AIS Overview

Q. What is AIS?

Advanced Insight Solutions (AIS) provides tools and processes to automate the delivery of support services for Juniper Networks devices running on your network.

AIS provides reactive and proactive support for these devices operating in service provider and enterprise networks by:

• Automatically detecting events (incidents) and intelligence information
• Managing incidents to quick resolution by Juniper Technical Support using specialized tools.
• Providing intelligence information updates to prevent incidents from occurring.

A full AIS deployment includes the following components:

• The Advanced Insight Scripts, which run on each device running JUNOS software 9.0 or later.
• The Advanced Insight Manager (AIM), which runs at the customer site.
• The Juniper Networks Support Systems, which are located within Juniper Networks premises.

For more information on the components of AIS, see the Advanced Insight Solutions Guide.

Q. How can I get AIS?

You can get AIS by following these steps:

1. Log into the Juniper Networks software download site and download the AIS components to install.

   Download the following:

   • AI-Scripts package:

     https://www.juniper.net/support/csc/swdist-encr/swdist-ais/

   • Advanced Insight Manager (AIM):

     https://www.juniper.net/support/csc/swdist-encr/swdist-ais/

   • (Optional) JUNOScope Software:

     https://www.juniper.net/support/csc/swdist-encr/swdist-jtk/

2. (Optional) Install and set up the JUNOScope software.
3. Install and connect to AIM.
4. Generate and activate the AIS license key.
5. Install and verify AI-Scripts.
6. Set up AIM.

For detailed information on these steps, see the “Setting Up Advanced Insight Solutions” chapter in the Advanced Insight Solutions Guide.

Q. As a J-Assure customer with an active contract, can I use AIS without migrating to the new J-Care Technical Services?

Yes, current J-Assure customers can use AIS as long as they have a valid J-Assure contract.

Q. What are the major components in AIS?

The major components of AIS are:

• AI-Scripts package
• Advanced Insight Manager (AIM)
• Juniper Networks Support Systems (JSS)
• JUNOScope Software (Optional)

Q. What are the basic customer engagement models in AIS?

The AIS basic customer engagement models are:

• Direct-Customer AIS Engagement Model
• Partner-Deployed AIS Engagement Model
• Partner and End-Customer Deployed AIS Engagement Model

For more information on these models, see the “Advanced Insight Solutions Overview” chapter in the Advanced Insight Solutions Guide

Q. What is the AIS Incident (Reactive) Workflow?

The AIS incident-driven workflow occurs as follows:

1. A trigger event occurs and is detected on a device configured for and running AI-Scripts. The appropriate operational script is executed.
2. An operational script builds an event JMB with event and router data, and sends it to a designated AIM archive location.
3. AIM receives the event JMB and displays it in Incident Manager. The incident appears in the Incident Manager, where it can be assigned or flagged to an AIM user. Once flagged or assigned, the incident appears in My AIM Home.
4. If desired, an AIM user submits the incident to JSS.
5. JSS connects to clarify and systematically creates a case and returns a case ID to AIM.
6. JTAC engineers work on the case. Case status updates are sent to AIM.

Q. What is the AIS Intelligence (Proactive) Workflow?

JSS receives intelligence information from devices on the network that are AIS-enabled. Juniper Networks engineers use this information with customized tools to perform preventive analysis. JSS sends case statuses, intelligence updates, and alerts back to AIM. AIM periodically polls JSS for informational messages (created by Advanced Services engineers specifically for the customer) or alert messages (based on the alerts for which the customer registered). The intelligence-driven workflow occurs as follows:

1. An AI-Script builds an intelligence JMB and sends it to a designated archive location on a weekly basis.
2. AIM periodically polls the archive location and receives the intelligence JMB.
3. You can specify how much information is shared with JSS on the AIM General Settings page.
4. AIM displays the intelligence JMB in the Intelligence Manager, Information JMBs tab.
5. AIM periodically queries JSS for intelligence updates. Intelligence Updates consist of alerts (based on the AIM alert subscriptions) or intelligence updates created by Advanced Services engineers specifically for the customer.
6. JSS stages any alerts or intelligence update messages destined for the customer’s AIM.
7. JSS responds to an AIM request with any alerts or intelligence updates for that installation.
8. AIM receives the alerts or intelligence updates and displays them in the Intelligence Manager, Intelligence Updates tab.

Q. Which Juniper Networks devices does AIS support?

Table 1 shows the devices supported in AIS 1.3.

Table 1: AIS Supported Devices

For a more detailed description on the supported devices see AIS Release Notes.

Q. Does AIS support non-Juniper Networks devices?

No, AIS does not support other vendors' platforms.

Q. What are the basic AIS NOC roles?

The roles in the network operations center (NOC) are:

• AIS Administrator
• AIM Administrator
• AIM User
• JUNOScope Software Administrator (Optional)

Note: The AIS Administrator has a UNIX ID outside AIM and it cannot be amended or deleted.

The design, setup, and implementation of the AIS system depends upon the existence of these NOC roles.

Levels of access granted to users can be:

• None — Not allowed to assign any user to any item
• Level I — Take ownership of any unassigned item
• Level II — Take ownership of any item
• Level III — Assign any user ownership of any item

Additional permissions are:

• AIM Admin Setting
• Delete incident
• Reaction Policy
• Submit Case

Q. What type of incidents are detected by AIS?

AIS detects:

• Software events, including daemon and Packet Forwarding Engine crashes
• Hardware events, such as PIC alarms
• Hardware platform-specific events, such ASIC issues

Q. Can I define the incidents detected by AIS?

No, incident types are defined by Juniper engineers and are included in a single AI-Script bundle.

Q. How does AIS licensing work?

Licensing works differently for various AIS components:

• AI-Scripts are free and require no licensing.
• AIM requires a combination of feature and capacity licenses to achieve full functionality.

  Note: AIM licenses do not provide access to AIS Base or AIS Proactive services needed for full functionality of the AIS product. For full functionality of AIS, you need AIM licenses and subscriptions to AIS Proactive services.

  AIM operates in fully functional, demo mode for 60 days. The demo mode allows AIM to support one multi-site organization and monitor five devices. AIM requires Base Product, Feature Licenses, Capacity Licenses, and Maintenance Service licenses.

• JSS validates licensing, receives incident case requests, resolves incidents, analyzes and sends intelligence updates to prevent incidence occurrence. A connection to JSS, for opening cases automatically, requires a valid J-Care technical services contract.

Q. How do I plan for AIS?

To design and plan the AIS system, consider the tasks mentioned in Table 2.

Table 2: Planning for AIS

Q. Does Juniper Networks provide AIS training?

No, there is no official live training program. However, an AIS online learning course is available to all customers at http://www.juniper.net/us/en/training/technical_education/.
You can also get help and assistance for the product from the AIS team (for a trial) and JTAC (for production).

AIS System Requirements and Performance

Q. What are the AIS system requirements?

Ensure that the client workstation from which you connect to the AIM application is running either on Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.16 or later.

The AIM installation can be performed by either a root or a non-root (regular) user. A non-root user can change the default AIM install directory to any other directory. The AIM installer will prompt the root user for an existing user and user group, that is not root.

Ensure that you install AIM on a Sun Solaris or Red Hat Enterprise Edition Linux server. The minimum requirements for each of these is shown in Table 3 and Table 4.

The free disk space allocation requirements for both Sun Solaris and Linux servers are:

• Up to 100 devices under management: Allocate at least 20 GB for archive location and at least 20 GB for AIM application (at least 40 GB if archive location is a local drive on the AIM server)
• Between 100-1000 devices under management: Allocate at least 50 GB for archive location and at least 50 GB for AIM application (at least 100 GB if archive location is a local drive on the AIM server)
• More than 1000 devices under management: Contact your Juniper Networks J-Care representative

Table 3: Minimum Requirement for Sun Solaris Server

Table 4: Minimum Requirement for Linux Server

Q. What browsers and versions are supported by AIS?

AIS supports Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.16 or later.

Note: In AIM 1.0, only Internet Explorer 6.0 and Mozilla are supported. We do not recommended use of any other browser version because it may display some screens incorrectly.

Q. How many devices can be managed by a single AIM installation?

You can manage up to 3000 devices on a single AIM installation. The number of devices depends on the processing power, storage space and network bandwidth of the AIM.

Q. Do I need any special patches on LINUX or Solaris?

Yes. Review the release notes and download relevant updates to your OS. GPG, especially, is required to ensure that license files are read correctly.

To see the AIS Release Notes, go to http://www.juniper.net/techpubs/software/management/ais/ais13/.