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We have evaluated our existing system against the Argus system and completed an internal Gap Analysis. From this we have some questions for the Argus development team on whether specific feature requests are feasible. These are the minimum requirements and non-negotiables as required by the consumers of the system. These features will probably require more discussion to be properly understood alongside a demo of the existing product.
Feature/Functionality | Gap Identified | Feedback/Comments |
Alarm Lifecycle | Our alarm states are more complex. We have at least 5 states of which 4 are represented by the GUI. For example, by means of flashing or different fonts. |
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Multiple stages of Ack | We have first- and second-line support and their acknowledgements are represented in the GUI. Both with checkboxes and with modified colors in the row. |
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Correlation | The initial info for a particular alarm will change over time (during the Alarm Lifecycle), or it may be removed quickly. For example, multiple alarms that are immediately reported could be “squashed” into a single alarm after a few seconds. |
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Coalescing | Multiple instances of an identical alarm need to be “merged” in the gui. But with an indication that this has happened, and how often. |
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Backend health status UI | The gui must contain a panel, or some other indication, of the results of various real-time health checks on backend systems. |
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Priority | Severity and priority are different things. We have a priority numbering and it is utilised by 1st and 2nd line support. |
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History + Search | We need to keep all alarms that have ever happened, and their internal components (for example, individual BGP peerings or link states), to provide reporting for other services on availability and utilisation of service. |
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Alarm logical post-processing rules | The OC can specify logical rules and change the characteristics of alarms. For example, if an alarm description contains particular keywords, or is related to a particular location, then the gui severity can be automatically changed, comments added, or perhaps hidden. It should be possible to apply this logic as new alarms enter some particular state, or to apply the logic to the existing database of old alarms. |
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Filtering | Complex filtering. Filter groups AND / NOT |
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Alarm internal details | Our OC requires that the internal components of an alarm are easily-browsable from the gui. For example: if an optical cut causes multiple L2 and L3 circuit failures, OC must be able to “open” these details (e.g. hostnames, ports, event start/end times, multiple flaps of the same, etc.) by clicking on the alarm in the top-level alarm row. |
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Please provide feedback on the above technical requirements and if it would be reasonable to include these features in your development plan in the near future.
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