| Administrator Handbook | TOC |
LoriotPro is what is commonly known as an NMS “Network Management System.” In other words, it is able to monitor and manage everything that constitutes an IS, including not only communication equipment such as routers, switches, and hubs, but also servers, printers, and applications.
LoriotPro can also help you to manage smart infrastructure using remote IP devices, video camera, intrusion detection sensor, power supply sensor, humidity sensor etc.
LoriotPro is a major improvement of the well-known Loriot Freeware product, a management and monitoring product that helps administrators to keep their entire Information System (IS) up and running.
LoriotPro combines ease of use with powerful features. It helps you monitor the status of your IS resources, warns you of problems, provides a variety of reports, focuses on specific equipment, and much more. LoriotPro is scalable and includes the tools necessary for supervising a single site as well as a large company with multiple sites. With LoriotPro, network administrators have a true monitoring center of all IS resources, which helps them to reduce downtime and allocate resources as needed.
LoriotPro Version 4 runs on the following Microsoft operating systems:
Windows 2000 Pro
Windows XP
LoriotPro is fully autonom and do not need any other internal or external Server of service, Database, WEB server, etc. LoriotPro installation takes few minutes and can start to monitor your network right away.
It uses the advanced graphical capabilities of this operating system by providing an intuitive an powerful graphical user interface.
Map of the company network
LoriotPro and IETF standards
The primary, though not the only protocol that LoriotPro uses is Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in Requests for Comments (RFCs). LoriotPro is fully compatible with SNMP versions 1 and 2c, and partially compatible with version 3.
To provide fast and direct access to your IS entities, LoriotPro displays them in various ways, such as in a graphical map, in a directory, or in the Health Control Center. You can also use advanced search tools to locate IS entities.
The Loriotpro directory
The LoriotPro directory is graphically shown as a tree. This directory is called the LoriotPro Directory Service (LDS) or simply, the Directory. The Organizational Tree displays Directory objects. The LoriotPro Directory Service (LDS) is the nerve center of the product. It gives the administrator the power and a user-friendly way of quickly handling IS devices. The LDS is built on a completely new directory structure based on an object-oriented approach. An Object can be anything that needs to be manipulated (server, country, service, graph, interface, and so on) including those already defined in the Management Information Base (MIB).
LoriotPro Directory Services: LDS
The Directory is active and can be used by external programs (plug-ins). Plug-ins must follow the development rules described in the document dealing with Software Development Kits (SDKs).
Each IS entity, called host in our terminology, that has an IP address is placed in the Directory as a leave object. When you select a host in the tree structure, you can attach tasks or functions to that host. You can use the predefined functions that exist in LoriotPro, such as graphs, VU meters, and reports, or you can also use scripts and functions that an SDK allows you to customize.
LoriotPro displays a dynamic view of IS status by offering numerous visual indicators within a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI). LoriotPro integrates innovative concepts to provide a new way of representing the enterprise network. The conventional topological representation is included as well as a very new logical view in an organizational tree, which contains the enterprise structure and all its active network and host components.
For example, you can place multiple country containers at the top of the tree, each one containing multiple main plants or subsidiaries. In each location, you set the branches that contain network equipment, systems, printers, and so on. In fact, you can organize the logic of your setup any way you want.
Continuous monitoring
The Polling Process sends regular requests to devices to obtain their current status. This innovative process integrates a mechanism of conditional polling that gives the administrator complete control. The Polling process update the status of the object located in the directory, in the map, in the Health Control Center and optionnaly in the Active View.
The five status color give to the administrator and immediate state of the reachability of the host.
Topological View
The Graphical Topology View is LoriotPro’s most visually meaningful element. It gives a complete and dynamic view of the network and attached devices. Any change in a device’s status is immediately brought to your attention by a color change in its icon in this view. The change could be the failure of a communication link or a process running a specific device, for example. A smaller version of the map provides a zoomed-out view, giving you the ability to understand at a glance the status of the network.
Graphical view of the IP network
The Active View
Active View are other ways of supervsing your devices and equipments. With Active Views that represent maps, equipments, rooms, campus, you could have user friendly representations that show dynamically the status of your critical ressources.
Another use of the Active View that displays the devices located on the first
floor of an hypotetical building
On each Active View object you can attach a user defined contextual menu with
your preferred actions. you can for example start a Plug-in, load another view,
open a report ...
Performance management
The basic principle of LoriotPro is based on the native capability of the devices in the IS. You can gather a huge amount of information about the configuration and status of IS devices by sending SNMP requests to them via a private Internet Protocol (IP) network or the Internet. The information that is collected about the devices can be displayed in various ways such as histograms, gauges, maps, curves, tables, reports, and so on.
Real time statistics of SNMP requests on the software kernel
Real time graphic on a scalar value
Network and resource discovering
You do not need to fill manually the directory with the hundreds
of devices that are in your network. The discover process do it for you. LoriotPro
provides two ways for collecting a complete view of your network infrastructure.
A discover process based on SNMP that uses the information loacted in your IP
routers (networks, hosts, routing table, ARP table).
The Automatic Discovery Process locates devices that are connected
to the network only minutes after installation of LoriotPro and provides a complete
view of the IS. The power and advanced features of this process give the administrator
precision control over the domain he administers. A IP scanner that is able
to basically browse range of IP addresses, detect live host, and update your
directory.
Event Management
The event management is the corner stone of a good NMS. It is a critical
functionnality for any administrator to be notify as fast as possible of any
hardware or software failure. LoriotPro provides support of events, alarms and
notifications, and advanced filter and trigger capabilities that allow to define
a powerful event management policy.
The Event Management Process collects all events that come from devices (traps) and all events that LoriotPro generates internally or that come from another LoriotPro agent. This process can then send alerts by e-mail, beeper, Short Message Service (SMS), and so on to warn the administrator.
Real time view windows of alerts
LoriotPro can also receive event messages (called traps) from managed devices and warn the administrator of exceptions or problems by playing a sound, sending a console message, or by highlighting or blinking an icon in a map. Traps report when an exception occurs or a preset threshold has been exceeded.
Alert associated filter definitions windows
Coming with the version 4, the accounting of Event types and Trap types is now possible. You can filter from the display repetitive events, trigger action on a specific event type recurrence, use these counters in Active View and change the color of an Active View object on a specific trap occurence.
WEB Remote access
The Remote Control Process uses an integrated Web server to allow remote access to the LoriotPro system from any Web navigator and gives an instant view of the IS’s status.
Reporting
Reports are available under WEB format either locally or from the Remote WEB console. A powerful scripting language allows you to create your own report with internal dynamic value coming from SNMP request. Displaying a report is an immediat view on device status or configuration. This is an ideal tool for inventory management too.
Report generation containing graphics
MIB support
SNMP management is based on the well known MIB file. MIB files describes what can be monitored in a particular device. The MIB files are not very easy to understand and manipulate. LoriotPro provides various representation and wizard that help the administrator to find MIB objet and their instance. A reduce view of the MIB tree facilitate the exploitation of the MIB object.
Another feature of LoriotPro is the MIB compiler and it capability of handling MIB files and duplicate objets name. With LoriotPro you manage MIB object by their short name.
Additional Modules (Plug-Ins) are LoriotPro’s next revolutionary concept. Any object present in the Directory tree can have a process (plug-in) that executes a particular task attached to it. In other words, if you want to track the usage of a specific interface of a router, simply locate the interface in the tree and link it to the graph plug-in. The result displays immediately. In addition to the plug-ins that come with LoriotPro, you can define your own plug-ins. LoriotPro is sold with a wizard (an application generator) for creating new plug-ins, as well as C libraries and many examples written in C++.
LoriotPro V4 has a new GUI interface, XP style, with advanced windowing functionalities. Icons uses XP style too.
There is a new initial network and host auto discovering method. This method relies on IP only and doesn’t need to have a seed SNMP router.
LoriotPro Event and SNMP Trap management
The event and trap manager contains many new features.
It is now possible to display for each event or trap a window with detailed
information and description.
Event and traps counter are available. You are able to know how many events of a certain type for a certain host has been receive since the last counter clear. You can have a good idea of the frequency of such or such event. This counter can be cleared individually
You can also configure threshold that are conditional display of events based on event counters. Therefore you can get rid of repeating event in your log, you are advertised only the number of time you need.
It is now possible to set actions based on event and trap counters. You can define escalation action when a certain quantity of events or traps is reached.
The 10 optional fields of a Trap can be used to set filter. These fields are frequently used in the private enterprise Traps to define the involved failed component. You will be able to precisely identify this component and trigger the required action.
In the Trap filter rules and actions, it is now possible to trigger an Event locally or to another LoriotPro. The capability of sending an event 300 for each Trap is still available but can be disable.
Active View
It is now possible tyo set conditional change of Active View objects based on event and trap counters. For example, an Active View objet representing a disk can become red when a disk failure trap is received from a system.
SNMP MIB management
The support of MIB has been enhanced and now can managed duplicated names. LoriotPro is able since its early version to managed SNMP requests on short object name. It does not need to use the numeral Object ID format neither the full name format. But using the short name of an object in the MIB tree was not possible if name were duplicated. In the new version at MIB compilation time, duplicate names are detected and replaced with a composite name. A composite name contains the MIB file name and the object name.
The MIB tree provides advanced display features. You can now display only the branch of the tree that you are using and hide all others.
The tree node can displayed the short object name, their node number and there MIB file description. It is thus very easy to locate in which MIB file a specific node is defined.
Report Center
The Report Center is a new tree that is fully customizable.
The frequently used reports and requests can be arrange in this tree and provide
you a fast and easy access to your information.
The tree can contain HTML dynamic report, SNMP table reports or script reports.
The directory organizer is the ultimate tool for arranging the structure of your directory with a very easy to use drag and drop interface. From there you will be able to move from one place to another any object or group of objects into your directory tree.
The Directory Bulk config tool allows you to setup the parameters of multiple hosts in few operations. Now the configuration of hundreds of hosts located anywhere in your directory can be change in a blick of an eyes.
Task Manager
The tasks (plug-in attached to host in the directory tree) can be displayed in a list available as a new tab in the workspace. From there you can easily filter them by status and call them.
Dynamic IP address support
Hosts that have dynamic IP addresses base on DDNS can be added
to the directory. A dedicated Service is now able to resolve the address of
these hosts given a known DNS name.
The service checks at regular interval if any change occurs in the DNS server
and updates the directory entry accordingly.
Trap Simulator (Service Plug-in)
You know that real Traps are always difficult to generate,
for example a power supply failure on a PC. The Trap Simulator service plug-in
solves this problem by allowing you to send fake Trap to any Trap receiver.
It supports either V1 trap or V2 inform. This tool is very useful for verifying
that trap filters are well defined and that the associated actions are performed.
The 10 Trap optional fields are completed by default with their MIB definition
and their value can be set individually.
Loriot is available since 1999 and is used throughout the word by thousands of users.
The version 3.0 has many improvements. Thanks to customer and users’ contributions and comments.
Some of the major improvements of version 3.00 are:
The HTTP server’s code has been enhanced and supports user access rights management. The design of the WEB interface is totally new and many new feature are now accessible on this interface.
A new concept called ACTIVE VIEW allows you to make drawings containing dynamic objects. This object could represent almost everything (building, map, room bay, router, host, users, text) and could be managed and colored dynamically to reflect their status.
In all interfaces and plug-in Wizard have been added and give you a powerful access to Directory objects, events, MIB objects.
Event management and filtering are now managed directly from the event-tree windows. Filters can easily be created for an event occurrence by using a graphical assistant that is attached.
New Plug-in are provided for the monitoring of Host Process (NT and Unix)
Accounting on ISDN link on Cisco Router gives you statistics on Call duration, number of calls, total duration per call peer
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