 14modifying 121overview 110removing 136template 116, 123time-dependent 120

Policy Rules Engine 12, 111Policy Server

check status 92policy server

checking status 36cluster status 36unmanaged 20see also Multimedia Policy Engine (MPE)

Policy Server Administration page 22, 55EM tab 22Logs tab 22Policies tab 22Policy Server tab 22Reports tab 22Routing tab 22System tab 22


INDEX

policy server group 26adding a policy server to 28, 67creating 27creating a subgroup 29, 68deleting 32deleting a policy server from 31renaming 30

policy server profile 20configuring 22creating 20deleting 26modifying 22

policy server reports 38policy statistics 42policy template 16

creating 123deleting 126modifying 125

Policy Template wizard 123Policy wizard 110, 116protocol statistics 43

QQuality of Service (QoS) 81

enforcement device 14managing 77

RRecord Keeping Server (RKS) 88

configuring 94related documentation viiirole 184

creating 184deleting 187modifying 186privileges 184

Sscheduled tasks

configuring 182disabling 183Run Now button 183

scheduled tasks, list of 180scope 184

creating 188modifying 189

service 77Service Class SNMP Collector task 102Service LED button 40, 170SNMP Read Community String 58SSL certificate, configuring 33Subnet SNMP Collector task 102Subscriber Distributor task 102, 181Subscriber SNMP Collector task 102system settings, defining 166

Ttraffic profile 81

creating 82

deleting 85modifying 84

traffic profile group 86adding a traffic profile to 86deleting 86deleting a traffic profile from 86renaming 86

Uunmanaged policy server 20user account

locking 195unlocking 195

user profile 184creating 190deleting 193modifying 192

user profiles and passwords, default 190

VViewer role 184

Wweb browsers, recommended 17work area 17

XXML bulk import process 74


Camiant, Inc.200 Nickerson RoadMarlborough, MA 01752 USA508.486.9996

www.Camiant.com

pcrf

Documents

restarts automatic refreshing

record keeping server

managing traffic profiles

rediscover cluster rediscovers

service affecting failure

desired management agent

scissors icon located

policy rules engine