.. Introduction to SANET.
Main features, goals, history and motivations
============
Introduction
============
Security Architecture NETwork (SANET) is a Network Management System
oriented to networking support and 24/7/365 availability.
SANET is a web application and its main features are:
+ Total control on each parameter for monitoring targets and tolerance limits before sending alerts
+ Interactive network topology maps configured by links and objects position
+ Network elements categorization by arbitrary views
+ Graphical representation of timeline values retrieved on various time scales
+ Command Line Interface for system configuration
+ XML-RPC to get network monitoring results and integrate them in external applications
SANET is designed for two different and coexisting kinds of user:
+ End user: is the very final user who just needs to see the networking status (what's going wrong ?)
+ Network operator: is a netwok administrator who knows **what** has to be configured in the network management system for the specific network
SANET has been developed by `Laboratori Guglielmo Marconi S.p.A.
`__ (that can be contact at: `nad@labs.it `__).
who published it with
AGPLv3 license in order to make the code available to the whole Open Source
community.
Goals
-----
+ Extreme configurability of networking target parameters and tolerance limits for alerts
+ Easy web interface to let the end-user get a fast overview of network status and interact with the networking operator
It is important to stress out that the SANET web interface is meant as a tool to easily view the state of the network, not as
a configuration tool, hence while specific configuration tools will be provided, configurability through the web interface is not among the main goals meant to be achieved.
Main features
-------------
Compared to other NMS systems, SANET has some distinctive features:
+ Charts: both actual status' charts, timespan charts, and aggregated data charts (per resource or per container) are present.
+ Reports: it is possible to define reports aggregating and visualizing statistical data across customizable time slices and set of resources.
+ Logical grouping: nodes can be grouped into containers, defining a forest-like structure.
.. + Auto Discovery: Coming soon
+ Agent: SANET checks are based on SNMP and simple basic network operations (i.e. ping), hence no specific agent is needed.
+ SNMP: Most of the checks are performed through SNMP. Libraries for the main vendors MIBs are also provided.
+ Syslog support
+ External scripts: can be used to defined checks, or to reacto to failed checks
+ Plugins: It it possible to define new checks (and customize the ones present in library)
+ Triggers / Alerts: it is possible to parametrize library checks or to define new checks, each of which has an associated (and customizable) alert message (that might be sent vi email or SMS)
+ WebApp: SANET provides a web interface for visaulization purposes (while configuration is performed through command line interface)
.. + Distributed monitoring: NO
.. + Inventory: NO
+ Data Storage Method: RRDTool + PostgreSQL
+ License: `AGPL3 `__
+ Maps: SANET provides automatically generated browsable and customizable network maps showing network topology and the present resources' state
+ Authentication: With user accounts defined in the configuration, or via LDAP, RADIUS, etc.
+ Authorization: User groups can be given r/w, r/o or no access to sets of nodes
+ Written in: Python (Django), Network maps component written in Adobe Flex Action script.
+ User Tracking: Web interface navigation is stateful hence most visualization settings are tracked.