MDS PulseNET
Network Management Software
Monitoring and managing the health of your network is a critical consideration when designing, purchasing, and deploying equipment for your communications system. Equally important is ensuring that you maximize your network’s return on investment by increasing system throughput and uptime, improving the utilization of networked devices, and finally, supporting the deployment of maintenance resources when problems surface.
MDS PulseNET™ Network Management Software was designed specifically for MDS Industrial Radio communication systems and satisfies the real-time needs of customers who are responsible for managing them. MDS PulseNET software is unique, as it requires no customization to get started – offering true, out-of-the box functionality.
With PulsePAK add-on, support for specific third party devices allows you to discover, monitor, and take action on your multi-vendor network. MDS PulseNET Enterprise is integrated with MDS LaunchNET™ provisioning tool to provide a seamless zero or one-touch experience.
Key Benefits – Return on Network Investment
- Driving Resource Efficiency
Notify and deploy maintenance resources with the intelligent data required to quickly resolve equipment and radio issues - Improving Network Performance
Access historical network and equipment performance trends to optimize availability through predictive maintenance - Leveraging MDS Expertise
Purpose-built and pre-loaded with recommended performance thresholds, eliminating guesswork - Single “Pane of Glass” for managing MDS and third party devices
Support for SNMP (MIB-II) compliant devices and a growing list of external vendor device support of monitoring and management - Low Cost of Ownership
Per device licensing with no additional server licenses required
MDS PulseNET
Network Management Software
Monitoring and managing the health of your network is a critical consideration when designing, purchasing, and deploying equipment for your communications system. Equally important is ensuring that you maximize your network’s return on investment by increasing system throughput and uptime, improving the utilization of networked devices, and finally, supporting the deployment of maintenance resources when problems surface.
MDS PulseNET™ Network Management Software was designed specifically for MDS Industrial Radio communication systems and satisfies the real-time needs of customers who are responsible for managing them. MDS PulseNET software is unique, as it requires no customization to get started – offering true, out-of-the box functionality.
With PulsePAK add-on, support for specific third party devices allows you to discover, monitor, and take action on your multi-vendor network. MDS PulseNET Enterprise is integrated with MDS LaunchNET™ provisioning tool to provide a seamless zero or one-touch experience.
Key Benefits – Return on Network Investment
- Driving Resource Efficiency
Notify and deploy maintenance resources with the intelligent data required to quickly resolve equipment and radio issues - Improving Network Performance
Access historical network and equipment performance trends to optimize availability through predictive maintenance - Leveraging MDS Expertise
Purpose-built and pre-loaded with recommended performance thresholds, eliminating guesswork - Single “Pane of Glass” for managing MDS and third party devices
Support for SNMP (MIB-II) compliant devices and a growing list of external vendor device support of monitoring and management - Low Cost of Ownership
Per device licensing with no additional server licenses required
Purpose Built for Industrial Communications
With over two million devices installed around the world and 30+ years of experience, GE is aware of the challenges our customers face when it comes to effectively managing their communication networks. MDS PulseNET software provides the insight and detailed system performance allowing you to intelligently and proactively manage your radio communications network.
Optimized for MDS Communication Products
MDS PulseNET is designed specifically for MDS devices and can also support a host of other devices.
- Out-of-the-box functionally for MDS devices
- Pre-loaded device performance rules and thresholds eliminate customer guesswork
- Application redundancy and Geo-redundancy through HA (high availability) configuration support
High Availability
MDS pulseNET Enterprise allows for high availability configuration which can reduce downtime to provide 24X7X365 access. The software may be installed in multiple hardware configurations that provide flexibility and redundancy.
Additional features include:
- Management by exception
- Pre-built, intuitive workflows
- User-configurable navigation
- Multiple pre-defined report options
- SQL or Oracle “Complimentary”
- Database for third party application integrations
Robust Monitoring of Important Performance Parameter
The software is designed to monitor the critical elements of a communications network. The software helps prioritize corrective actions for vast amounts of raw data that is created and stored over time. It can also trigger specific actions based on warning thresholds, such as sending messages to trouble ticketing systems or other management systems. Additionally, these event-triggering thresholds can be easily changed within the software to meet unique customer requirements. Historical performance data is available for several parameters including:
- Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI)
- Signal Noise Ratio (SNR)
- Error rate
- Data throughput
- Round-trip delay time
- Transmitter power
- Changes in modulation scheme
- GPS satellite connectivity and coordinate tracking
MDS PulseNET provides easy to review radio device performance screens showing the critical radio parameters such as: RSSI, SNR BER, Throughput, and Availability.
Easy Installation & Rapid Deployment
MDS PulseNET software requires minimal effort to install and operate, provides pre-built specific device warning thresholds to eliminate the guesswork, and provides visibility into radio communications that have historically been unmanaged.
- Intuitive installation and administrative set-up
- Automatic device discovery
- Out-of-box, pre-defined and manageable number of alerts
- Integrated with MDS LaunchNET™ supporting user selection of “one-touch” and “zero-touch” device provisioning
- Optimized for Virtual and Cloud based servers
MDS PulseNET software provides multiple, concurrent, role-based logins through a web interface so that each user is able to see exactly what they need to fulfill their individual responsibilities. MDS PulseNET also provides the operator with immediate access to performance trending graphs through the same simple navigation scheme. It normalizes the views for disparate technologies into simplistic and easy-to-use dashboards. The main dashboard provides a high level status of each set of functional components being monitored.
Once your system is properly configured, it can automatically discover your network devices, assign licenses to the devices and begin monitoring the network. When used with MDS LaunchNET provisioning tool, new provisioned devices may be automatically added into PulseNET Enterprise for a complete and seamless network management solution.
The following GE MDS devices can be monitored by MDS PulseNET (minimum firmware version in parentheses):
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PulsePAK add-on supports a number of third-party devices, allowing you to discover, monitor, and take action on your multi-vendor network.
With PulsePAK installed you can:
- Discover, authorize, and monitor 3rd Party devices beyond SNMP MIB-II configuration and performance
- Enable or disable rules, notifications, and configure custom thresholds for several severity levels
- Auto schedule collection of radio performance and configuration data, and view data trends over time
- View, track, and act on any alerts generated
| System | Standard | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
Web-based platform for easy user access l Windows & Linux installations supported | • | • |
Single graphical user interface installation program | • | • |
Downloadable software and updates | • | • |
Automated discovery of IP based devices | • | • |
Automated network topology maps | • | • |
Purpose-built workflows for mission-critical networks | • | • |
Supports SNMP versions 1, 2c and 3 | • | • |
Integrated database supplied with installation | • | • |
Predefined best practices management for MDS devices | • | • |
Data Collection - Scalable to thousands of nodes via multiple systems/ distributed polling | Up to 500 devices | • |
Monitoring and management of third party devices 1 |
| • |
Support for third-party SNMP MIB-11 compliant devices |
| • |
High-availability server installation capable |
| • |
GPS aware mapping - automatic or manually located on GPS aware maps |
| • |
LAN Monitoring - basic fault/performance monitoring of network devices |
| • |
Custom rules, dashboards, and collections capable |
| • |
Fault | Standard | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
Real-time color coded textual alarms and status icons | • | • |
Device availability reports | • | • |
Alarm filtering and notification | • | • |
Syslog server | • | • |
Built-in RF health alerting for industrial wireless networks | • | • |
Root cause correlation based on network dependencies | • | • |
Fault Management | Standard | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
Alert integration with third-party network management software |
| • |
Notifications to 3rd-party manager of managers via SNMP trap forwarding |
| • |
Fully integrated graphical interface for SNMP trap receiving2 |
| • |
| Configuration | Standard | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
Configuration Push to multiple devices immediately & scheduled (Orbit, SD, other non-GE via PulsePAKs) |
| • |
| Scheduled configuration collections separate from performance polling- Extremely important in low bandwidth remotes | • | • |
Provisioning of selected configuration parameters (on demand & scheduled) |
| • |
Firmware push (Orbit, SD, Mercury, iNET·I/II, other non-GE via PulsePAKs)1 |
| • |
Radio configuration change diary |
| • |
Performance | Standard | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
Performance dashboard with purpose-built prescriptive diagnostic workflows | • | • |
Inherited performance collections based on vendor/model/configuration | • | • |
Performance collections for diagnostics (I.e. RSSI, SNR, bandwidth, etc.) | • | • |
Retains collections for comparison year-over-year | 45-day limit | • |
Performance dashboards for third parties1 |
| • |
Self-monitoring of PulseNET Enterprise system (memory, CPU, etc) |
| • |
System | Standard | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
Tracking of configuration and firmware for MDS device | • | • |
User forced out when inactive for extended periods | • | • |
Remote access shortcuts to devices for Telnet, SSH and HTTP(s) | • | • |
Centralized to streamline security and control | • | • |
User level accounting | • | • |
Role based security (admin vs. operator) | • | • |
Limit operator device groups based on admin assignment |
| • |
LDAP and Radius support |
| • |
1. Out-of-the-box capability for monitoring third-party devices is enhanced in each release. Please contact a GE MDS Sales Representative to determine if a specific third-party devices is supported by the current version of PulseNET Enterprise.
2. Feature planned for a future release of PulseNET and PulseNET Enterprise.
