Kyiv, Ukraine |  Trade and services |  2016 |  Galnaftogaz |  Solution: Network Management (Сisco Prime)

Client

Galnaftogaz
Web-site:

About Client

Concern Galnaftogaz is the operator of OKKO filling complexes—one of the largest networks in Ukraine that includes over 400 locations across the country. It also owns a network of A la minute, Pasta Mia, and Hot café motorway cafés and restaurants, as well as 10 fuel depots and 12 accredited fuel quality control laboratories.

Tasks

Development of the business, constant market changes and re-evaluation of the clients’ needs necessitated the deployment of new network services, the introduction of a network management system to improve the manageability and reliability of network infrastructure and automate activities involved in the connection of new locations to the corporate network.

Problems

Lack of network engineers became a sore spot for the company. Combined with the growing workload related to the support and development of a sprawling distributed corporate network, it led to diminishing quality of support for the company’s network services.
Making things even worse, the customer used multiple isolated network management systems, which could perform network hardware monitoring tasks just partially and only for certain hardware. There was also no automation of routine tasks related to the administration of network devices.

Criteria

Cisco Prime Infrastructure enabled optimisation of processes and provided centralised network management.
Since the solution supported high availability, components of the system were distributed between two geographically separated locations of the corporate data centre with OVF VMware templates. The project also involved installation of two PI servers in one network segment.

Cisco Prime Infrastructure can back up device configurations and show the Last Modified date. Switching to the backup server is done manually—this is the way recommended by the manufacturer and is in line with the best practices.

Cisco Prime Infrastructure uses threshold value monitoring policies.
Switch to the backup server is triggered by:

  •  CPU overload by over 90%
  • A progressive three-step increase in temperature by over 65 °C
  • Interface overload by over 90%.

The system also supports user roles. Only the user “helpdesk” with specifically configured access rights (can view information, can’t edit system preferences or manage network devices) may access the monitoring of interface status for remote business units and view information.

Cisco Prime Infrastructure management and monitoring system can be integrated with Service Desk system.The system also automatically creates the inventory of network devices. Then it analyses the data collected and presents it in the Performance Dashboard

Solutions

Network Management (Сisco Prime)

Products

Cisco Prime Infrastructure

Advantages

  • Monitoring and management of wired and wireless networks
  • Control of the network hardware’s entire life cycle, inventory and management
  • Improved network stability and scaling
  • Control of changes in the information network
  • Faster deployment of new hardware, network expansion, and upgrade
  • Lower operating expenses on network maintenance
  • Seamless integration with Cisco-based networks

Results

The Cisco Prime Infrastructure unified information network management system enabled Concern Galnaftogaz to optimise network maintenance and network hardware lifecycle management capabilities: automatic out-of-the-box configuration, monitoring and reporting of incidents, timely system software upgrades, and replacement/decommissioning after the end of lifecycle or application of higher workloads.

Some of the routine monitoring processes were transferred from network administrators to Service Deck operators.The solution also helped increase the reliability of network services. With backups and configuration templates, human error was eliminated during the configuration of similar network devices.

The project encompasses the entire network infrastructure of Concern Galnaftogaz. The analytics and statistical data collected pointed to certain optimisation possibilities in the company’s corporate network design and served as a source of information during the subsequent WAN network modernisation project.

The Lifecycle module automates administration tasks related to network hardware monitoring and management with network topology, hardware groups, monitoring policies and parameter journaling, inventory, search, and addition of network devices, configuration templates, etc.

The Assurance module provides visualization of network services and application performance. The functionality is based on such technologies as AVC, NetFlow, NBAR2, and QoS.
The Plug and Play module automates addition of new devices to the network and their remote configuration.

Features

Specific requirements for the project:

  • 24/7 system operation
  • Connection of all network devices in the central office, data centre and a part of the corporate network to the monitoring system (routers at 100 filling stations)
  • Integration of Concern Galneftegaz’s existing hardware and software
  • Distribution of system components between two geographically separated locations of the corporate data centre
  • Resilience of the solution
  • Timely data backup for system restoration in the event of a critical failure
  • System deployment in VMware ESXi virtual environment