Root Cause,
Correlation and Problem Identification
A user calls in with a problem and you need to solve it. What do you do? The typical
approach is to begin a process of manual guesses related to the cause of the problem. The
support technician will often try random command line utilities and other techniques to
try and figure it out.But
what about junior support technicians? Is it reasonable to expect them to be able to
telnet into a router and watch counters to surmise that a bandwidth pipe is filled to
capacity? The manual model works for very skilled people (who cost the big bucks) but what
about the junior technicians? Do you even want them poking around inside core devices?
Enter root cause, correlation, and
problem identification! AutoNOC's root cause is about empowering junior level technicians.
It helps to transform your junior technicians into masters of the art by leaping them over
the complex barriers that keep them away from the knowledge they seek.
In the picture below, a yellow light
indicates that a device is experiencing Ethernet collisions. All the user needs to do is
click on it and follow the colored lights to isolate the problem, and view the issues
history.
AutoNOC attaches 1,000s of little
stethoscopes (called probes) to the devices across the netwok.
Each probe records and analzes the information over time, building a detailed and
segmented history. By virtue of the operations model, AutoNOC
constructs relationships between devices, components and logical function. It uses all of
this logic and information to watch for problems to occur, map levels to it, and escalate
this problem up through the logical structures (such as geography, business process,
customer, etc.) to the front of the model.
The junior technician simply sees a red
light. He or she can then drill down through the structures at the click of a mouse to see
exactly where the problem is. The technician can cross reference the problem with other
similar devices to see if it is local to the device or a wider problem.
The principal goal of AutoNOC's root
cause, correlation, and identification capabilities is to empower junior level technicians
and turn them into superstars. It does this by combining logical information, historical
polling, with convenient tools to evaluate the relationships and make the problems clear.
It does this without requiring the user
to understand what an interface is, or what cryptic commands to type into a telnet
interface! |
