Bay Networks has a strategy for delivering policy-based networking that supports the company`s market-leading Optivity network management system. It provides customers with a complete solution for provisioning, enforcing and verifying policies within multivendor enterprise networks.
Policies enable application-optimised networking and dynamically allocate resources to users, groups and applications -- based on the status of the network and on an administratively defined set of rules which deliver QoS (Quality of Service) and security features across the Bay product line.
As a key component of the Optivity network management system, Optivity Policy Services combines the powerful capabilities of NetID with Optivity`s superior multi-layer discovery, topology, device management, end-to-end service-level monitoring and Bay`s complete solution of application intelligent devices.
NetID and Optivity Enterprise lend two critical requirements to Optivity Policy Services. IP address management brings the dynamic IP address-to-user binding required to build and provision policies, and network management provides the topology awareness and service-level monitoring necessary to configure and gauge the performance of mission-critical applications.
"Bay has a long tradition of providing integrated and simplified network management solutions. Optivity Policy Services builds on that strong foundation to deliver the next major evolution of network management - the administration of policies in multivendor networks," said Bay channel and marketing manager
The endless battle against network congestion and the need to enhance the performance of mission-critical applications are making policy services a business requirement. WAN links that are already bandwidth constrained are now being forced to scale to support more mobile users, extranet users and an ever-increasing amount of multimedia traffic. The result is uncontrolled use of bandwidth, network delay, packet loss and, ultimately, poor performance of mission-critical applications.
Bay`s policy strategy is based on the underlying belief that, ultimately, application performance is the most critical contributor to the return on network investments. By setting priority for certain applications such as SAP, organizations can ensure the performance of these applications by classifying traffic according to their business priorities.
From a Web-based user interface, administrators will configure policies based on users and applications. This policy information will be stored in a Directory Enabled Networking (DEN)-compliant schema within any LDAPv3 directory.
The Optivity Policy Server will pull policy information from the directory and dynamically configure QoS and security on network devices. All Bay products will support IETF standards-based QoS mechanisms, Differentiated Services (Diffserv) and Integrated Services (Intserv).
Policies are provisioned on network devices in a multi-vendor environment via Simple Network Management (SNMP), Common Open Policy Service (COPS) or a Command Line Interface (CLI). Unlike other vendor`s proprietary solutions, Bay`s Optivity Policy Services allows customers to selectively integrate policy, directory, and address management services within a common network management umbrella.
Optivity Policy Services comprises the following products:
1. Provisioning:
Optivity Policy User Interface - Web-based user interface that extends the NetID address management solution to allow administrators configure application/user policies
- OptivityNetwork Configuration System - deploys policy information by configuring application-intelligent devices with differentiated rules for access, security and service in multi-vendor networks
- NetID - Provides IP address-to-user binding Enforcement
- Optivity Policy Server - Validates requests for access or service levels against policy information stored in directory, it pulls policy information from the directory and dynamically configures QoS and security on network devices
- Application-Intelligent Infrastructure - Network devices receive policies via SNMP, COPS or CLI and enforce QoS and access
2. Verification
- Optivity Service Level Management*- Monitors application performance and service levels, from the user perspective, for compliance with policy rules and reports exceptionsBay`s Optivity product family provides the industry`s leading solution for management of network systems, network devices, and network traffic. The applications suite provides visibility to the changing nature of the physical network as well as the dynamic usage patterns and the applications transiting these networks.
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