GigaVUE‑FM Features and Benefits

The GigaVUE‑FM is a web-based management interface that provides unified access, centralized administration, and high-level visibility for all GigaVUE traffic visibility nodes in the enterprise or data center, allowing a global perspective which is not possible from individual nodes.

The following table summarizes the major benefits of GigaVUE‑FM:

Table 1: Features and Benefits of GigaVUE‑FM

Benefit

Descriptions

Centralized Management and Control

Provides centralized management, monitoring, and configuration of the physical and virtual traffic policies for the Visibility Fabric, allowing administrators to map and direct network traffic to the tools and analytics infrastructure.

Programmable APIs for Software Defined Visibility

REST APIs that can be used by the traffic monitoring or IT operations management tools to perform various tasks, such as

● Improve security through better network detection, reaction, and response by automating NetFlow generation and SSL decryption so that current security appliances are not overtaxed when performing deep packet inspection.
● Program the Visibility Fabric flow maps when security threats are detected.
● Discover the Visibility Fabric nodes for inventory and status collection.
● Performing common tasks, such as provisioning and ticketing of network port configurations.
● Programmatically create, update, or delete port properties, including port-type, admin state, speed, and others.
● Programmatically create, update, or delete traffic maps and GigaSMART operations.

Note:  GigaVUE‑FM can handle only 150 concurrent (write - POST/PUT/PATCH/DELETE) API requests at any given time.

Fabric-wide reporting

Summarized and customizable dashboards for inventory, node or cluster status, events, audit trail, and Top-N/Bottom-N port/map usage with options to export and schedule HTML or PDF reports for off-line viewing.

Advanced Monitoring

Proactively monitor and troubleshoot hot spots in your Visibility Fabric:

● Top-N, Bottom-N Network/Tool Port and Map usage widgets in the dashboard
● Global search across the Visibility Fabric for quick access to monitoring hot spots
● Audit trail of user operations for enterprise security compliance
● Historical trend analysis (1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month) for port and traffic policies
● Quick Views for easy access to Visibility Fabric details (node, port, traffic policies)

Scheduling capabilities

Initiates version updates to one or many fabric nodes to streamline software rollouts in an automated fashion.

Backup and Restore Capabilities

Supports configuration backup and restore across multiple visibility nodes to quickly back-out changes if required due to errors or change control requirements.

Note:  Restoration of backed up configuration fails in G-Series. Alternatively you can download the file from GigaVUE‑FM and use the GigVUE-OS-CLI to restore the configuration.

Improved Operational Efficiencies

Minimizes resources required to configure, manage, and monitor multiple visibility nodes:

● Create/Update/Delete port properties including port-type, admin state, speed, and others
● Create/Update/Delete traffic maps and GigaSMART operations

Near-Real Time Config Status

Provides Near-Real Time (NRT) status of the following:

● Configuration changes performed using GigaVUE‑FM APIs: Immediately reflected in the GigaVUE‑FM GUI.
● State changes occurring in the device (for example, oper up/down changes happening in the device): Immediately reflected in the GigaVUE‑FM GUI.
● Configuration changes made in the devices (for example, attributes such as 'alias' changed by the user in the device through CLI or API): Get reflected in GigaVUE‑FM only after the next config sync cycle, which could be few minutes.
Note
■  You must enable SNMP traps in GigaVUE‑FM for the NRT status updates to get reflected. However, SNMP traps are enabled by default in GigaVUE‑FM. Refer to the "SNMP Traps" section in the GigaVUE Administration Guide for more details.
■  To avoid flooding of alarms, devices implement SNMP throttling. Refer to the "SNMP Throttling" section in the GigaVUE Administration Guide.

Scalability

Provides a reliable and stable environment for managing a large number of physical devices without any impact to the performance.

● Vertical Scale: Allows GigaVUE-FM to manage approximately 1000 Nodes.
● Horizontal Scale: Allows GigaVUE-FM to manage approximately 3000 Nodes. Horizontal scale support is applicable only in GigaVUE-FM High Availability mode. Horizontal scale support involves service distribution to the standby nodes.