AIM BASICS

Passive network infrastructures are becoming increasingly complex, requiring accurate and always up-to-date documentation of the entire network. Additionally, safety-critical applications require a maximum availability of data connections and an alarm and debugging system which reacts immediately to perturbations or breakdown incidents. Whilst a central monitoring and controlling system of the components is widely used in active infrastructures, this component is often missing in layer 1 of the OSI layer structure in the central network management.

An AIM (Automated Infrastructure Management) solution can fully automatically identify, read and document connections in physical network layers. 

Well known scenarios such as the case where a technician called on site cannot run a job as the actual status differs from the documented one are now a thing of the past. An AIM solution can also put a stop to the unnoticed removal of a switched connection and its ensuing system failures.

The advantages of such a solution are clear: an automated and cost-efficient trouble-free documentation of the physical layer and a reduction of time-consuming failure location and job planning procedures.