Nsight Technical Overview

How Intelligent Print Monitoring Simplifies Managed Print Services

 

Introduction

The purpose of this White Paper is to provide a high-level technical overview of the Nsight Solution. Nsight is a multi-tier application designed to support the delivery of Managed Office Print Services. It supports service delivery processes that enable End User customers or outsource Service Providers to deliver highly automated Asset management, Consumables supply chain management, Incident service chain management, billing reconciliation, active service delivery, as well as management information reporting. In addition, the full product suite supports initial fleet TCO analysis, cost modeling, interactive physical auditing, re-design/optimization thereby providing support for on-going continuous improvement of the fleet and operational processes. NSight comprises four components as illustrated below:

• Nsight TCO Analysis- An efficient analysis tool to enable customers to establish whether thereis a business case for change providing an initial baseline during project planning.
• Nsight Portal Server- For centralized remote service delivery across multiple customers. Installed as a private or multi-tenanted Cloud service for processing all information receivedfrom the Data Collection Applications (Monitoring application)
  • Data Collection Application- Small footprint service installed on the customer network tocollect information and report the information back to a Portal server.
  • Messaging Server- Delivered as part of the Portal infrastructure and used to pass encrypted XML data securely from the Nsight Monitoring application to the Nsight Portal Server and authorized service administrators. This is a ‘hidden’ component and seamlessly integrated onto the Portal structure.

In addition, a natural language command system is available to allow remote management, diagnostics, and support for all Nsight monitoring systems. This language is called IMIL. This enables remote configuration of the Monitoring Server without VPN access.

Nsight monitoring applications discover and monitor network devices using SNMP UDP over port 161, they do not Ping, multicast, or broadcast.

Working data is stored in an internal administration database for local processing before transmission to the Nsight portal.

Management of the Nsight Portal is provided through a web interface running over HTTPS.

The Management requirement of the monitoring server is minimal and can be achieved remotely via the Portal Server should this be required. Service Management is delivered from the Nsight Portal. Further Monitoring or device diagnostic information can be captured via the IMILTM interface.

Data is transmitted to the Nsight Portal via the internet using XMPP, by default over port 5222 TCP. Alternative ports can be used such as port 443 and the Monitoring Application (DCA) will automatically select the port which is available. All data is encrypted and sent via SSL. All communication is initiated by the customer monitoring application.

All communication is outbound only.

The Nsight Portal processes this information and enables print service delivery managing the corefunctions of Asset Management, Consumable supply chain management and Service chain management. Where required, integration with the Service Provider’s Service Management or ERP Systems can be implemented. Service Management systems typically provide help desk, engineer scheduling, further asset management, stock control, procurement and invoicing systems to which Nsight can feed highly qualified structured data for further processing.

Local support and notifications to end user contacts or to contacts in the service or supply chains can be provided via email to defined multiple destinations.

Please note access to IMIL allows a remote user to restart the DCA service or initiate the auto-update to perform a version upgrade. The endpoint updates.ekmglobal.com may need to be whitelisted in your Web Proxy/Firewall to allow this. It is possible to block access to updates.ekmglobal.com within the firewall to prevent the auto-update process from working. The user account associated with the Windows service can also be changed to a lower, or a non-system privileges account to effectively limit any risk of the DCA affecting the host computer.

DEVICE IMPORT AND DISCOVERY

Service take on is by discovery of network print devices connected to the Customer’s networkusing defined IP address ranges or via point discoveries for devices at known locations.

Lists can be created offline or exported from other systems imported into Nsight Portal which wil lbe read by the monitoring application the next time it communicates to the portal.

If an HP JAMC is installed, then the device IP will be transmitted to the JAMC automatically for inclusion into the JAMC monitoring.

Once a device has been discovered for the first time, added to the Asset List and registered for management Nsight monitoring application will begin to monitor the device.

MOVES AND CHANGES

The discovery process is designed to support the critical function of active moves and change management providing notifications of change events if required. It is also designed to create minimal network traffic through targeting specific device information only.

Discoveries run at regular intervals to identify changes to the fleet e.g., new, moved or changed devices.

In addition, the monitoring loops will also track any IP address changes, Serial and MAC address changes and change of monitoring application name.

NETWORK PRINT AND DEVICE MONITORING

Network device monitoring uses the SNMP protocol on port 161 using UDP for most printing equipment. The Nsight application supports SNMP V1, V2 & V3. SNMP V2 provides the best performance together with minimal network traffic. The extra security requirement of SNMP V3 creates extra performance and administration overheads so should be avoided unless the additional security is necessary.

The monitoring process comprises five independent sub-processes that scan devices to confirm they are available, collect alerts, record consumable levels, record media status

and record page counts. Device Monitoring is self- optimizing with each sub-process only reading the specific information it needs to perform its specific task thereby minimizing network traffic and maximizing the number of actively monitored devices per server. For very large fleets multiple monitoring applications can be deployed or the network segmented with the data consolidated at a Portal Server.

All data items are checked for validity before being stored in the database. Data that is inconsistent with previous readings and usage trends is rejected then collected during the next monitoring cycle.

The timing of the sub-processes is optimized such that information that is less time critical e.g., page counts is retrieved less frequently than time critical information e.g., device alert status.

Most of the information used by Nsight is retrieved from the standard Printer MIB (RFC 1759). In addition, information is also retrieved from the Manufacturer’s Private MIB or other sources whererequired for effective service management.

INFORMATION COLLECTED

The information collected during active service management falls into three main categories:

• Asset information, including meter usage information

• Consumables Supply chain information

• Incident Service Chain information

The Nsight Monitoring applications do not collect any user identifiable information from the network print devices. Although many print devices do record job information, Nsight does not retrieve this information.

The Nsight monitoring server sends four key types of information back to the Insight Portal Server:

• Asset information – manufacturer, model, location, device identification
• Usage Information – page counts recorded by the print device both in summary and in detail
• Incident Service chain Management and alert information – alerts reported by the print device.
• Consumable supply chain information – consumable levels reported by the print device.

This information is carefully analyzed in real-time to generate service management messages and route them to the appropriate destination for action enabling very large fleets to be managed highly effectively by exception.

DEVICE ALERTS

The Nsight Monitoring application retrieves alert information from the alert table in the MIB of the network print device.

Nsight also creates additional alert or notification conditions related to device specific conditions such as moves and changes, devices out of contact and device availability. Network print device shave a wide range of status conditions which can potentially lead to a fleet of devices generating a large number of alerts. Some manufactures devices create repeat alerts for the same event. The Nsight portals provide an intelligent alert triage process. This enables the system to review eachalert and based on a set of rules determine which alerts need to be actioned and route these to the appropriate destination for attention.

Nsight II SNMP Alert Overview

The process essentially covers three key activities:

• Firstly, native alerts from each device are analysed and a standard Nsight Code assigned. This ensures that the system can determine that code XYZ from an HP device is the same as code 123 from a Sharp device and are therefore processed consistently.

• Secondly, alerts are allocated to one of several clearly defined categories.

• Thirdly, rules determine how alerts in each category are routed and subsequently delivered to adestination for action.

The delivery destination for alerts can include record with no further action, forward alert details via email to the Customer or forward the information to Service Provider to action. Alerts can also be delivered to multiple destinations, for example, record, send an email to the Customer and forward the information to Service Provider.

Further to this the Nsight portal has an advanced messaging system which can provide detailed messages to end customer key users or consumable delivery locations to ensure that all participants in the service and supply chain are kept informed significantly reducing helpdesk calls. All message types and their content are fully configurable.

The key purpose of the triage processes is to ensure that only alerts that require active intervention are forwarded and that these are forwarded to the appropriate location within the Customer and/or Service Provider to action.

CONSUMABLES MANAGEMENT

Nsight Monitoring application retrieves consumable level information from the device MIB of the network print device. This information is used to support Consumables Management and requests can be managed at the Nsight Portal. The Nsight Portal uses two main methods to determine if a consumable will require replacement. Firstly, the consumable analysis module uses an algorithm top redict consumable use for each device and thereforedetermine when the device will require anew consumable based on the number of days remaining before empty (typically 5 to 7 days).

This is to support MRP planning processes to enable consumable requests to be consolidate denabling optimization of shipping and stock holding.

Secondly, the consumable analysis module can also determine the actual consumable level in adevice and a request can be triggered when actual levels fall below a specified level (for example 5%). When either of these methods determines that a consumable is required the Nsight Portal can notify the Service Provider’s consumable management processes to ensure consumables are delivered to the Customer.

There are several consumable management workflow models available which can be employed according to your needs, including e-mail notifications, batch consumable request processing, picklist and dispatch note generation and ERP integration options. There is an entire workflow and status tracking mechanism providing detailed history analysis of each consumable used within the customer service.

These settings are completely configurable according to the service design and operational processes.

BILLING AND REPORTING

The Nsight Portal has two key aspects regarding data reporting functions. Firstly, it processes asset information, page counts, consumable levels and usage characteristics, and other service delivery information and can provide a means to transfer data to Service Provider’s ERP system for invoicing, procurement, engineer scheduling or other planning and business management systems. Secondly, it provides day to day administration management information to support the management of the Customer’s device fleet.

It does this via API, scheduled output, or structured emails as well as ad-hoc exporting of data via reports and messages if required.

The Nsight Monitoring applications retrieve page count and meter information from network devices and send this page count information to the Nsight Portal Server daily.

Hardware manufacturers have not agreed a standard list of page counts. This has led to the situation where some simple devices (such as A4 mono printers) have only a single page count and other more complex devices (such as A3 colour multi-functional) have upwards of 250 different page counts! Nsight has a consistent method of ‘rolling-up’ the multitude of page counts into a mono and colour ‘click’ which can be either size independent or resolved to “small” or A4 equivalent pages. This is an automated process that ensures accurate and consistent page count data across all manufacturers and models.

This ‘normalzed’ count model is available ad-hoc and via the API and through on demand or scheduled reports.

MESSAGING AND COMMUNICATION

There are three key forms of communication between the Nsight Servers and the Service Provider.

• Firstly, print device information is sent to Service Provider using encrypted XML using the XMPP protocol.
• Secondly, e-mail can be configured to provide structured e-mail notifications locally to the customers or service provider onsite staff from the Portal Server.
  • These emails can also contain report data on a scheduled basis and could be sent to a monitored email account
• Thirdly, there is an API available to allow partners to directly pull (and put) data into the Nsight portal
  • We also have some custom connectors for some ERP systems

Recognizes the security implications of remote connections and are willing to follow each Customer’s standard security Policy / procedures.

Application Integration to other systems such as a service desk, a procurement system or a billing system can be achieved in several ways. Key is to define the content required to be passed (asset no, serial No. alert reference, description), then the format (XML, .csv, text) then the transport protocol (XMPP, HTTP(s) e-mail). Acknowledgement and exception handling methods may also need to be defined but is usually handled by the recipient application standard processes. APIs areavailable to facilitate integration.

Device information, including alerts, is communicated to the Service Provider Nsight Portal in encrypted XML via the XMPP protocol over port 5222 TCP or other agreed ports such as 443, using an XMPP server to provide secure presence-based communication. All communication is initiated by the Nsight monitoring Servers. Communication conforms to the XMPP standard, is sent via SSL, coded in a custom XML format and is encrypted using a Base 64 encryption algorithm. XMPP is an ISO standard which employs point of presence communications including store and forward in the event of lost communication. To enable this communication any Customer Firewalls or Packet Inspection software will require an additional rule that allows the Nsight application to initiate a secure session with the Portal Server.

Information is only sent when the destination is ‘available’ to receive it. When the destination is not ‘available’ the sending server will store the information to send when secure communication can be established.

Communication to a customer via email uses standard email from the Nsight portal, Nsight supports secure e-mail configuration options.

NUMBER OF DEVICES SUPPORTED

The number of devices that can be monitored by a single Nsight monitoring Server depends on a variety of factors including network speed, age and complexity of the printer fleet, DNS efficiency, the longest allowable alert response time, the processor speed, and memory capacity of the actual Nsight Enterprise or Monitoring Server Servers. It is therefore not possible to provide a definitive answer. As a guide, typically one Monitoring Server can handle between 1 and 7,000 physical devices. If there are more devices to be monitored multiple Nsight monitoring applications can be deployed.

There is no limit on the number of devices supported at the Portal server.

DEVICE SUPPORT

The data available from different network print devices is variable, and not all manufacturers implement SNMP in accordance with RFC standards.

In general, post-2004 network printers from major manufacturers are likely to supply all or most of the required data, but there is limited industry agreement on the information that should be available from each device model. Devices can exhibit odd and inconsistent behavior and it is recommended that devices be tested for their manage ability prior to deployment. This is especially true of new to market models which may have early firmware revisions. It is also recommended that devices are brought up to their current firmware release prior to management commencing.

Can advise on the management configuration options best suited to the equipment mix within a fleet of printers and any limitations due to the inherent capabilities of the printing equipment.

NSIGHT MONITOR (DCA) / SERVER HARDWARE AND OPERATING SYSTEM SPECIFICATION

The Nsight Monitoring Server can be installed on most typical Windows PC/Server/VM platforms.

However, for live service operation with more than 250 devices we would recommend a server operating system as this will provide a more reliable service. As the system does continuous quality of service monitoring, we further recommend that the server is operating continuously and is not switched off.

It is not recommended to use laptops if possible due to the transient nature of these devices.

Fleet Size	Recommended Specifications