About This Guide

This section discusses the objectives, audience, organization, and conventions of Learning to Use Cisco Resource Manager.

Cisco documentation and additional literature are available in a CD-ROM package that ships with your product. The Documentation CD-ROM, a member of the Cisco Connection Family, is updated monthly. Therefore, it might be more up to date than printed documentation. To order additional copies of the Documentation CD-ROM, contact your local sales representative or call customer service. The CD-ROM package is available as a single package or as an annual subscription. You can also access Cisco documentation on the World Wide Web at http://www.cisco.com, http://www-china.cisco.com, or http://www-europe.cisco.com.

Document Objectives

This publication provides descriptions and user scenarios for the Cisco Resource Manager application. It describes tasks similar to those you might perform using the Resource Manager software. The chapters are organized in the order of a typical Resource Manager workflow. By reading this guide, you will acquire a general understanding of how to perform typical tasks using Resource Manager.

What This Guide Is Not

This guide is not a reference manual. You will not find all available Resource Manager features within these pages. Rather, this guide is intended to represent a typical workflow model that enables you to acquire a general understanding of the product. For more detailed information about all of the Resource Manager features, refer to the online help.

Audience

This guide is intended to provide descriptions and scenarios for users or prospective users of the Resource Manager application. Many of the tools described are accessible to the system administrator only.

Document Organization

The chapters of this manual are presented in an order that represents a typical Resource Manager workflow. If you read this manual from beginning to end, you will obtain a fairly thorough understanding of the tasks you can perform using Resource Manager.

This manual is divided into the following chapters:

• Chapter 1, "Overview," provides an overview of Resource Manager including privilege levels and the types of tasks users can perform using Resource Manager.

• Chapter 2, "Populating the Network Inventory," describes how to add and import devices into your network inventory.

• Chapter 3, "Creating and Managing Device Views," describes how to add and manage device views.

• Chapter 4, "Inventory Management," describes how to check device status and display various inventory reports to help you manage the devices on your network.

• Chapter 5, "Availability Management," describes how to configure device availability polling options and how to generate and view availability reports.

• Chapter 6, "Syslog Analysis," describes how to log and track system error messages and exceptions in order to analyze router and network performance.

• Chapter 7, "System Administration," describes database maintenance features and user account management.

• Chapter 8, "Software Management," provides a workflow model for using the software management features to schedule and perform device software upgrades.

• Chapter 9, "Troubleshooting," provides troubleshooting and reference information to help users solve problems they encounter while using Resource Manager.

• Appendix A, "Device Integration File Format," describes the format for device integration files which are used to import large numbers of devices into your network inventory.

Document Conventions

This guide uses basic conventions to represent text and table information.

Command descriptions use these conventions:

• Commands and keywords are in boldface font.

• Variables for which you supply values are in italic font.

• Elements in square brackets ([ ]) are optional.

Examples use these conventions:

• Terminal sessions and information the system displays are printed in a screen font.

• Information you enter is in boldface screen font. Variables you enter are printed in italic screen font.

• Nonprinting characters, such as passwords, are shown in angle brackets (< >).

This guide also uses the following conventions:

• Scenario paragraphs are in italics. The first paragraph of each scenario is preceded by the word Scenario. Scenarios are sample tasks that users can perform with Resource Manager.

• Menu items and button names are in boldface font.

• A menu selection is indicated by the following convention: Select Options > Network Preferences > Languages.

• Directories and filenames are in italic font.

• If items such as buttons or menu options are grayed out on application windows, it means that you do not have permission to use these items.

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Note Means reader take note. Notes contain helpful suggestions or references to materials not contained in the manual.

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Caution Means reader be careful. You are capable of doing something that might result in equipment damage or loss of data.

Related Documentation

The following Resource Manager documentation is available:

• Resource Manager Installation Guide for Solaris

• Resource Manager Online Help System

• Resource Manager Release Note

• Manual pages located in the /opt/CSCOpx/man/man1 directory

Refer to other network management platform documentation for Network Management System (NMS) functionality.

Online Help

Resource Manager ships with an online help system. Use the help system to get information about using the Resource Manager interface, navigating within the product, and finding information about a specific task.

The online help system provides overview, related information, procedures, and glossary data on the Resource Manager applications and features. It contains an online index and glossary to enable users to search for specific text or terms within the online help system.

You access the Resource Manager online help system by clicking the Help button on the button bar in the left frame in the Resource Manager desktop.