Each year, businesses place increasing demands on their physical layer (layer 1) technology infrastructure to facilitate uninterrupted information flow to meet mission-critical organizational objectives. As long as we can pick up a phone and hear a dial tone or click on “send” and an email is routed from an outbox to an inbox, we fail to realize just how critical the physical plant infrastructure is for supporting these services until it is interrupted.
In recent years, as physical plant infrastructures have been increasing in complexity, Layer 1 Management Solutions have fallen by the wayside in favor of Network Management tools. Although these tools monitor the health and performance of the network, they have been proven completely useless when responding to incidents that occur to the physical layer (human error, intentional malfeasance, loose connections, etc.). Today, many studies are now revealing that the physical layer accounts for up to eighty percent (80%) of all network downtime. Due to the combination of over-reliance on NMS tools and under-utilization of physical layer management tools, there is an ever-widening gap between relating critical services to the underlying physical plant infrastructure.
Planet IRMAI documents, manages and tracks Critical Infrastructure Physical Plant Management data for the Inside Plant, Outside Plant, Data Center, and Wide Area Network. By centralizing management across various regions of the physical plant, Planet IRMAI enables Facilities and Plant Management organizations to streamline physical plant maintenance, reduce operational management costs and leverage Critical Infrastructure Information to aid in identifying service faults and expedite troubleshooting.
Inside Plant Capabilities
- Connectivity Management
- Inventory Control
- Space Management
- ANSI/EIA/TIA 568 Compliant
- ANSI/EIA/TIA 606C Compliant
Outside Plant Capabilities
- Repository for all outside plant assets including devices, tracks, ducts, pipes/bores, pathways, cables, coil/over-length, manholes, fiber, splices, distribution frames, and poles, as well as other aerial and underground equipment
- Visualize actual physical connectivity, separation and routing for pathways, conduits tracks, pipes and cables
- Manage and store all manhole information including butterfly drawings, GIS data, dimensions and instructions for technicians to safely work in the environment
- ANSI/EIA/TIA 569 Compliant
Wide Area Network Capabilities
- Maintain a full inventory of circuits, channels, users, cost centers, and service providers
- Ability to physically trace end to end transmission paths throughout a local or global network
- Ability to highlight physical circuit traces and actual routing enabling users to visualize redundancy and physical separation of mission-critical services
Planet IRM extends the value and efficiency of your current plant investments by integrating with existing toolsets and intelligent connecting hardware like patch panels (Avaya, Cisco) and cable testing equipment (Fluke, Tektronix).
