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Rapid prototyping and development tool for building SNMP agents, TL1 agents, and CLI agents in ANSI C.

Overview

WebNMS Agent Toolkit C Edition is a rapid application development platform to generate standalone TL1 agents. It offers end-to-end development solutions to compile, test, and develop TL1 agents. TL1 agent developers can increase productivity with easy-to-use GUIs for configurations, such as setting privileges for users, channel security, resource level security, etc. WebNMS Agent Toolkit C Edition offers the complete development experience in building TL1 agents conforming to GR standards (GR 199, GR 815, GR 831, and TR 835).

WebNMS Agent Toolkit C Edition’s generated source files are ported and tested in leading operating systems, such as Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, and NT, Solaris, Linux, Unix, Free BSD, Net BSD, HP-Unix, and OS-2. The developed TL1 agents are fully supported in embedded operating systems, such as VxWorks, QNX Nutrino, Windows CE, and OSE. Agent source files can also be easily ported to other new operating systems.

Key Features

• TL1 agent conforms to Bellcore GR 831, 815, and TR 835 standards. Also provisioning messages from GR199 have been implemented.
• Built-in commands that can help you control the TL1 agent with much ease.
• Autonomous messages generation, loading multiple TCS files, and selected nodes’ code generation of commands.
• Communication through Craft Terminal Interface, Telnet Interface, Serial Port / RS 232 Port Interface, or TCP/IP Interface.
• Command line features, such as Command Line Editing, Command History, and Command Completion.
• Session API support to plug-in any transport protocol.
• Self-monitoring to monitor agent details, such as the number of requests received, number of responses and autonomous messages sent, etc.
• Gateway NE feature, which routes the input message from a manager to the NE connected to it and which is intended to receive the input message.
• Asynchronous Message Processing for clients to send multiple requests simultaneously without having to wait for the previous message to get processed.
• TL1 Message Document generation for the loaded TCS files in Agent Compiler.
• IPv6 addressing support in addition to IPv4.

Developer Benefits

• End-to-End tools enable complete agent development cycle to reduce time-to-market.
• Intuitive visual TL1 Message Builder to create and edit TCS and Data Set files.
• TL1 Compiler (Agent Compiler) to generate and compile the code to build an agent.
  
• Incremental agent development support through the concept of project workspace.
• Complete testing of developed TL1 agent using TL1CraftInterface.
• Value added services like persistence and logging.

TL1 Agent Developer Experience

WebNMS Agent Toolkit C Edition offers a productive six-step agent development experience for standalone TL1 agents.

1. Define / Edit TCS: TL1 Message Builder offers user-friendly GUIs to define and edit TCSs, design the command syntax and data types conforming to GR standards. It also allows defining the data set for the defined TCS. The TCS file will be stored in XML format.
2. Generate Source Code: The defined TCSs can be loaded into the Agent Compiler to generate code that offers the basic TL1 agent framework.
3. Add Desired Instrumentation: Once the basic framework is ready, developers can add their necessary instrumentation to meet their specific requirements.
4. Compiling the Generated Source: The generated TL1 agent framework and specific instrumentation code needs to be compiled to generate the TL1 agent with desired functionality.
5. Test the Developed TL1 Agent: The developed agent needs to be queried and tested using TL1CraftInterface.
6. Package and Deploy: The developed TL1 agent is ready to be packaged and deployed in the target environment.

TL1 Agent Runtime Architecture

WebNMS TL1 agent runtime architecture is standards based and open architecture offering you advantage of standard communication for integration. The architecture components and functions are explained below:

Standalone TL1 Agent Components

• Session: This is responsible for establishing contact between the client and the server and for listening to client requests. The Session Module comprises the components, such as Session (establishes connection), Transport Provider (communicates between agent and manager), Craft Interface (receives input messages), and TCP/IP Interface (manages the agent remotely).
• TL1 Engine: This is the core of TL1 agent. It receives the input message, parses it, identifies the listener (generated command code stub file), forms the output message, formats the same, and sends it to the OSS. It consists of the components, such as Message Processing, Agent Provisioning and Monitoring, and Security.
• Command Code Registry: This registry maintains the reference of all the generated command code listeners with respect to their command code/verb/modifiers as key. The TL1 Adapter will manage this registry when any input message reaches it. The appropriate listeners will process the incoming TL1 input messages.
• Command Code Instrumentation: The instrumentation files are the generated stub files for a given TCS file. User or application/device-specific instrumentation can be done on these files.
  

Supported TL1 Standards

Standard	Description
GR 199	Provisioning Messages
GR 815	Generic security features required of a total NE/NS environment.
GR 831	Defines the syntax for the TL1 Messages.
TR 835	Describes Bellcore's view of message structures and data elements for Network Element and Network System Security Administration (NESSA) functions that are related to the generic requirements for Network Element (NE)/Network System (NS) security described in GR 815.

System Requirements

System Requirements
Hardware Requirements
Processor Speed	256 MHz or higher
Memory	128 MB RAM or higher
Hard Drive Space	100 MB
Software Requirements
Supported Platforms	Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP, Linux, Solaris or any OS that provides JVM support.
Java Version	1.4.0 & above.
C/C++ Compiler	Microsoft Visual C++ 4.0 onwards or Borland C++ 4.0 onwards for Windows. GNU C / C++ compiler (any version) for UNIX platform.

Runtime Agent Specifications
Ported OS/RTOS	Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, and NT, Solaris, Linux, Unix, Free BSD, Net BSD, HP-Unix, OS-2, VxWorks, QNX Nutrino, Windows CE, and OSE
Footprint	110 KB. TL1 agent with security disabled, single thread enabled, and TCP/IP interface support, developed in Linux 9.0, without the TCS, debug, and warning information, and other optimization options enabled.

About WebNMS
Enabling Management Your Way™

WebNMS provides affordable software for management and provisioning of complex networks, systems, and IT applications. With a broad product portfolio and an active customer base ranging from enterprises, equipment vendors, and service providers, WebNMS has emerged as a very affordable and high-quality alternative to expensive software that is common in this industry.

WebNMS is headquartered in Pleasanton, CA with offices in NJ, NH, India, UK, China and Japan. It has a well-trained partner base around the globe and thousands of customers world-wide.