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Data Sheet
Cisco IoT Field Network Director
The Cisco® IoT Field Network Director is a software platform that manages
multi-service networks of Cisco Industrial and Connected Grid Routers with a security
infrastructure for Internet-of-Things applications, including advanced metering
infrastructure (AMI), transportation, fleet management, asset tracking, distribution
automation, distributed intelligence, and substation automation. The IoT Field Network
Director is a scalable, highly secure, modular, and open platform with an extensible
architecture serving as a multi-vendor, multi-service, communications network
management platform that helps enable network connectivity to an open ecosystem
IoT routers and devices.
Cisco IoT Field Network Director is built upon a layered system architecture to enable clear separation between
network management functionality and applications in fleet management, asset tracking and utility, such as a
distribution management system (DMS), outage management system (OMS), and meter data management
(MDM). This clear separation between network management and applications helps customers to roll out
Internet-of-Things projects incrementally, for example in utilities with AMI, and extend into distribution automation
using a shared, multi-service network infrastructure and a common, network management system across various
utility operations. Further, a northbound API from the IoT Field Network Director allows various applications to pull
appropriate, service-specific, network communications data from a shared, multi-server communication network
infrastructure. Figure 1 illustrates the operator view of the IoT Field Network Director.
Figure 1.
IoT Field Network Director - Operator View
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Table 1 shows the core functionality for managing a multi-service communication network with IoT Field Network
Director.
Table 1.
Cisco IoT Field Network Director Functionality
Fault Management
● Fault event collection, filtering, and correlation for communication network monitoring
● Supports a variety of fault-event mechanisms for threshold-based rule processing, custom alarm generation,
and alarm event processing
● Faults can be visualized on a color-coded GIS-map view for the various routers and endpoints
● Allows operator-level custom, fault-event generation, processing, and forwarding to various applications such
as an outage management system
● Automatic issue tracking based on events collected
Configuration Management
● Performs over-the-air software and firmware upgrades to field and endpoints
● Allows centralized configuration management, including change control enforced through operator role-based
access control
● Delivers flexible device grouping options, including policy-based management and methods for deploying
configuration changes
Accounting Management
● Logs access information for user activity for audit, regulatory compliance, and Security Event and Incident
Management (SEIM) integration
● Simplifies management and enhances compliance by integrated monitoring, reporting, and troubleshooting
capabilities
Performance Management
● Displays color-coded, real-time performance information on a GIS-based map
● Provides standard set of metric parameter collection as it relates to the operations network
● Provides a powerful threshold-based rule processing engine for exception reporting and visualization on GIS
map in real time
● Customizable metric collection frequency, along with historical trend reporting to suit operational needs
End-to-End Security
Management
● Fully automated, highly secure zero-touch deployment for routers and endpoints
● Provisions a mobile field technician with time-bound security credentials to perform authorized field
maintenance
● Integrates with enterprise security policies and role-based access control for network devices
● Provides device-level authentication through AAA and RADIUS integration, and alerts operators of attempted
rogue device access to communication networks
● Integrates with standard SEIM to help enable security and reporting needs (NERC-CIP Compliance)
GIS-Map Visualization,
Diagnostics, and
Troubleshooting Tools
● Allows entire network and security management function visualization on a GIS-map view for operator ease of
use
● Color-coded state view provided for a network operator to easily pinpoint network regions and devices to
troubleshoot
● Provides real-time troubleshooting using ping and traceroute with visual output on a GIS-map with primary
metrics for each link, node, and endpoint
Northbound API
● Allows ease of integration for existing applications like outage management system (OMS), meter data
management (MDM), trouble-ticketing systems, and manager-of-managers
Supported Devices
Table 2.
IoT Field Network Director Supported Devices
Series
Cisco 800 Series Industrial
Integrated Services Routers
Cisco 800 Series Integrated
Services Routers
Product
● IR809G-LTE-GA-K9
● IR809G-LTE-NA-K9
● IR829GW-LTE-NA-AK9
● IR829GW-LTE-GA-EK9
● IR809G-LTE-VZ-K9
● IR829GW-LTE-GA-ZK9
● IR829GW-LTE-VZ-AK9
Hardened
● C819HG-U-K9
Non-Hardened
● C819G-U-K9
● C819HG-S-K9
● C819HG-V-K9
● C819G-S-K9
● C819G-V-K9
● C819HG-B-K9
● C819HG+7-K9
● C819G-B-K9
● C819G+7-K9
● C819HGW+7-E-K9
● C819G-4G-V-K9
© 2015 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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Series
Product
● C819HGW+7-N-K9
● C819HGW+7-A-A-K9
● C819G-4G-A-K9
● C819G-4G-G-K9
● C819HGW-V-A-K9
● C819HGW-S-A-K9
● C819HWD-E-K9
● C819HWD-A-K9
● C819H-K9
● C819HG-4G-V-K9
● C819HG-4G-A-K9
● C819HG-4G-G-K9
Cisco 1000 Series
Connected Grid Routers
● CGR1120/K9
● CGR1240/K9
Cisco 500 Series Wireless
Personal Area Network
Industrial Routers
● IR509UWP-915/K9
● IR529WP-915S/K9
● IR529UWP-915D/K9
● IR529UBWP-915S/K9
● IR529UBWP-915D/K9
Cisco IPv6 RF (radio frequency), PLC (power line communications), and Dual PHY (RF and PLC) mesh endpoints
Recommended Hardware Configuration
The tables below list recommended generic hardware configurations for running Cisco IoT Field Network Director
software to manage up to 1,000,000 endpoints (Table 3) in AMI use cases and up to 10,000 routers (Table 4) in
fleet management or asset tracking use cases. For large-scale deployments, additional servers are recommended
with the same profile up to a maximum of five million endpoints.
Further, Cisco IoT Field Network Director software uses enterprise database servers to store configuration and
state information either embedded with the software platform or as a standalone Oracle database.
Table 3.
Recommended Hardware Configurations for 1,000,000 AMI Endpoints
Hardware Server
Operating System
Hardware Profile, Software, and Network Connectivity Requirements
IoT Field Network Director
Application Server Software
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 2 CPU - Intel Dual core Xeon x5000 series (2.6 GHz), with 32 GB RAM,
or later
with 500 GB storage or more
IoT Field Network Director
Database Server (Oracle)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 Oracle® 11g Enterprise Edition 11.2.0.3 with Replication
or later
2 CPU - Intel multicore Xeon x5000 series (2.6 GHz), with 192 GB RAM,
storage
2.5 TB or more, At least 8 disks (15k+ RPM each, 16 with RAID 10
configuration)
Table 4.
Recommended Hardware Configurations for 10,000 Mobile Routers
Hardware Server
Operating System
Hardware Profile, Software, and Network Connectivity Requirements
IoT Field Network Director
Application Server Software
with embedded database
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6.4 or later
2 CPU - Intel Dual core Xeon x5000 series, with 32 GB RAM, with 500 GB
storage or more (15k+ RPM)
High Availability
For high system throughput, high availability, server load balancing, and redundancy, it is recommended to have at
least two servers running the Cisco IoT Field Network Director software application, and two servers running the
primary and secondary database in replication mode.
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For More Information
For more information on the Cisco IoT Field Network Director, please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/fnd.
Printed in USA
© 2015 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
C78-696787-02
06/15
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