Network Management

byWoraphon Lilakiatsakun

Course details

Midterm 30 % Final 40 % LAB 20 % Assignment 10 %

Books Network Management Fundamental

Alexander Clemm Cisco press

LANs to WAN complete management guide

SNMP V3, Rmon1 and 2 William Stallings

Defining Network Management

Network management refers to the activities, methods, procedures and tools that pertain to the operation, administration, maintenance, and provision of networked systems

Operation – keeping the network up and running smoothly Monitoring the network to spot

problems asap. Administration – keeping track of

resources in the network and how the are assigned Documentation

Maintenance – concern with performing repairs and upgrades (involving corrective and preventive) When a router need a new OS When a new switch should be added

Provisioning – concern with configuring resources in the network to support a given service

Organization Network Management Networkuses manages

Organization NetworkOperates

Administersmaintainsprovisions

Systems and ApplicationsActivities and Operational

Procedures

Support

Use and leverage

Network Management

Important of Network Management Not just work ! But it is needed carefully

planning Let’s consider in term of service provider

perspective Who can operate the network at the lowest cost Who provides better customer experience

(minimal turnaround time) Who can maintain and guarantee the highest

QoS Who can roll out services fast and efficiently

Similar factor to businesses that run their own networks Cost saving in operating the network

benefit the enterprise (COST) Fast turnaround time to deploy new

services and high QoS can translate to competitive advantage (Quality and Revenue)

Cost

One of the main goals of network management is to make operations more efficient

and operator more productive Ultimate goal is to reduce TCO

(Total Cost of Ownership) that is associated with the network

Total Cost of Ownership

Operational Cost

people , electricity ,physical space

Equipment Cost

amortized over equipment lifetime

TC

O(T

otal Cost of O

wnership)

Operating cost can be higher than the cost of amortizing the network equipment May be a factor of 2 or more

Let ‘s consider Operating cost 200,000/year Equipment cost 300,000 (amortized

100,000/year) Efficiently operation can save 50,000 /year

Make business more competitive

How ? Network testing and troubleshooting tools

More quickly identify and isolate problems System that facilitate turn-up of service and automate provisioning

System that facilitate turn-up of service and automate provisioning

Reduce human error Performance reporting tool and bottleneck

analysis Minimize the required investment Maximize the “bang for the buck”

Other ? Reduce skill level Reduce in investment in training

Quality

In term of network services and communication Bandwidth – use efficiently delay - minimize Reliability – traffic can go through

steadily availability - working most of the time

Redundancy (in case of equipments fail)

How ? System for the end to end provisioning of a

service automate many steps that be configured

Less error prone / Misconfiguration Easy to troubleshoot and fix

Performance trend analysis Help network managers detect potential network

bottlenecks Take preventive action before problems occur

Alarm correlation capabilities Faster identification of the root cause of observed

failure Minimize time of actual outage

If quality is not met Lost revenue

Customers will change the operator Increased network cost from

inefficient utilization or network resources More network equipments to support a

certain level of service Higher operation cost

To fix the problems

Revenue Open up market opportunities ex. Service provisioning systems

Reduce time start from a service is ordered to a service actually turned up

Translate to quicker time to revenue generation

Augment a service offering management-related capabilities To configure service features over Web (ex.

For voice: caller ID) Attract more customers

Players in Network Management space

Enterprise ITDepartment

Service provider

End Users

Users ofNetwork Management

Equipment Vendor

Third-partyApplication Vendor

System Integrator

Providers ofNetwork Management

Network Management Users The Service Provider

Telecommunication services Telephone, voice mail

Data services Leased line, Internet connectivity

Many communication services are being commoditized

To win the marketplace Turn up and roll out the services fastest Offer best service level at lowest cost

The Enterprise IP Department In charge of running the network inside

an enterprise Can be thought of as mini service

provider but … No generate income , it is a cost

center Focus on providing services at the lowest

cost

Only one customer: the enterprise End users within the enterprise have

no choice Not core business of the enterprise Enterprise IT departments are not

regulated So, not much for investing in

management applications and tools

The End User

Refer to “Network Manager” whose roles might be the following Network administrator – configure

network devices / trouble shoot (remotely)

Craft Technician – fix problems (on site) Help desk representatives – take user

calls and support Network planner – plan topology

Network Management Provider The Equipment Vendor Before not focus on management

features Recently, capability to manage

networking equipment is increasingly being recognized

In some cases, a management software might bundle with the equipment

Third-party Application Vendor not own the equipment Multivendor support

The system Integrator Provide services to integrate a set of

management applications with a specific network and operations support environment

Technical Challenges

Application Characteristics Scale Cross-section of technologies Integration

Application characteristics Transaction-based system characteristics Provisioning applications

Drive desired configurations down to network devices

To perform provisioning, a management system typically send requests to set of network elements and processes the responses These interactions constitute transactions

Network and Network element

Network Provisioning

Interrupt driven system characteristics

An important aspect is to keep track of the health of the network

Alarm monitoring applications can receive and process such alarms, alerting the network manager to take action properly

Real time app or near real time app

Alarm monitoring

Number crunching system characteristics

Network performance analysis identify bottleneck Assess whether service levels are being

met Evaluate utilization of network resources Understanding traffic pattern Trends for planning future network

rollout

Scale

Operations concurrency How to maximize concurrency in

communication network element Instead of sequential process – send a

request/wait/ then send again Send several requests to network

element at once

Impact of operations concurrency on Operations throughput

Pic 1-12

Event-propagation How to allow events to propagate

efficiently to the system and update state

After an event is received, the management app. has to do Quickly identify where it belongs What its implication is What else might be affected

Scoping How to access and manipulate large

chunks of management information efficiently and through single operation

Distribution and addressing How to allow processing to be

distributed across different system How to provide for location

transparency and efficient addressing

Impact of bulk operations on management efficiency Fig 1-13

Cross-section technologies Information Modeling

Require expertise with object-oriented analysis and design techniques such as Unified Modeling Language (UML)

Databases Require persistent storage such as to

store configuration information with which to provision the network and services

Distributed system Management applications are

distributed applications. Communication protocols

Management apps have to communicate with other systems

Network element and other management apps

User interfaces –human factors Other considerations

Integration Fig 1-15

Management integration Fig 1-16

Organization and Operations challenge Functional division of Tasks

Network planning – topology /nodes/links Network deployment- to install equipment Network maintenance and planning –

perform software and hardware upgrade Workforce management Inventory management Order management – take order from

customers Help desk Billing

Geographical distribution Support and manage globally

Operation Procedures and contingency planning Comprehensive operational procedure

and guidelines and documenting are needed

Part of procedure should deal with contingent planning

What should be done when a virus outbreak inside the network or under denial of service attack

Business challenges Placing a value on network management

Return of investment models are needed but it is hard to quantify

Feature Vs Product Uneven competitive landscape

Timing – 3rd party management vendor tends to lag behind

Economics Customer expectation