Core Components
Even though ease of use has become an overused phrase in the information management industry, few telecom professionals find applications written for their industry easy to use. For example, engineers know that successful network management comes, not from the collection of gobs of data that come down from the switch, but in the knowledge that can be culled from such data, and then easily presented and disseminated. Still, many engineers remain daunted by trying to create reports and perform important tasks that have been far too arduous or problematic for the inadequate software applications currently on the market. The Essent InSite front end and graphical user interface (GUI) were specifically designed to address these issues.
The InSite GUI’s visual appearance — it’s look, and the behavior of the interface in response to a user action— it’s feel, were designed to make InSite’s individual applications consistent, usable, learnable, intuitive, extensible, and attractive.
The Essent InSite Suite of Applications
InfoSource™ is part of the Essent InSite Suite. The core of the system is the Essent InSite Information Server that contains data collected from the telecommunications network’s equipment. All users that have questions regarding the performance of the telecommunications network will use Essent InSite InfoSource to get their answers.
Essent InSite InfoSource, like all Essent InSite tools, communicates with the Essent InSite Information Server via ODBC to retrieve information stored in the Essent InSite Database. The Essent InSite Information Server is a Windows Server connected to the organization’s data network. ODBC is the industry-standard method for client programs to communicate with database servers; it is required that all computers with any component of the Essent InSite Suite, also have ODBC installed and configured to communicate with the Essent InSite Information Server.
Essent InSite InfoSource is your gateway to information stored within the Essent InSite Database. With Essent InSite InfoSource all users can interactively query, report, and graph the following:
- Current Operational Measurements
- Historical Operational Measurements
- Current Operational Events
- Historical Operational Events
- Quality Metrics
- Mobile Telephone Failures and ESN Mismatches
- Cellular Network Topology
- Essent InSite System Information
Users with Administrator privileges may also:
Users with Executive privileges may also:
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Access the InSite Executive Information System tool (EIS). The EIS is a powerful tool that graphically displays the health of the telecommunications network by Region with the ability to drill-down into a Region’s Markets, and further drill-down into the indicators that empirically define any Market’s health.
Essent InSite Administrator™ is an application used to administer the InSite suite of applications. InSite Administrator provides management for the following activities:
- User Management allows administrators to define and maintain individual user and user permissions.
- Group Management allows administrators to define and maintain groups of users and group permissions.
- OM Parser Logs Management allows administrators to check the status of, view the detail for, print, and delete OM Parser Log files
- Market Management allows administrators to create and maintain markets.
- Region Management allows administrators to create and maintain regions.
- Switch Management and Switch Interface Reference Management allows administrators to separately create and maintain Switches and Switch interfaces.
- Cellsite Management and Cellsite Interface Reference Management allows administrators to separately create and maintain Cellsites and Cellsite interfaces.
- Telco Trunk Groups Reference Management and Telco Trunk Groups Type Management allows administrators to separately create and maintain Telco trunk group references and types.
- Network Node Management allows administrators to separately create and maintain network nodes.
- Interface Unit Management allows administrators to create and maintain Ethernet Interfaces (EIUs), CCS #7 Link Interfaces (LIU7s), Network Interfaces (NIUs), and CDPD x.25/x.75 Link Interfaces (XLIUs).
InSite System Monitor™ is a program used to monitor the status of the OM and OE data collection process and generates a warning if the collection of data falls behind user-defined parameters. The data collection process includes both the collection and parsing of data.
InSite Analyst™ is a tool that determines whether all support files—necessary to run the InSite suite of applications—are currently installed on your system.
The Essent InSite Mobile Query System™ (MQS™) is a convenient tool for System Technicians and Customer Service Representatives to diagnose and validate mobile telephone-related problems. The Essent InSite MQS can be used to identify a problem (mobile failures, ESN mismatches, or both) with a specific mobile telephone. MQS is available within InSite InfoSource and as a stand-alone tool for users that need to quick access to the Essent InSite Mobile Query System but don’t necessarily need access to other InSite InfoSource features.