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Table Of Contents

Getting Started

Welcome to WSA

Overview—What is WSA

WSA Managed Entities

Launching WSA

Getting Started

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This chapter introduces the Cisco WAN Service Administrator (WSA), gives a brief overview, describes the entities managed by WSA, and explains how to start the WSA Explorer Client:

•Welcome to WSA

•Overview—What is WSA

•WSA Managed Entities

•Launching WSA

Welcome to WSA

WSA is a highly featured service management application for WAN multiservice networks that streamlines the deployment process among different groups within an organization. The benefits include:

•Reduces the cost of management through automation

•Supports just-in-time delivery of resources to meet customer demand

•Ensures a high quality of error-free deployment

WSA protects the user from many of the complexities of network layer provisioning by giving the user a business level view of the network, relating network customer ownership to ports and connections.

WSA also supports implementation specific network labeling, administrative regions and service class labels through the use of connection parameter templates. This greatly eases the task of understanding a network.

Refer to Cisco WAN Service Administrator Installation and Control System Configuration for system requirements information.

Overview—What is WSA

WSA consists of the following four main elements:

•User Interface—through which all network service control takes place

•Database—holds all network configuration information

•Control System—issues add and delete connection commands across one or more networks

•Audit Processor—compares the planned network with the live network and reports discrepancies

WSA Managed Entities

WSA manages the following physical entities, refer to Chapter 3, "":

•Cards

•Locations

•Networks

•Nodes

WSA manages the following logical entities, refer to Chapter 4, "":

•Contracts

•Customer Ports

•Customers

•Projects

WSA manages the following network entities, refer to Chapter 5, "":

•Connections

•Net Links (Trunks and NNIs)

These entities relate to each other, as shown in , "".

Figure 1-1 WSA Entity Relationships

As demonstrated by , "", Customer Ports are the central and hence most significant entity in WSA. They are the lowest level of logical entity and link the three entity types together—logical, physical, and network.

Launching WSA

To launch the WSA Explorer Client, select WSA Explorer from the Cisco WSA 1.1 start menu, as shown in , "".

Figure 1-2 Launching WSA Explorer

When the login dialog appears, as shown in , "", enter you user name and password as supplied to you by your local WSA administrator.

Figure 1-3 Login Dialog