1. Industrial Switch Network Management Requirements Description
1.1 . Industrial switch equipment vendors' network management needs
For industrial switch equipment providers, the following factors need to be addressed:
End-customer needs: The manageability of network and industrial switching equipment has been increasingly valued by end users, and is often a necessary condition in equipment procurement.
The need for complete solutions: For industrial switch equipment manufacturers, network management software can be used to create complete product solutions, directly enhancing the product's image and applicability. Simultaneously, network management software can also be used to penetrate the peripheral product and integration fields, securing a favorable position in users' subsequent upgrade and transformation activities.
1. 2. Current network management solutions from equipment vendors
For most industrial switch manufacturers, the typical solution is:
Developing your own network management software development team and developing it yourself generally requires at least several to dozens of people and several years of continuous development. The cost is usually hundreds of thousands to millions of yuan, and you also have to bear the risks of time to market and technology.
Purchasing third-party network management software: Most network management software on the market is difficult to provide customized functions, and equipment manufacturers do not have any intellectual property rights for network management software, which is detrimental to long-term development.
2. Zhihe Xintong Industrial Switch Network Management Solution
Based on the existing functions of the SugarNMS intelligent network management platform from Zhihe Information Technology Co., Ltd., the following three solutions can be provided for industrial switch users:
(1) Low-cost OEM solution
By using our network management platform, SugarNMSOEM solution, you can transform your device into the manufacturer's brand and directly use all of SugarNMS's network management functions.
Features of the solution: rapid implementation, lowest cost, and cost recovery in the early stages.
(2) Customized ODM development solution
Based on the Zhihe network management platform, we customize and develop personalized functions for our clients to maximize the satisfaction of equipment manufacturers' needs.
Solution features: Highest integration with devices, best meeting personalized network management needs. Customized code can be transferred, facilitating future user development.
(3) Network Management Development Platform Solution
It provides the SugarNMS secondary development platform and comprehensive documentation, allowing equipment manufacturers to perform secondary development based on SugarNMS. Suitable for equipment manufacturers with a small number of technical personnel.
Solution features: Equipment manufacturers have complete freedom to develop the solution, allowing for rapid development and requiring only minimal technical personnel to ensure continuous product development.
3. Implementation of Industrial Switch Network Management Solution
3.1 . Intelligent search and switch equipment
SugarNMS offers four topology discovery methods: IP range, network range, route search, and roaming discovery. Supported device discovery protocols include SNMP and Ping. During the discovery process, it can automatically search for switch devices, identify device type and manufacturer model, and generate device panel diagrams. It can also search for and monitor device boards, ports, fans, status lights, CPU, and memory. Furthermore, it can discover the link relationships between devices.
3.2 . Network Topology Display
SugarNMS manages the entire switch network entirely through a graphical interface, dividing it by device type, region, and hierarchy. It displays detailed device link relationships within each management region or hierarchy. The topology uses different colored device icons to display the latest device status information in real time.
Access layer ring network
3.3 . Link Discovery
The software supports physical topology discovery technologies such as LLDP, CDP, ICMP, ARP, neighbor routing, port forwarding tables, and spanning tree protocol. It can automatically search for and display links between devices, and also allows for manual link maintenance. The system can display multiple performance data, faults, and operational status of links in real time. A realistic graphical interface displays real-time traffic, bandwidth, faults, etc., on the links, and uses different colors to intuitively distinguish link status.
3.4 . Industrial ring network
The software's unique industrial ring network identification technology can automatically search and display industrial ring networks within the network. It can also identify backup links and congestion points, enabling the unique functions of industrial switch networks.
3.5 . Switch panel diagram
SugarNMS supports managing switch devices using realistic device panel diagrams, vividly displaying the latest status of resources such as ports, fans, power supplies, and CPUs in real time. It also supports editing device logical panel diagrams to display device resources.
3.6 . Fault Management
Fault Acquisition: SugarNMS has a proactive fault monitoring function. It can summarize the scattered status information from numerous events and states into the current working status and generate alarms.
Fault optimization includes event filtering, fault event reporting, fault event presentation filtering, fault event database filtering, and fault event confirmation mechanisms to effectively avoid false alarms and missed alarms.
Fault location: Enables rapid fault location, pinpointing the source of the fault in one step, allowing for timely fault handling and effective prevention of future faults.
Fault Handling: By setting fault threshold values, a notification mechanism can be triggered in advance before a fault actually occurs. It also supports three levels of progressively higher warnings. After the fault disappears, the system can automatically detect the previous fault and automatically clear the alarm.
Fault notification: Faults can be notified via interface color, alarm list, sound, SMS, email, etc. Alarms can be traced upwards step by step, and the fault display is organized according to the management habit of global -> network -> device -> device resources.
3.7 . Performance Management
The software can collect real-time performance data such as switch port traffic, bandwidth, packet loss rate, CPU load, memory usage, and system response time. Performance metrics are displayed through graphs and trend charts. Users can view performance metric changes by day, week, month, or any time period.
3.8 . Device Backup and Upgrade
SugarNMS can back up/restore switch device configurations and also supports device software upgrades.
Configuration file backup/restore: Supports backup/restore of configuration files for individual devices, as well as backup/restore of configuration files for batch devices (both scheduled and on-demand modes). The network management platform comes with an FTP server, and devices automatically start an FTP client to transfer files and perform backup/restore functions.
Device software upgrade: Supports device software upgrades for single devices and batches of devices. Batch upgrades support both scheduled and on-demand upgrade methods. The network management platform executes the device software upgrade operation by issuing upgrade commands via SNMP.
3.9 . Equipment Parameter Viewing
The network management system provides the following functions for viewing switch parameters:
3.10 . Statistical Reports
SugarNMS network management system boasts powerful reporting capabilities, generating real-time reports and historical reports based on days, weeks, months, and arbitrary start and end times. Reports include various types such as real-time performance/fault reports, performance/fault trend reports, performance/fault statistics reports, and TOPN reports, presented in various formats including line charts, bar charts, area charts, pie charts, and positive/negative charts. All statistical charts support export and printing for backup and comparison.
4. Features of Zhihe Network Management Platform Industrial Switch Solution
4.1 One - click intelligent network management
Users simply need to input an IP range, and SugarNMS will automatically complete the following operations in one go: automatically discover network switches using multiple physical link algorithms, identify device manufacturers and models, detect device resources, discover links, generate device panel diagrams, automatically run monitoring tasks, automatically collect link traffic, and automatically present the monitoring results to the user. It truly achieves one-click operation for easy management of the entire network.
4.2 . Rich link discovery functions
SugarNMS supports physical topology discovery technologies such as LLDP, CDP, ICMP, ARP, neighbor routing, port forwarding tables, and spanning tree protocol. It discovers physical links of devices, identifies backup links and link congestion points, and automatically draws industrial ring networks. It intelligently analyzes the network topology and automatically draws a true physical topology map of the entire network.
4.3 . High-efficiency, concurrent, second-level monitoring
Industrial switches operate in harsh environments with stringent performance requirements. SugarNMS's leading second-level monitoring capabilities and multi-threaded task concurrency technology elevate the monitoring frequency to the second level, ensuring the real-time nature and accuracy of the monitoring data. The monitoring frequency can be set as low as 5 seconds, providing technical support for efficient real-time monitoring of key equipment indicators.
4.4 . Rock-solid stability
Network environment fault tolerance: After a network failure between the client and the server is recovered, the network management client does not need to be restarted and will automatically recover.
Database fault tolerance: After the database is shut down/recovers from a fault, the network management system client and server do not need to be restarted and will automatically recover.
Supports dual-machine hot standby: Use two servers to back up each other and run the same service together.
4.5 . Supports proprietary device types
For new or unknown device types, users can support these devices without developing any programming knowledge. They can simply use the system's provided GUI strategy extension interface. The system offers: device type, panel diagram module, device resources, fault monitoring indicators, performance monitoring indicators, and TRAP strategy extension strategies.
5. Introduction to SugarNMS Smart Network Management Platform
SugarNMS is an intelligent network management platform independently designed and developed by Beijing Zhihe Xintong Technology Co., Ltd. Combining the characteristics of industrial switch networks and devices, the software integrates unique functions such as automatic industrial ring network discovery, backup link identification, congestion point identification, device configuration file backup, and device software upgrades, in addition to the functions of general network management software. This maximizes the satisfaction of industrial switch equipment manufacturers' network software needs.
The SugarNMS network management platform software has the following functions:
Automatically discover the link relationships between core, aggregation, and access layer switches and devices;
Automatically scans and discovers all network switches, identifies manufacturers, models, and network port diagrams;
Automatically scans industrial ring networks, identifying backup links and congestion points;
Automatically matches device panel diagrams, enabling device management based on graphical panels;
Manage device port, bandwidth, throughput, traffic, packet loss rate, error packets, and operating status;
Graphical monitoring of network link faults, traffic, and network data;
Collect traffic, bandwidth, and throughput performance data graphically;
Manage device MAC addresses, interfaces, port tables, VLANs, QoS, forwarding tables, ARP, broadcast data, IP addresses, etc.
Faults, statuses, and messages are distributed via email, SMS, status lights, and interface prompts.
Gain a thorough understanding of the equipment's internal configuration information, operational information, performance charts, fault charts, and more.
