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Technical Overview

Network Availability Improvement Support

A highly available network is essential to meeting your companys service commitments and business goals. Just a few minutes of downtime can cost your business in customer loyalty and revenue, and can result in negative publicity, costly emergency repairs, staff overtime, and service-level agreement penalties. Cisco Advanced Services can help you achieve five nines99.999% availabilityby working with you and your team to identify network risks and help resolve gaps in your network environment, network management, and operational processes.

Cisco Advanced Services engineers are experts in high-availability and operational management. Bringing years of experience analyzing and improving the availability and operational environment of enterprise and service-provider networks worldwide, Cisco assigns the right team of experts to help you achieve availability targets matched to your business goals.

Cisco High Availability Services in the Network Life Cycle Cisco high-availability services support the Plan and Optimize phases of your network life cycle, providing a comprehensive, flexible suite of services to help you:

Maintain high availability of your network and minimize the effects of outages. Decrease operating expenses and increase the return on your network investment. Manage network consolidation, network security threats, software updates, and new solution

deployments. Maintain an optimized, high-performance network.

Table 1 Cisco High Availability Services in the Network Life Cycle

High Availability Services in the Plan Phase Network Availability Improprement Support A La Carte Service

Curriculum Planning Service

High Availability Services in the Optimize Phase Network Availability Improvement Support Core Subscription Services

Network Analysis Support

Gap Resolution Support

Network Availability Improvement Support Subscription Options

Onsite Program Management

Onsite Gap Resolution Support

Network Optimization Support Subscription Options

Software Management Process Analysis

Software Management Process Analysis Implementation

Network Availability ImprovServices

Operational

Functional A

Network Rel

Cisco Advanced ServicesCisco Advanced Servicesement Support A-La-Carte

Readiness Assessment nt Notices and Privacy Statement.

rea Analysis

iability Improvement Analysis

Flexible Service Packaging to Meet Your Needs Cisco high-availability services are available within a flexible framework that allows you to select the service capabilities that meet the needs of your business. As Table 1 demonstrates, services are available through a Network Availability Improvement Support subscription, as options to a Network Availability Improvement Support or Network Optimization Support subscription, or a la carte.

Network Availability Improvement Support core subscription services are annuity based. Network Availability Improvement Support subscription options are annuity based, available with the purchase of a Network Availability

Improvement Support subscription. Network Optimization Support subscription options are annuity based, available with the purchase of a Network Optimization Support

subscription. Network Availability Improvement Support a-la-carte services are available without a subscription to any service program. A-la-carte

services are not annuity based.

Plan: Helping to Ensure a Proficient Network-Support Organization In helping you plan for high availability, Cisco services focus on improving your network-support organizations functional skill proficiency and experience. In addition to helping to reduce operating costs and improve staff productivity, increasing the knowledge base of your networking staff helps prevent outages and helps ensure a high-performing, highly available network through improved performance on job tasks and reduced chance of human error.

Curriculum Planning Service The Curriculum Planning Service (Table 2) is an a-la-carte offering designed to help you better understand your networking environment, network availability objectives, and the skill proficiency of functional groups within your network-support organization.

The service thoroughly assesses your network-related business goals and technical activities, the functional tasks performed to support those activities, and the context in which the tasks are performed. It identifies gaps in aggregate skill proficiency across your network-support organization as compared to Cisco recommended practices, the requirements of your standard operating procedures, and the needs of your network.

To help you resolve the gaps, the service prescribes a curriculum roadmap of training available from Cisco Systems or certified Cisco training partners, as well as informal knowledge transfer available through purchase of other Advanced Services. This curriculum recommendation is intended to increase your organizations functional exposure, experience, and/or education.

Table 2 Curriculum Planning Service Key Activities, Deliverables, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Needs Analysis

Assess your business initiatives, goals, and technical activities to support your network.

Task Analysis

Catalog tasks supporting the technical activities and identify the functional groups available to perform the tasks.

Contextual Analysis

Examine the environmental context in which technical activities and tasks are performed.

Increase your network-support organizations functional skill proficiency and experience through training or informal knowledge transfer.

Help prevent outages and help ensure a high-performing, highly available network through improved performance on job tasks and reduced chance of human error.

Help reduce operating costs and improve staff productivity by increasing the knowledge base of your networking staff.

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Table 2 Curriculum Planning Service Key Activities, Deliverables, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Learner Analysis

Analyze task performance of functional groups at an aggregate level, and compare it with Cisco recommended practices and the requirements of your standard operating procedures, documenting gaps between the current and the desired state of task performance.

Identify training available from Cisco or Cisco certified training partners that may help address organizational performance gaps, and prepare a curriculum roadmap.

For each functional area, prescribe corrective action to resolve skills gaps, including a curriculum roadmap of training and knowledge transfer recommendations.

Assess the risk of not implementing the recommendations.

Produce a report and deliver a presentation on crucial findings of the analysis, recommendations, and risk assessment.

Optimize: Maintain High Performance and Availability After your network is functioning and has live network traffic supporting customers, Cisco high-availability services help you:

Achieve network resiliency, availability, and stability by rapidly resolving network maintenance issues, proactively managing the effects of changes across the entire network, and managing the resolution of gaps.

Minimize network downtime and outages and decrease operating expenses by identifying and avoiding costly mistakes caused by operational procedures across your network environment.

Improve the return on your network investment and save time and money by improving network reliability, performance, and service quality, and aligning the level of network availability needed with your business requirements

Maintain strong network performance and high availability by managing software updates and software releases while maintaining software version control.

Manage security threats by identifying areas of risk and gaps in your security processes and methodologies, and recommending a course of action for resolution.

Maintain a resilient, stable, available, and scalable network by employing proper, effective, and efficient methodologies to minimize disruption to services supported by your network during moves, adds, changes, upgrades.

Network Analysis Support One of the two core offerings of the Network Availability Improvement Support subscription, Network Analysis Support provides network assessments and network improvement recommendations to help you maintain availability and minimize the effects of outages while helping to improve the return on your network investment.

Network Analysis Support is designed to be a change catalyst, identifying gaps in your networks high-level conformance to operational standards and helping to drive network improvement based on your networking environment, network availability objectives, and business requirements. It helps you define, achieve, and maintain network health and availability targets by comparing your environment with industry-defined best practice methodologies and providing recommendations customized for your specific business needs


Network Analysis Support analyzes trends on technical cases and detects gaps affecting network operations. The service provides a customized, comprehensive view of operational gaps and a network availability baseline matched with your business goals, reveals the areas that need to be improved to sustain a high-performance network, and makes recommendations to correct the areas of your network that contribute to network downtime. Two functional-area analyses focus in depth on gaps in two critical areas of your network and recommend a detailed course of action for gap resolution.

Through a disciplined approach to managing your network environment, Network Analysis Support helps you minimize errors that contribute to network downtime and costly rework while helping to improve network reliability, resiliency, performance, and service quality.

The Network Analysis Support offerings are:

Network Assessments Network Availability Plan Quarterly Availability Snapshot Assessment Analysis Readout Network Assessments The Network Assessments service (Table 3) includes a series of assessments that span all functional areas of your networking environment.

The assessments gauge your networks high-level conformance to operational standards, focusing on specific areas within network design, fault management, configuration management, and performance management. These areas were selected based on research identifying them as the most likely points of noncompliance with industry standards and as having the highest potential effect to network availability. Your specific network environment and objectives determine the unique combination and sequence of these assessments.

In performing the Network Assessments, Cisco analyzes your organization's network-management processes, operational processes, network design, and availability-management systems. Cisco identifies gaps in the conformance of your current operating environment to practices recommended by both Cisco and the industry, and recommends projects for resolving the gaps. The gap-resolution recommendations are unique to your networking environment and vary in depth, depending on the type of functional assessment they derive from. Each gap-resolution recommendation is recorded and tracked.

The first assessment establishes the order in which future assessments are performed. To help maximize the value of each successive assessment, the sequence is customized to your environment according to the degree of nonconformance with recommended practices, your network environment, and your objectives.

Ciscos approach to detailed assessments focuses on the following ten functional areas, which are also discussed in the Functional Area Analysis section of this overview: Network resiliency, fault management, problem management, configuration management, change management, performance management, availability management, provisioning management, new solution deployment, and security management.


Table 3 Network Assessments Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Conduct onsite interviews with your team to gather data, facts on network environment, operational procedures, availability targets, and business and network objectives.

Analyze the availability and operational performance of your network. Provide a baseline of your needs, availability metrics, and standard operating procedures of areas that commonly contribute to availability downtime.

Conduct a series of assessments spanning all functional areas of your networking environment.

Analyze your organization's network-management and operational processes, network design, and availability management systems.

Identify gaps in the conformance of your current operating environment to practices recommended by both Cisco and the industry.

Recommend projects for resolving gaps.

Recommend additional assessments to analyze functional areas in detail, as well as the sequence for performing the assessments.

Gauge your networks high-level conformance to operational standards and establish a course of action for improvement.

Strengthen your understanding of the operational conditions of your network.

Reduce time to resolve gaps.

Network Availability Plan The assessments and associated recommendations from the Network Assessments are listed as individual projects within the Network Availability Plan (Table 4). The Cisco Advanced Services team prioritizes projects in a recommended implementation sequence according to the direct or indirect effect of the project on overall network availability.

An example of a project that directly affects network availability would be a project for implementing diverse routing or obtaining multiple sources of power or power backup. Projects that indirectly affect network availability typically address operational requirements. An example would be a project for implementing best practices for monitoring and managing the network.

At the conclusion of each assessment, the Cisco team updates the Network Availability Plan to incorporate the new projects. The updated plan provides a current, separate, prioritized list of gap resolution projects for each assessment.

Table 4 Network Availability Plan Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Consolidate the assessments and associated recommendations from the Network Assessments service.

Prioritize projects in a recommended implementation sequence according to the direct or indirect effect of the project on overall network availability.

Incorporate new projects at the conclusion of each assessment.

Help achieve near-term network availability targets.

Increases the effectiveness of staff by prioritizing availability-enhancement projects.

Help ensure the strongest effect on network availability targets in the near term through a customized assessment roadmap.

Quarterly Availability Snapshot Calculating network availability is a crucial activity within any availability improvement program. Based on data you supply from your existing management systems, your Cisco team provides a Quarterly Availability Snapshot (Table 5) that quantifies, tracks, and determines trends of your network availability.


Table 5 Quarterly Availability Snapshot Key Activities, Deliverables, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Quantify, track, and determine trends of your network availability quarterly based on data you supply from your existing management systems.

Track and identify trends of your network availability.

Quantify the effects of network modifications, operational process enhancements, and staffing adjustments by establishing benchmarks.

Assessment Analysis Readout At the end of each assessment, the Cisco team provides an onsite Assessment Analysis Readout (Table 6), which includes a presentation summarizing the analysis, identified gaps, gap recommendations, and updated Network Availability Plan.

Table 6 Assessment Analysis Readout Key Activities, Deliverables, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Deliver a presentation summarizing the analysis, identified gaps, gap recommendations, and updated Network Availability Plan.

Engage in interactive dialog on network risks identified.

Review and update the network environment improvement approach.

Help achieve availability targets.

Help ensure clarity of direction, scope, and priorities.

Gap Resolution Support One of the two core offerings of the Network Availability Improvement Support subscription, Gap Resolution Support provides services to implement the Network Analysis Support gap-resolution recommendations. Gap Resolution Support enhances the value of Network Analysis Support by involving the assessment team in resolving your network risks.

Gap Resolution Support can help you maintain availability and minimize the effects of outages by rapidly resolving maintenance issues, mitigating the effects of changes on your network, analyzing trending on technical cases, and detecting skill gaps affecting network operations. In Gap Resolution Support, the same Cisco team who helped identify gaps and recommended the projects to resolve them through Network Analysis Support now helps you manage your gap-resolution projects. This service provides a network risk resolution roadmap specific to your business, as well as continuity from the gap identification phase through gap resolution phase of the improvement life cycle.

The Gap Resolution Support offerings are:

Gap Recommendation Implementation Assistance Network Improvement Plan Gap Resolution Project Plan Network Availability Baseline Joint Steering Committee Quarterly Report Remote Program Management Gap Recommendation Implementation Assistance In Gap Recommendation Implementation Assistance (Table 7), the Cisco engineering and network operations team who assessed your network under Network Analysis Support works closely with your team to help resolve network risks. Bringing years of experience analyzing and improving the availability and operating conditions of networks worldwide, your Cisco team can help you reduce operating expenses, help ensure a smooth gap-resolution process, and help minimize the risk of unscheduled network downtime.


Table 7 Gap Recommendation Implementation Assistance

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Drive resolution of identified gaps within your network environment.

Recommend project prioritization based on the sequence recommended in Network Analysis Support.

Help reduces operating expenses, help ensure a smooth gap-resolution process, and help minimize the risk of unscheduled network downtime through assistance from Cisco engineers.

Promote earlier realization of cost savings by helping to decrease gap resolution time.

Help increase staff productivity and help reduce the time to implement the gap-resolution projects by augmenting staff knowledge and experience.

Access network availability engineers who have analyzed your network and can help direct your availability-improvement activities.

Network Improvement Plan Your managers and the Cisco assessment team work closely to integrate and prioritize the individual Network Availability Plans created under Network Analysis Support into a single, evolving Network Improvement Plan (Table 8).

Table 8 Network Improvement Plan Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Integrate the recommendations generated by each assessment into a prioritized master project list.

Track plan progression and include considerations for future network needs.

Consider cross-assessment gap severity, gap recommendation effects, your resource availability, and alignment with your executive initiatives

More effectively manage your resources by tracking the progress of outstanding projects.

Help increase the speed of network availability improvements by focusing the implementation team on projects that are most beneficial to your environment.

Consider future needs and requirements for your business and network needs.

Gap Resolution Project Plan The Gap Resolution Project Plan (Table 9) provides the gap resolution implementation team the details needed to successfully implement and manage all gap-resolution projects that were prioritized in the Network Improvement Plan.

The Gap Resolution Project Plan is a detailed project plan that includes resources, duration, and dependencies for each project. To help ensure the master project list is manageable, the Gap Resolution Project Plan is organized to feature projects targeted for completion in each calendar quarter and is updated to maintain a six-month rolling window of project details.

The rolling window method helps increase staff efficiency by focusing on active projects and projects targeted for the near future. This approach helps simplify project reprioritization, as well as the addition of new projects generated by ongoing assessments and the removal of completed projects.

Table 9 Gap Resolution Project Plan Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Provide the details needed to successfully implement and manage all gap-resolution projects that have been prioritized in the Network Improvement Plan.

Detail resources, duration, and dependencies for each project.

Maintain consistency and understanding of immediate project implementation plans and resource requirements.

Help improve resource allocation and help increase staff efficiency by focusing on active projects and projects


Table 9 Gap Resolution Project Plan Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Organize to feature projects targeted for completion in each calendar quarter.

Update to maintain a six-month rolling window of project details.

targeted for the near future.

Help simplify project reprioritization, as well as the addition of new projects generated by ongoing assessments and the removal of completed projects.

Network Availability Baseline Calculating the network availability baseline is crucial to any availability improvement program and is a fundamental task of the Gap Resolution Support offering. It is imperative to quantitatively measure network availability and monitor the effect of gap-resolution projects, as well as routine network changes, upgrades, deployments, and staff changes. A consistent process to measure and track network availability is necessary in order to quantitatively measure the effects of network changes.

If you do not currently measure network availability, the Gap Resolution Support offering requires you to implement a method for doing so, and provides a framework to support you in implementing a method via the Network Availability Baseline service (Table 10). You can select any availability monitoring approach or work with the Cisco team to implement a trouble-ticket method to track downtime and mean time to repair. The trouble-ticket approach to measuring network availability requires you to capture the correct parameters in your trouble-ticket system. After the trouble-ticket system collects the necessary information, the Cisco team teaches you how to implement and execute the network availability baseline spreadsheet and tools so that you can operate them self-sufficiently.

Table 10 Network Availability Baseline Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Establish a consistent method of measuring network availability.

Teach you how to implement and execute the network availability baseline spreadsheet and tools.

Quantitatively measure the effects of network changes.

Operate the network availability baseline spreadsheet and tools self-sufficiently.

Record fluctuations in network availability over time.

Track progress toward achieving network availability goals and objectives.

Proactively assess the effects of networking and operational modifications.

Joint Steering Committee In owning the implementation of the gap resolution recommendations, you control and are responsible for the organization that executes the planning, design, implementation, and operation of your network on a daily basis. Although Cisco is not ultimately responsibility for implementing changes, Gap Resolution Support establishes a framework to help facilitate change.

One important component of this framework is the Joint Steering Committee (Table 11), which reviews the Network Improvement Plan regularly to help verify that project priorities are current, and review project status and the availability baseline. The Joint Steering Committee should comprise key decision makers from your organization and from Cisco. Cisco recommends that your executive sponsor, a senior operations manager, and a senior engineering manager attend the joint steering committee meetings. Your program manager and the Cisco program manager co-manage the Joint Steering Committee meetings.

Table 11 Joint Steering Committee Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Establish joint stewardship to facilitate resolution of gaps within your network environment.

Help verify that project priorities are current.

Complement your oversight and control of the planning, design, implementation, and operation of your network.

Help increase the success of your gap-resolution


Table 11 Joint Steering Committee Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Review project status and the availability baseline. projects by aligning the active projects with your executive-level

initiatives and reinforcing executive-level commitment.

Quarterly Report The Quarterly Report (Table 12) assembles the deliverables and activities of the Gap Resolution Support offering into a single summary report that the joint steering committee updates and reviews quarterly. A living document that reflects the current overall health of the network, the Quarterly Report helps raise visibility of troublesome issues to the joint steering committee, providing information to guide adjustments to resources or priorities.

The report provides both executive-level and detailed overviews of gap-resolution project status with network availability metrics and business goals. This detailed project status tracks network health and formally records the Network Availability Baseline. For each project, it also records the parties involved, obstacles encountered, how issues were resolved, and how the project was closed.

As gap-resolution projects are completed, the Quarterly Report tracks improvements to network availability and operational efficiencies. Cisco recommends archiving each revision to the Quarterly Report for future reference.

Table 12 Quarterly Report Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Track improvements to network availability and operational efficiencies.

Assemble the deliverables and activities of the Gap Resolution Support offering into a single summary report that the joint steering committee updates and reviews quarterly.

Provide high-level and detailed status of open, closed, and active gap-resolution projects.

Review network availability metrics and business goals.

Graphically represent the health of the network by functional area.

Formally record the overall Network Availability Baseline.

Track network health over time.

Track how each project was closed, the parties involved, obstacles encountered, and how issues were resolved.

Summarize changes made to the networkwhy, when, and by whom.

Help raise visibility of troublesome issues to the joint steering committee, providing information to guide adjustments to resources or priorities.

Gain insight into network health history and trending by functional area.

Help ensure on-time delivery and successful completion.

Remote Program Management In Remote Program Management (Table 13), a Cisco program manager works with your program manager to jointly drive gap resolution. The program manager is the single point of contact within Cisco for all activity coordination. The program manager develops, maintains, and executes the Gap Resolution Project Plan, maintains the Network Improvement Plan, runs gap resolution meetings, works as an active member of the Joint Steering Committee, and manages the people and tasks needed to complete gap-resolution projects to completion.

Table 13 Remote Program Management Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Facilitate gap resolution in tandem with your program manager.

Develop, maintain, and execute the Gap Resolution Project Plan.

Maintain the Network Improvement Plan.

Run gap resolution meetings.

Simplify project management and communication with Cisco by providing a single point of contact.

Help ensure consistency throughout the entire engagement, streamline project activities, and manage projects to completion.


Table 13 Remote Program Management Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Work as an active member of the Joint Steering Committee.

Manage the people and tasks needed to complete gap-resolution projects.

Onsite Program Management Onsite Program Management (Table 14) is an optional upgrade to the Network Availability Improvement Support subscription. This option provides you with a designated onsite program manager who works two or five days per week as a member of your network improvement team. The onsite program manager helps motivate and educate your team, facilitating the gap-resolution projects identified under Network Analysis Support.

Providing a single point of contact for all Network Availability Improvement Support issues, the onsite program manager coordinates all Cisco activities, organizes and facilitates meetings, creates and maintains the Gap Resolution Project Plan, maintains the Network Improvement Plan, and manages the completion of gap-resolution projects.

Skilled in project management, the onsite program manager understands the technical issues and resource commitments needed to achieve a high-availability network.

The onsite program manager communicates first-hand insights into your needs, concerns, and operating environment to the larger remote Cisco Advanced Services team involved in developing recommendations and providing gap resolution assistance, increasing the effectiveness of Gap Resolution Support services.

Table 14 Onsite Program Management Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Coordinate all Cisco activities and organize and facilitate meetings pertaining to Network Availability Improvement Support.

Create and maintain the Gap Resolution Project Plan.

Maintain the Network Improvement Plan.

Manage the people and tasks needed to complete gap-resolution projects.

Facilitate the gap resolution projects identified under Network Analysis Support.

Convey insights about your needs, concerns, and operating environment to the remote Cisco assessment team.

Establish a single point of contact for all Network Availability Improvement Support activities who is dedicated to your Network Availability Improvement Support implementation.

Provide onsite support two or five days per week.

Increase the effectiveness of the Gap Resolution Support services.

Help prevent implementation obstacles through onsite access to an experienced Cisco program manager who understands your environment and the needs of your team.

Decrease time to gap resolution through immediate access to expert support as needed.

Onsite Gap Resolution Support Onsite Gap Resolution Support (Table 15) is an optional service that builds on the Gap Resolution Support offering of the Network Availability Improvement Support subscription. This option augments the remote Cisco Advanced Services team with an onsite engineer to assist your team in the implementation of the Gap Resolution Project Plan from the Network Analysis Support service.


Your onsite Cisco engineer helps your team reduce the time to implement the Network Availability Improvement Support recommendations by providing hands-on assistance, and enhances your teams effectiveness by helping to maintain focus on the implementation. Through your onsite Cisco engineer, your implementation team gains direct access to the extended Cisco team of network-availability experts worldwide, as well as a wealth of experience, tools, and intellectual property.

Onsite Gap Resolution Support provides an onsite Cisco engineer for two or five days per week, dedicated to improving your network availability. Even when the Cisco engineer is offsite, the knowledge and practices passed on to your team will help them to continue making the necessary improvements. And when offsite, the Cisco engineer remains your advocate by representing your needs, concerns, and motivation to the remote Cisco assessment team.

Table 15 Onsite Gap Resolution Support Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Augment the remote Cisco Advanced Services team with an onsite Cisco engineer to assist your team in implementing the recommendations generated by the Network Analysis Support service.

Provide an onsite, hands-on Cisco engineer two or five days per week dedicated to your network availability.

Help your team improve your network availability sooner by increasing the involvement of the Cisco team in executing the Gap Resolution Project Plan.

Help increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation through focused dedication.

Enhance your teams effectiveness by promoting their focus on implementing each recommended gap-resolution project.

Gain direct access to the extended Cisco team of network-availability experts worldwide, as well as a wealth of experience, tools, and intellectual property, through your onsite Cisco engineer.

Continue making necessary improvements when the Cisco engineer is offsite, using knowledge and practices imparted to your team.

Receive representation of your needs, concerns, and motivation to the remote Cisco assessment team.

Software Management Process Analysis Software Management Process Analysis (Table 16) is an optional service available if you have a Network Optimization Support subscription or have purchased the Network Optimization Support Software Strategy offering.

With Software Management Process Analysis, Cisco analyzes processes and procedures across many areas of your networking environment to help you be more efficient in life-cycle management of software within your network.

The service initially focuses on identifying instances where Cisco IOS management practices in your current operating environment may not be conforming to practices recommended by Cisco. Cisco alerts you to each identified instance of nonconformance and provides a corresponding recommendation. Recommendations are unique to your network environment and are determined by your current software management processes, business drivers, and other factors of your network environment.

Later the service focuses on proactive software life-cycle management as you maintain, upgrade and expand your network.


Table 16 Software Management Process Analysis Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Assess processes and procedures across many areas of your networking environment.

Identify gaps between Cisco IOS management practices in your current operating environment and practices recommended by Cisco.

Communicate the presence of gaps and provide a corresponding recommendation.

Provide proactive software life-cycle management as you upgrade, expand, and maintain your network.

Provide an Assessment Analysis Readout with onsite presentation.

Help manage software within your network.

Help speed return on network investment and minimize network outages by identifying areas of nonconformance to recommended practices.

Identify areas to target for improvement specific to your environment.

Promote mutual understanding of actions required through interactive presentation.

Software Management Process Analysis Implementation Support In Software Management Process Analysis Implementation Support (Table 17), the Cisco team who performed the Software Management Process Analysis consults with and advises you as you implement recommendations for improving your Cisco IOS management practices.

As experts in high-availability and operational management processes and procedures, your Cisco engineering team augments the knowledge and experience of your staff and helps reduce the time to implement the recommendations and improve network performance.

Table 17 Software Management Process Analysis Implementation Support Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Consult with and advise you as you implement recommendations for improving your Cisco IOS management practices.

Provide remote implementation consultation

Augment the knowledge and experience of your staff and help reduce the time to implement recommendations and improve network performance through ongoing consultation with experts in high-availability and operational management who know your network.

Operational Readiness Assessment The Operational Readiness Assessment (Table 18) is an a-la-carte service designed to strengthen your understanding of your networking environments operational conformance to industry practices. This service assesses your networking environment at a high level, comparing your network management and operational methods with Cisco and industry-defined recommended practices.

Available without a subscription to any other Cisco Advanced Services offering, this service helps you maintain availability and minimize the effects of outages by detecting issues before they become serious network problems. It also helps you decrease operating expenses by showing you how to avoid costly mistakes in operational procedures that may contribute to network downtime and outages.

As a standalone offering, the Operational Readiness Assessment is ideal for understanding day-to-day network operations as well as situations that occur outside of day-to-day network operations, such as managing a network consolidation or updating hardware.

For day-to-day network operations challenges such as unplanned downtime or chronic outages, the Operational Readiness Assessment can help identify inefficiencies and areas in your network that are contributing to costly outages from a network-management and operations perspective. Additionally, after an acquisition or merger, the Operational Readiness Assessment can help you manage the convergence of two different network-operating environments (and possibly two IT teams) as a single, high-performing, highly available network. During hardware updates, the Operational Readiness Assessment helps minimize disruption to existing services supported by your network.


Table 18 Operational Readiness Assessment Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Assess your networking environment at a high level by interviewing the appropriate network operations and engineering personnel.

Obtain a detailed understanding of the network management processes and network systems in place through review of internal data and documents.

Review strategies in place for network resiliency, new solution deployment, and availability management.

Provide a baseline of your availability, identify gaps relative to your business goals, and make recommendations for achieving target availability metrics for your network.

Analyze your current operational approach and provide guidance on eliminating inefficiencies in network operations.

Identify risks relative to recommended practices and provide recommendations to mitigate those risks based on your business and availability goals.

Consider network management processes and network systems in place in relation to your business objectives and in comparison to Cisco and industry-defined recommended practices. Recommended operational and network management practices include:

The OSI management functional areas of fault management, including problem management

Configuration management, including inventory management and change management

Performance management and security (FCAPS)

The Telecommunication Management Network (TMN) model, spanning the four management layers business, service, network and element management

Capture assessment results relative to customer network practices and network availability and recommend areas for further focus in an assessment report.

Provide a disciplined approach to avoiding downtime during hardware staging, installs, testing, and turn-up in your network

After a merger or acquisition, analyze the effect of cost cuts on your network performance and the ability of your scaled-down staff to manage at the same level of performance or higher.

Provide an assessment report and onsite readout including a summary of the analysis and areas of concern, and a prioritized list of recommendations including areas to analyze further.

Network assessments are designed and developed by engineers with CCIE and CCDP certification who understand your business objectives and network availability targets, and the methodologies needed to achieve them.

Strengthen your understanding of your networking environments operational conformance to industry practices.

Identifies best-practices risks and recommendations to mitigate those risks based on your business and availability goals.

Helps you avoid costly mistakes by identifying potential problems within your network-operating environment.

Helps decrease operating expenses by showing how to avoid costly mistakes in operational procedures across your network environment that may contribute to network downtime and outages.

Help minimize disruption to existing services supported by your network while updating hardware at a current site.

After a merger or acquisition, helps you manage a converged network as a single high-performing, highly available network.

Functional Area Analysis Functional Area Analysis (Table 19) is an a-la-carte service that includes a portfolio of ten professional engineering support offerings that cover the fault, configuration, performance, security, and design areas of your network. The ten functional areas are: Network resiliency, fault


management, problem management, configuration management, change management, performance management, availability management, provisioning management, new solution deployment, and security management.

You can purchase one or more Functional Area Analysis offerings a la cartewith or without purchase of a Network Availability Improvement Support subscription. (With the Network Availability Improvement Support subscription, up to two Functional Area Analysis offerings are included under Network Analysis Support.)

By targeting a single functional area and providing an accelerated, in-depth assessment, each Functional Area Analysis helps you speed improvement in network availability and operational efficiencies. This accelerated improvement schedule can expedite deployment of new applications for faster return on investment.

After the onsite engagement, the team captures the analysis findings in a report that includes detailed recommendations, and delivers an assessment analysis readout at your site. The readout includes a summary of the engagement, a review of the information collected, the engineer's analysis of the data, identified gaps, and recommendations for resolving the gaps. The personalized presentation provides you the opportunity to discuss the findings and recommendations in detail with the engineers to help accelerate gap closure.

Table 19 Functional Area Analysis Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Develop a Network-Management Architecture Roadmap prior to the first Functional Area Analysis, and modify it as each Functional Area Analysis is performed

Interview the appropriate operations and engineering personnel in an onsite research and fact-finding engagement focused on the targeted functional area.

Analyze system locations relative to the managed devices on the network and the ability of the system to recover from a network-management system hardware failure.

Analyze the hardware, functions, and software specifications of each system and device in the network management architecture.

Gather data with which to measure current process effectiveness in the targeted functional area.

Review systems, review process documentation, attend standing meetings.

Analyze identified gaps and recommend corrective steps for resolving them.

Capture the analysis findings in a report that includes detailed recommendations and a final version of the Network-Management Architecture Roadmap.

Deliver an onsite assessment analysis readout.

Helps you speed improvement in network availability and operational efficiencies by targeting a single functional area and providing an accelerated, in-depth assessment.

Optimize functional areas of your network through focused assessments.

Expedite deployment of new applications for faster return on investment by accelerating the network-improvement schedule.

Help accelerate gap closure by discussing the findings and recommendations in detail with the engineers.

Network Reliability Improvement Analysis Network Reliability Improvement Analysis (Table 20) is an a-la-carte service that provides expert technical resources to help you maintain availability, minimize the effects of outages, and avoid costly rework of your network.


Network Reliability Improvement Analysis enables you to receive a reliability assessment and corresponding recommendations without committing to an annual subscription. It includes a single assessment that targets key areas of your network, addressing availability management by concentrating on network management, operational procedures, and network design.

By targeting key areas of your network that contribute to resiliency and availability, Network Reliability Improvement Analysis helps you recognize the most common and pervasive gaps in your network design, operational processes, and operational readiness as compared to industry-recommended practices. After gaps are identified, the service prescribes prioritized gap-resolution projects to help rapidly resolve maintenance issues and manage the effects of changes on the network.

The gap-resolution recommendations are provided to your team in the form of Gap Resolution Templates, which document the Cisco recommended resolution for each of the identified gaps. The detailed recommendations are then captured in a Network Availability Plan as individual projects that are prioritized by importance to help you determine when to integrate the project recommendations in your network.

Network Reliability Improvement Analysis enhances visibility into your network operations so you can periodically check network devices to detect issues before they become serious network problems. This service is particularly valuable at a new site, where proactive assessment of availability metrics matched to your business goals helps minimize disruption to services supported by your network.

Table 20 Network Reliability Improvement Analysis Deliverables, Activities, and Benefits

Deliverables and Activities Benefits Assessment and Recommendations:

Conduct extensive interviews with your operations and engineering staff to determine the current network design, network configuration, and network support processes.

Review network maps, network device configurations, network management designs, and process documentation.

Perform a high-level assessment of network management, operational procedures, and network design to address availability management.

Analyze in detail specific areas within network design, fault management, configuration management, and performance management to identify gaps. (Areas are selected based on gap probability and the effects of gap resolution.)

Recommend projects for resolving gaps, in the form of Gap Resolution Templates. (These templates were developed to catalog resolutions to common problems the Cisco team has encountered over years of assessing networks. )

Network Availability Plan

Capture detailed recommendations in the Network Availability Plan as individual projects and prioritize according to business requirements, ease of implementation, and cost.

Determine if additional detailed assessments are needed, and in what order of priority.

Analysis Readout

Deliver an onsite Assessment Analysis Readout that summarizes the engagement including the analysis, the Network Availability Plan, and the Gap Resolution Templates.

Identify the ideal sequence and timing for integrating project recommendations into your network improvement project plan.

Improve decision-making through a better understanding of your operational compliance with industry best practices

Help reduce your operating expenses, minimize network outages, and help increase reliability of your network through prioritization of network-improvement projects.

Increase the effectiveness and decision-making ability of your staff by strengthening their understanding of best-practice standards

Manage your resources more effectively by tracking projects based on priorities unique to your business and on risks unique to your network, using the Network Availability Plan .

Have the opportunity to hear the engineers conclusions and ask clarifying questions, via the Analysis Readout.

Help improve the implementation of gap-resolution projects as a result of discussing the analysis findings and recommendations in detail with your Cisco engineering team.


SUMMARY Network Availability Improvement Support helps increase the availability of a network by helping you formally manage network reliability, and by identifying risks associated with resiliency, operational processes, and network management effectiveness. This affects your profitability by helping to reduce your operating expenses, diminishing the effects of downtime and of service-level agreement penalties, helping to increase customer satisfaction and employee productivity, and helping to reduce emergency repairs.

Network Availability Improvement Support works with you to define, achieve, and maintain network health and availability targets needed to support your business. An annual Network Availability Improvement Support subscription includes the Network Analysis Support and the Gap Resolution Support offerings. The subscription includes assessments of your network and network operations processes to identify areas where change could improve availability and the effectiveness of the operations staff.

The Gap Resolution Support offering helps you understand and implement the gaps that have been identified. This service completes the network improvement life cycle by providing you with continuity from the gap identification phase through the gap resolution phase. Whether you want to reduce operating expenses, minimize network downtime, create new revenue opportunities, or use your network as a service differentiator, this service helps you achieve your networking goals and maximize your return on investment.

AVAILABILITY Network Availability Improvement Support is available throughout the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, contact your Cisco representative.

FOR MORE INFORMATION More information about Cisco high-availability services is available at: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/svcs/ps11/serv_category_home.html.


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