MaxView Network Management System

The MaxView Network Management System is one of the most trusted solutions for monitor, control and management of media network devices, elements and applications. Used by many of the world’s leading broadcasters, satellite carriers and government agencies, MaxView is being used to usher in a new class of media networks.

Media networks are now becoming part of the fabric of everyday life as wireless and satellite carriers, broadcasters and over-the-air IP media providers rush to make media on "any device, anywhere" a reality. To provide compelling content in any format (such as standard definition, H.264 and HD), over any network transmission (such as satellite, wireless, over-the-air, and IP over broadband), broadcasters and carriers use a large and complex mix of different tremendous amount of equipment, network elements and technologies. Because of the limited capabilities of traditional network management systems, that complexity is growing to a virtually unmanageable state due to numerous technology silos being created in these media networks.

Similar to the problems faced by commercial enterprises in the early 90's prior to data warehousing, and more recently wireless IP data services prior to data service architectures and SOAs, a totally different network management approach must be created because disparate manufacturers' monitor and control solutions are becoming an inhibitor to growth.

The question is: Can media carrier networks scale with new business models and become a catalyst for growth by allowing carriers to fully leverage the assets of their network?

MaxView is a mature system comprised of several integrated modules that provide a wide array of capabilities. Because of its modular architecture, it is used in a wide range of network footprints including the management of single stacks of network elements, a manager of other management systems or as a remote control system for distributed equipment sites - among countless other variations.

Since its inception in 1996, MaxView’s underlying architecture has evolved to meet the growing needs of media carrier networks. Originally used to remotely monitor satellite earth stations, MaxView has stayed current with the needs of major carriers as the amount of equipment has exploded and the requirements of services have increased. Today, MaxView is in its fifth major release and provides our customers worldwide the ability to become managers of services as opposed to managers of equipment.

The concept of “Service Management” is based upon the premise that software can bend the functionality of many different network elements and devices to work together - in transparent concert - as an integrated service. Historically in the IT world this has been accomplished with expensive and complex middleware and software development. In contrast, MaxView makes the creation of a service management architecture layer within the network a straight-forward and economical process. Now operations staff can use MaxView to automate core functions such as “Site Diversity,” “Compression” and “Circuit Provisioning.” Each service integrates MaxView capabilities such as network automation and alarm correlation with equipment, elements and/or software from many different manufacturers to form a service-level application that hides the complexity, incompatibilities and functional deficiencies of the source network elements. What makes this possible is MaxView’s core architecture.

MaxView is pioneering the emergence of highly scalable, extendable network operating environments that meet the requirements of new business models. Within the core lie both fundamental and service capabilities. Through its vast library of drivers, application protocol interfaces and driver development capability, MaxView can interface to any type of device or application. Once connected through a variety of available interfaces, MaxView supports any read or write query supported by the device or application through the communication layer of the architecture. MaxView monitors the health of the network element in real-time or whatever scheduled frequency is appropriate.

Data from the network elements is made immediately available to applications such as monitor and control workstations and service applications. Additionally, network data is persisted to a database for use by back-office applications and reporting. This is the data services layer of the MaxView core architecture.

MaxView provides application data support through a protocol interface layer within the architecture. The protocol interface brokers network element data in real-time, or near real-time, as well as query support for archived data.

Finally, the presentation layer of the MaxView architecture supports multiple types of user groups and service applications. The presentation layer includes powerful tools to build custom graphical user interfaces (GUI’s), network automation and alarm correlation. The toolkit is called the MaxView Service Creation Framework.