User guide

CHAPTER
11-1
Cisco Media Gateway Manager 5.0 User Guide
OL-5461-02
11
Managing Inventory
This chapter describes inventory management, and how to use Cisco MGM to provide the required
information. This chapter contains the following sections:
• 11.1 What is Inventory Management?
Cisco MGM provides two levels of inventory reports:
• A complete list of all the NEs that belong to a specific group or to the entire domain (see
11.2 Domain NE Tables.)
• A detailed list of cards and modules installed on the NEs (see 11.3 Equipment Inventory Tables.)
11.1 What is Inventory Management?
Managing inventory involves maintaining a record of all of the NE resources installed in the network to
support the provisioning of services. It should include collecting information about locations, quantities
of equipment, model numbers, serial numbers, versions, installation dates and so on.
Inventory management is one of the fundamental network management functions. When forecasting
service growth or even attempting to provision a new service, it is necessary to know the current network
inventory. Can the existing inventory support the forecast growth or new service request, or must
additional equipment be ordered and installed onsite? Can your hardware support a new software
release? You will need to check the type and revision of hardware to determine the answer. Has a recall
been issued by the vendor for a certain hardware revision of a board? Are you affected? You will need
to check the inventory again.
Cisco MGM allows you to add NEs, and it discovers the details about the NE itself and the physical
inventory. Cisco MGM remains automatically synchronized with changes relating to inventory that may
occur in the network. All inventory information is stored in the Cisco MGM (Oracle) database and is
available at any time from the Cisco MGM database.
Inventory management includes the discovery of the NEs from the Element Management System (EMS),
and ongoing synchronization with the NEs. It also includes the ability to provide the inventory to a
higher level network management system (NMS) through a northbound interface.
Cisco MGM can quickly capture, display, and store an inventory of the NEs on your network. It allows
you to view information about the NEs, installed software, and software licenses. Cisco MGM also
allows you to edit the inventory information for the NEs on your network.
You can add Not Managed/Other Vendor NEs in the Domain Explorer through the Add New NE wizard,
and the NE is then represented in the Network Map.