About NeuralStar Technology

NeuralStar is based on a new approach to network management called Integrated Event Resolution, a major advancement in the ability to respond to the unique challenges of converged networks and net-centered applications.

Beyond that is another significant weakness in traditional products. Even when a problem is detected within its limited field of vision, it has only one possible response, to send an alert of one type or another to a human operator. This limited "monitor-and-alert” model ultimately fails to meet the demands of converged and complex networks, especially those that run net-centric applications like VoIP or videoconferencing.

NeuralEvents: Normalizing Network Activity

NeuralEvents™ is a technology pioneered by Ai Metrix through extensive development of converged network solutions in telecom, enterprise and military environments.

Where other products simply transform the information they collect into alerts, NeuralEvents form a unique package of management information that is much more complete. A NeuralEvent has three parts:

1. Monitored Data about a specific network event. The data can be about any network element—device, port, application, service, etc.—and for any management discipline—Fault, Performance, Security, QoS Policy Violation or SLA Violation event. NS Drivers collect this data and pass it to NeuralStar’s Abstraction Engine, a kind of “universal translator” that normalizes the different languages and vocabularies used by disparate circuit-based and packet–based network systems.

2. Business Context can include virtually any kind of information that helps managers take better-informed actions in response to an event. Stored in NeuralStar’s relational database, this information can include anything from historical reporting, device customized specs, inventory information, circuit routing or almost anything else. It is particularly powerful for incorporating business and mission policies such as clearing priorities, alarm escalation and trouble management initiation. By including this kind of information directly within the event, managers have a much clearer picture of its implications.

3. Workflows are the user-defined instructions for how NeuralStar should respond to an event automatically. It can be as simple as sending an alert to one or more administrators, or the response can also take advantage of NeuralStar’s bi-directional communications capabilities to issue management commands directly to devices, such as changing an access list, rebooting a device or changing a port configuration.

Each facet of a NeuralEvent—Monitored Data, Business Context and Workflow—is completely customizable by your network engineers down to the most granular levels. As a result, you can craft highly targeted responses to subtly different network conditions. In fact, you can even define a “non-event” as a NeuralEvent. For example, to assist with systems checking, you could specify that any device that has generated no alerts for 30 minutes should be proactively scanned for standing alerts.

Unique NeuralStar technology features include:

• Monitors all types of network events that may have implications for Availability, Performance, Security or Service, including QoS and SLA Policy Violations displayed in a single interface.
  
• Raw event data is supplemented with business context information stored in NeuralStar’s relational database. Context can include anything from business process info to service level definitions, mission guidelines, historical reporting, device customization records, inventory or circuit routing.
  
• Collects extended, customized and user-defined data that goes beyond the “off the shelf” metrics.
  
• Granular control over event definitions and filtering makes it easy to screen and threshold irrelevant events before they create unwanted alerts.
  
• More complete information means NeuralStar events can be resolved more quickly, easily and with more targeted effects.
  
• Eliminates the need for redundant tools or duplicate management infrastructures since it can serve as a single consolidated platform across all network components and management disciplines.
  
• Show consolidated views of multiple networks, including integrated operational views of shared network hardware, services (email and Web servers) and network-centered technologies, such as VoIP or IM.

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