NeuralStar delivers for the INMS
Managing the backbone of the world’s largest communications provider

The Guinness Book of World Records doesn't track the size of communications networks, but if it did, “the GIG” would have to be the front runner. The GIG (short for Global Information Grid) is the IT and telecom infrastructure for all U.S. defense operations. Its backbone network, the DISN, which is managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), incorporates 14 global secured and unsecured networks and related services, more than 100,000 elements from diverse manufacturers, and dozens of management points spread throughout the world.

Since 1999, DISA has used NeuralStar as the primary software component of its Integrated Network Management System (INMS), used to administer the DISN. Through NeuralStar and INMS, network circuits comprising the Global Information Grid (GIG) are deployed to military services, agencies, branches and joint task forces around the world.

The ConOps for INMS is to provide visualization, situational awareness and performance management across all of its global network including four Theatre Network Control Centers (TNC). Pinpointing and resolving individual problems and potential problems in a network of this size and complexity is vital to operations, and it can amount to the digital equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. The availability of even the most robust global network can sometimes depend upon the functioning of a single device in the most remote location.

To achieve its goals DISA needed a solution that could be distributed throughout the regional operations centers, providing each with the ability to manage at both the local and global levels. They also needed an almost unlimited number of ways to view network data, including a wide range of graphical forms to represent everything from high-level business views to operational conditions in the most isolated conditions.

With every circuit mapped, monitored and accounted for by NeuralStar, and with the power and flexibility of NeuralStar’s high-visibility interface, data comes in the form network staff need to handle immediate problems and head-off failures before they occur.

For INMS, NeuralStar delivers:

• Real-time availability management across thousands of devices, including applications as diverse as satellite, cryptography and security devices.
  
• The ability to cut through irrelevant information to focus on maintaining essential, circuit-based connectivity that can mean the difference between mission success or failure.
  
• Integrated and consolidated operational views within several regional and one global network operations center, allowing comparisons of multiple business views of network information.
  
• Customized visualization formats, including 3D graphics, maps, topologies with hyperlinked drill-downs, DopplerVUE® performance maps, and realtime, customizable Alert Charts and Performance Gauges.
  
• Integrated problem management with Remedy, as well as integration with other element management and network management systems.