Module 1 introduction to networking management 2s

What is Network Management ?• In general, network management is a service that employs a variety of tools applications and devices to assist human network of tools, applications, and dev

Module 1: Introduction to

Networking Management

Overview

• What is network management?

• Why manage network?

• Challenges in managing enterprise

networks

• Network management areas

• Implications for management

What is Network Management ?

• In general, network management is a service that employs a variety

of tools applications and devices to assist human network

of tools, applications, and devices to assist human network

managers in monitoring and maintaining the performance of

networks

• Network management means different things to different people In

some cases, it involves a solitary network consultant monitoring

network activity with an outdated protocol analyser In other cases,

network management involves a distributed database, auto-polling

of network devices, and high-end workstations generating real-time

graphical views of network topology changes and traffic

graphical views of network topology changes and traffic

*Ref CISCO Systems Website http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/nmbasics.htm#xtocid4

What is Network Management –

2

• Network management refers to the activities, methods,

procedures, and tools that pertain to the operation,

administration, maintenance and provisioning of networked

systems

• Functions performed as part of network management include:

– controlling, planning, allocating, deploying, coordinating and

monitoring the resources of a network,

– network planning, frequency allocation and predetermined traffic

routing to support load balancing,

– cryptographic key distribution, authorisation and security

management

– configuration management, fault management, performance

management, bandwidth management; and accounting

management

Why bother with Network

Performance Management ?

Typical Performance Metrics

• Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)

• Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) Mean Time to Repair (MTTR)

• Response Time

• Speed

• Percentage Availability

• Reliability

• Errored Seconds

Bit E R t (BER)

• Bit Error Rate (BER)

• Voice Quality

• Others ?

When things Fail

This is an example of the case where if any one device or

process fails the whole device or process has failed

When things Fail

This is an example of the case where if any one device or process fails

the whole device or process has failed

When things Fail

This is an example of

example of the case where all devices must fail for the whole

the whole device or process to fail

However !

Network Performance Management Costs Money

– Administrative Overheads

– Equipment

– Links and bearers

– Protocol Overheads

Processing and Software Overheads

– Processing and Software Overheads

– Etc.

The Process for Business Grade

Networking

(Cisco Systems, 2010)

Why Manage your Network?

• Managing the network overall:

Investments in faster servers better protocols high speed backbones

– Investments in faster servers, better protocols, high-speed backbones

and virtualised services have turned yesterday’s low-speed, data-only

networks into information technology platforms supporting a multitude of

business services

– The redundancy and rerouting designed into these networks has mostly

hidden actual hardware or circuit outages from end users

• Managing network performance:

– The bigger challenge is how to address the often-persistent intermittent

application degradations that represent a threat to revenue, customer

service and reputation

– The packets transporting business applications throughout a global

network can be leveraged for analysis to achieve the highest level of a

network operations maturity process

– The reward for using these packets as evidence and implementing a

mature management process for troubleshooting will be dramatic

reductions in mean time to restore (MTTR) application services

(Haggerty, 2008)

High Cost of Non-Responsiveness

• Corporations Can Lose Millions of Dollars in Just One Hour If a

Mission-Critical Application Becomes Unavailable or Does Not Run

Correctly, Quickly or Completely

Business Average US$ Cost per Hour

Brokerage Operations $6.45 Million

Credit Card Authorisation $2.6 Million

Airline Reservations $89,500

Source: Contingency Planning Research

How Much Management?

• Today’s computer and communications

software and hardware have very large

amounts of management capability built in.

• It is also possible to install additional

software and hardware and other tools for

the express purpose of more detailed

the express purpose of more detailed

management

5 Challenges in Managing

Enterprise Networks

• Lack of high-definition visibility

A minute is an eternity for applications like automated market trading and waiting

– A minute is an eternity for applications like automated market trading, and waiting

for medical images to appear can impact treatment options

• A unified network can no longer be managed as multiple traffic

silos

– In the modern, fully converged IP network, voice, video and data compete for

common resources and can affect one another’s –even if individual applications

seem to be working properly

• You cannot manage what you cannot see

– In dealing with service-oriented architecture-based applications, trouble-shooting

must start at the virtual service network level –not the physical network level

• Monitoring health of infrastructure elements is helpful

– But also depends on the interaction and communications between network

elements

• Must be able to identify business use vs recreational use vs

security threats

– Recreational use often presents itself as legitimate traffic from users to a legacy

management tool

The Impact of Unmanaged

Services

Network Outages

Cost money directly

• Cost money directly

– E.g banks, airlines, transaction services

• Cost money or Customers Indirectly

– E.g ISP’s, Telco’s etc.

Outages may ultimately cause an organisation

to go out of business

Views of Network Management

• CEO view

– financial management of corporate comms network g p

• management of orders, inventory, accounting information

• CIO view

– corporate budget

– end-user perspective

– providing more service with less money

• End User view

– require data comms infrastructure to be working at all

times

Outsourcing

• Work does not stop when outsourcing to

Service Providers

• No Service Providers will sign Unlimited

Liability Liquidated Damages contracts

• Network outages can kill companies

Network Management

Requirements

• Fault Management

• Accounting Management

• Configuration and Name Management

• Performance Management

• Security Management

Fault Management

• A fault is an abnormal condition that

requires management attention (or

action) to repair.

How do you define abnormal ?

How do you define abnormal ?

Setting the Threshold

• It is important to set the threshold for alarm

indications to an appropriate level so that

indications to an appropriate level, so that

significant faults and quality of service issues

can be dealt with without the network

manager becoming overloaded with the

relevant messages.

excessive network management messages

can actually degrade overall network

performance

Accounting Management

• Reasons for accounting management:

Internal charge backs on net ork se

– Internal charge backs on network use

– User(s) may be abusing access privileges

and burdening the network at the expense of

other users

– Users may be making inefficient use of the

network

– The network manager is in a better position to

plan for network growth if user activity is

Configuration Management

Concerned with:

• Concerned with:

– initialising a network and gracefully shutting

down part or all of the network

– maintaining, adding, and updating the

relationships among components and the

status of components themselves during

network operation

Adds, Moves and Changes

Security Management

• Concerned with:

– monitoring and controlling access to networks

– generating, distributing, and storing

encryption keys

– access to all or part of the network

management information

– collection, storage, and examination of audit

records and security logs

Performance Management

• Some typical issues of concern to the network manager

include:

– What is the level of capacity utilisation?

– Is there excessive traffic?

– Has throughput been reduced to unacceptable levels?

– Are there bottlenecks?

– Is response time increasing ?

– Are customers getting what they paid for ?

• Network managers need performance statistics to help

them plan, manage and maintain large networks

Web-based Network Management

• User interface using web technology

– HTML pages delivered via HTTP over TCP

– platform independence

– network management information stored on

web servers

Key challenges

• Shift to LANs and the Internet

– Large scale move from using mainframes and terminals to PCs, LANs and the Internet.

Future of network management lies in the successful management of multiple clients and servers over

• Future of network management lies in the successful management of multiple clients and servers over

LANs, BN’s, and Internet

• Focus on integration of organisational networks and applications Main

problems:

– Not all LANs use the same architecture

– More types of network technology used, the more complex network management becomes

• Integrating LANs WANs and Internet

• Integrating LANs, WANs and Internet

– Both LAN/Web and WAN managers to recognise that they no longer have total power

– Must adopt a written charter to define its purpose, operational philosophy, and long range

goals

– Must develop individual procedures to implement policies

(Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc)

Key Challenges…

• Integrating Voice & Data –Traditionally, traditional voice and

data networks (e.g., POTS and LANs) were handled by

separate managers

– Voice Communication Manager in Facilities Department:

• Supervised telephone switchboard, coordinated installation and

maintenance of the voice network

– Data Communication Manager (IT department):

• Installed own data circuit, installed and maintained computers

• Now, organisations realise benefits of integrating voice and

data management function

– Simplifies the network, and can lower network costs

– Eliminates one department

– Is now more typically found in network management

(Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc)

Improving performance

• General activities to improve performance that cut across the

different types of networks:

P li b d t S tti i it li i f t k

– Policy-based management-Setting priority policies for network

traffic in software and configures devices using QoS capabilities

in TCP/IP and/or ATM

• Example-Manager: Sets videoconferencing traffic as the highest priority

since delays will have the highest impact on the performance of that

application

– Server load balancing-Used to allocate incoming requests for

network servers and uses a separate load balancing server (or a

router/switch) with a special software

Service level agreements Signed between the organization

– Service-level agreements-Signed between the organization

and its service providers (ISP or common carriers)

• Specify the exact type of performance and fault conditions that the

organization will accept

• Examples-Availability must be 99% or higher

• Maximum allocable response time must be lower than 2 minutes

(Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc)

Cost Management

• One of the most

challenging g g

areas over the

past few years

– Traffic growing

more rapidly

than the

budget

– Managers are

forced to

provide greater

capacity at an

Sources of Cost

• Total Cost of Ownership

(TCO)

– A measure of how much

it costs per year to keep

one computer operating

– Includes cost of

• Repairs and

software/hardware

upgrades

• Support staff (maintain,

install administer etc)

• Training and technical

support

• Time “wasted” by the

user when problems

occur

(Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc)

Implications for Management

• Network management requires

– A good understanding of networking technologies

– An ability to work with end users and management

– An understanding of key elements driving network costs

– Requires special skill to explain the business value of the

networks to senior management

– Needed to justify increased cost of management

• Recommendations

– Develop strong relationships with only few vendorsDevelop strong relationships with only few vendors

– Purchase technologies that will provide strong network

management capabilities

– Use powerful design and management tools-Saves money in the

long run

(Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc)

• CA (2008) Strategic Planning for Network and Systems

Management, TechTargetWhite Paper, Available online: :

http://go.techtarget.com/r/4340222/3758610/1

• Cisco (2008) Network Management Basics, InInternetworking

Technology Handbook, Available online:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/internetworking/technology/

handbook/NM-Basics.html

• Haggerty, E (2008) Overcoming Today’s IP Network

Challenges, Newsfactor.com White Paper, Available online:

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=013000FA05

2E&page=1

• Wikipedia (2008) Network Management, Available online:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_management

References

• Stallings, W, 2005, Section 19.1 –‘Business Data Communications’, 5th

edn, Pearson Education Inc., New Jersey.

• Cisco Systems Inc, 2006, ‘Simple Network Management Protocol’,

Internetworking Technologies Handbook, Chapter 56, Cisco Systems Inc

www.Cisco.com.

• FitzGerald, J and Dennis, A, 2005, Chapter 13 –‘Business Data

Communications and Networking’, 8th edn, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New

Jersey.

• FitzGerald, J and Dennis, A, 2010, Chapter 12 –‘Business Data

Communications and Networking’, 10th edn, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New

Jersey.

T E Eddi B d M tt B 2006 ‘C i f SNMP V i 1 2

• Tang, E, Eddie, B and Matt, B 2006, ‘Comparison of SNMP Versions 1,2

and 3’;

• WindowsNetworkig.com n.d,‘Understanding the SNMP Protocol’

-www.windowsnetworking.com