Overview of Network Management

Dr Mohd Faizal Abdollah

1
Learning Outcome:
After learning this chapter, you should able to:
Explain the term network management
Explain the importance of network management and
how it impacts cost, revenue, and network availability
Recognize the different players and industries that
have an interest in network management
Describe some of the challenges posed by network
management, including those that are technical,
organizational, and business
Defining Network Management
Network management refers to the activities
associated with running a network, along with the
technology required to support those activities.
A significant part of running a network is simply
monitoring it to understand what is going on, but
there are also other aspects.
Defining Network Management
(Cont.)
A More Formal Definition: Network management
refers to the activities, methods, procedures, and tools
that pertain to the operation, administration,
maintenance, and provisioning of networked systems.
Defining Network Management
(Cont.)
Operation deals with keeping the network (and the
services that the network provides) up and running
smoothly. It includes monitoring the network to spot
problems as soon as possible, ideally before a user is
affected.
Administration involves keeping track of resources in
the network and how they are assigned. It deals with
all the “housekeeping” that is necessary to keep things
under control.
Defining Network Management
(Cont.)
Maintenance is concerned with performing repairs
and upgrades—for example, when a line card must be
replaced, when a router needs a new operating system
image with a patch, when a new switch is added to the
network.
Provisioning is concerned with configuring resources
in the network to support a given service. For example,
this might include setting up the network so that a
new customer can receive voice service.
Figure 3.1: Network, Systems, & Application Management
The Importance of Network Management
Wouldn’t it be nice if, to run a network, you just had to
buy a bunch of networking equipment, wire it and
hook it up, flip a switch, and, —the network just
works.
You can turn off the lights and basically forget about it
and simply enjoy the services that it provides, kind of
like an entertainment center in a living room.
But, a network is a complex structure that requires a
great deal of attention.
The Importance of Network
Management(Cont.)
Configurations of network devices must be modified without
adversely affecting the rest of the network. Failures in the
network do occur and need to be detected, diagnosed, and
repaired.
Service levels that were guaranteed to customers and end users—
for example, a certain amount of bandwidth—need to be
monitored and ensured.
This section provides a closer look at the benefits that effective
network management and management tools can provide—
reduced cost, improvements in the quality of service that the
network provides, and increased revenue. From now on, we refer
to the organization that is running a network simply as the
network provider.
The Importance of Network Management:
Cost
One of the main goals of network management is to make
operations more efficient and operators more productive.
The ultimate goal is to reduce and minimize the total cost
of ownership (TCO) that is associated with the network.
The TCO consists essentially of the equipment cost, as
well as the cost to operate the network
Equipment cost is typically amortized over several years,
to take into account the lifetime of the equipment.
Operational cost includes cost such as operating
personnel, electricity, physical space, and cost for the
operations support infrastructure.
The Importance of Network Management:
Cost (Cont.)

Figure 3.2: Total Cost of Network Equipment Ownership

The Importance of Network Management:
Quality
Other operational aspects are not related to cost but
are equally important. One such aspect concerns the
quality of the communications and networking
services that are provided.
This includes properties such as the bandwidth that is
effectively available, or the delay in the network,which,
in turn, is a factor in the responsiveness a user
experiences when using services over a network.
The Importance of Network Management:
Quality(Cont.)
Quality also includes the reliability and the availability of a
communications service:
As an end user, can we rely on our service, or do we need to
often retransmit data because we experience interruptions in
the middle of our communication session, such as timeouts
and no response from the remote end because of a dropped
communication session?
Is the service always available when we need it, or do we
sometimes (in the case of voice service) get no dial tone?
Availability is not simply nice to have; lives can literally depend
on it. For example, think of a 911 service in a telephone
network, or connectivity for critical equipment in a hospital.
The Importance of Network Management:
Quality(Cont.)
Reliability and availability are attributes that are
typically associated only with the network itself.
This involves developing network equipment with
redundant hardware so that if a component fails, a hot
failover to a spare can occur.
In addition, networks themselves are carefully
engineered to allow for redundant communication
paths, in many cases ensuring network availability that
is overall higher than the availability of any single
element in the network.
The Importance of Network Management:
Revenue
Network management is not just related to cost and quality.
Network management can also be a revenue enabler that opens
up market opportunities that would not exist without it. Here
are some examples:
1. Service provisioning systems enable service providers to reduce the time
that elapses from the time a service is ordered to the time the service is
actually turned up. The capability to turn up a service quickly translates
into quicker time to revenue generation. A management system that
automates the complete workflow, from ordering the service to turning it
up, obviously provides greater speed than workflows that involve human
operators who need to key data into multiple systems redundantly along
various steps of the way. Also, if a service cannot be provisioned and
turned up quickly, a customer might decide to take his business
elsewhere.
The Players: Different Parties with an
Interest in Network Management
Network management is a whole industry that
involves many players. Different players are concerned
with different aspects of network management,
depending on their particular perspective. In this
section, you learn who the players are and what role
network management plays for them. Roughly, the
players fall into the categories of users of network
management and providers of network management
(see Figure 3.3).
The Players: Different Parties with an
Interest in Network Management

Figure 3.3: Players in the Network Management Space

Network Management Users
The Service Provider
As their name indicates, service providers are in the business of
providing services to their customers. Those services can be any
communication and networking service, such as
telecommunication services (telephone, voice mail) and data
services (leased lines, Internet connectivity)
The Enterprise IT Department
Enterprise IT departments are in charge of running the
network inside an enterprise, providing the enterprise with all
its internal communication needs. They are often thought of as
mini service providers of communications services for the
enterprise that they are part of.
Network Management Users
The End User
Finally, there is the end user. With end users, here we
are referring not to the users of the communication
service—to them, network management is invisible; it
is simply part of the infrastructure that keeps it all
running. We are instead referring to the persons who
keep the network running—the network managers.
Network Management Providers
The Equipment Vendor
Equipment vendors are primarily in the business of
selling networking equipment, not network management
applications. Hence, traditionally equipment vendors
have shown a tendency to limit investment in
management application development.
In general, they have been willing to settle for the
minimum management capabilities that customers would
allow them to get away with. That means that generally
they would provide just the level of management
capabilities needed to not inhibit equipment sales.
Network Management Providers
The Third-Party Application Vendor
Third-party management software application vendors
fill the management application gap that equipment
vendors leave open. For one, management application
software developed by an equipment vendor tends to
support only equipment of that particular vendor.
Even if multivendor support is provided, preferential
treatment is given to the vendor’s own equipment, in
terms of both available features and the timeline at
which the support becomes available.
Network Management Providers
The Systems Integrator
Organizations that run large networks, whether
enterprise IT departments or service providers,
eventually find that no one tool or application can do it
all. Instead, over time they end up with a multitude of
applications for different purposes.
Nevertheless, the applications must, at least to a certain
degree, be integrated with the overall operations
support environment. They might have to operate from
the same set of data—for example, inventory data of the
network.
Network Management Systems
Collection of tools for network management
Single operator interface
Powerful, user friendly command set
Performing most or all management tasks
Minimal amount of separate equipment
i.e. use existing equipment
View entire network as unified architecture
Active elements provide regular feedback
Key Elements
Management station or manager
Agent
Management information base
Network management protocol
Figure 17.1 Elements of a
Network Management System
Management Station
Stand alone system or part of shared system
Interface for human network manager
Set of management applications
Data analysis
Fault recovery
Interface to monitor and control network
Translate manager’s requirements into monitoring
and control of remote elements
Data base of network management information
extracted from managed entities
Management Agent
Hosts, bridges, hubs, routers equipped with agent
software
Allow them to be managed from management station
Respond to requests for information
Respond to requests for action
Asynchronously supply unsolicited information
Management Information Base
MIB
Representation of network resources as objects
Each object a variable representing one aspect of
managed object
MIB is collection of access points at agent for
management of station
Objects standardized across class of system
Bridge, router etc.
Network Management Protocol
Link between management station and agent
TCP/IP uses SNMP
OSI uses Common Management Information Protocol
(CMIP)
SNMPv2 (enhanced SNMP) for OSI and TCP/IP
Summary
Network management refers to the activities,
methods, procedures, and tools that pertain to the
operation, administration, maintenance, and
provisioning of networked systems. In other words,
network management is about running and
monitoring networks.
Many analogies can be drawn between network
management and other areas where complex systems
are monitored or where complex operations are run.
We discussed the analogy of monitoring the health of
a human body
Summary
Network management plays a significant role in saving
cost, making operation of a network more efficient,
and ensuring effective use of resources in the network.
It is also vital to service providers in generating
revenue
Different players have an interest in network
management for different reasons, and therefore
approach it from slightly different angles. There are
users of network management, particularly service
providers and enterprise IT departments that run
networks for a living.