The Next Big Thing — Topology
We often use this blog to address strategies we think are flawed– like trying to deliver comprehensive monitoring through a patchwork of acquired tools.
Now and then we need to highlight the strategy we’ve chosen: constant and consistent improvement of a uniform software solution, across a range of technology monitoring operations.
In the coming weeks we will detail a few of our latest developments. These new capabilities will lead to an even more integrated monitoring solution, and further cement our edge in technology monitoring for service providers and large enterprise.
Monolith Software began by addressing the need for better event/fault management, creating a powerful tool that consolidated, normalized and correlated faults and events from any input or technology type. Then we extended the normalization model to performance management, giving operations groups the ability to standardize any time-series data coming from their infrastructure. Finally, we created a flexible dashboarding engine that enables customers to re-purpose and distribute their data as determined by business needs, and an SLM/BSM function that advanced automated, metric-driven service level management.
Given those abilities, what if you could now perform discovery, automatic topology mapping and probable root-cause analysis (PRCA) across multiple technology domains (e.g. telco, systems, applications, networks, and voice?)
What if your monitoring tool could correlate between all the topologies from layer 0 (fiber) to layer 7 (presentation), acting as a “Manager of Mangers” for topology? If that monitoring tool could recognize and correlate virtual servers and interfaces just as accurately as physical servers and interfaces? What if topology data included configurations pulled from every server and network device, and config changes and differentials were used to inform root-cause analysis?
This is cross-domain correlation. We’ve been working with our customers to develop the ability, and our new release marks a turning point for the capability.
Monolith’s new multi-layer topology is designed based on our foundational principles of a single database, normalization of all monitoring data, and a flexible, scalable architecture. The result is not only the best visualization and correlation capability in the industry, but one of the first software solutions that addresses monitoring of cloud/virtualized environments with something other than just marketing.
This enhanced topology has a number of secondary impacts in terms of automation and accuracy: better SLM; better PRCA; easier integration with inventory and provisioning systems leading to a clear understanding of circuits, customers and billing; the ability to audit and reconcile between discovered topology and recorded inventory. In short, it’s a big step forward in facilitating, validating, and visualizing service delivery.
We encourage you to take a look at what’s new at Monolith. Next week we’ll introduce some more new features, including some exciting improvements to our existing performance and event management capabilities. And as always, better than half of our new features come directly from customer feedback.
We’re don’t just talk about what works and what doesn’t in technology monitoring. We listen, and we act.
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Monolith Software, Technology Monitoring, Topology, PRCA, SLM, inventory, Cross Domain Correlation