Network Management

As soon as a device on your network sends a packet to another device, it is the network manager’s job to ensure the packet arrives at the destination(s) in a timely manner.

Network management encompasses a number of diverse disciplines. From network cabling, network design, capacity planning, protocol analysis, network monitoring, network simulation, network troubleshooting and so on.

Networks, in all but the smallest businesses, are highly complex. The demands a business place on a network change constantly over time. New offices are opened, new applications deployed and yet the network is expected to cope seamlessly.

Networks, like telephones, are just expected to work. This can mean that networks often don’t get the attention they deserve. It can mean that network management is not viewed as a particularly glamorous job, nor receive the funding it deserves.

Network management can be broken down into a number of functional areas.

Network Management Functional Areas

Network management can be broken down into five functional areas (as defined by ISO the International Organization for Standardization.) It is rare for all of the functional areas to be covered, especially in small/medium sized networks.

Fault Management

Discover faults in network devices, the network & it’s operation. The more sophisticated tools attempt to discover the root cause of the fault & possibly take corrective action.

Configuration Management

When more than one network manager works on a network it can be difficult to know the exact state of a network device’s configuration. When only one person works on a configuration it is easy to know what changes have been made because you must have made the change. At most you need a configuration change log book to jog your memory.

As soon as more than one person is involved things start to get more complicated. When lots of people are involved things become very complex indeed.

Network configuration management is an attempt to bring order to network device configuration changes. Network configuration management attempts to make it easier to deploy new equipment, deploy/roll back configuration changes & even shut down network devices.

Accounting

The ability to measure the network activity of a group of users can be very useful. Some organisations charge departments for using the network.

Performance Management

Measuring the utilisation of a network can help predict future traffic levels & help capacity planning. Measuring error rates can also help pinpoint trouble spots.

It can also be useful to gauge the nature of the traffic running on a network. Some users may use applications they are not authorised to run. Some applications, like p2p downloading & video conferencing can impact the performance of your network.

Security Management

Security management attempts to limit access to network devices only to those people who are actually authorised. A good tool will also notify the network manager when unauthorised access attempts are made.

Furthermore, notification of rogue device access to the network can help prevent security breeches.