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Network Management
by
Woraphon Lilakiatsakun
Course details
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Midterm 30 %
Final 40 %
LAB 20 %
Assignment 10 %
Books
• Network Management Fundamental
– Alexander Clemm
– Cisco press
• SNMP V3, Rmon1 and 2
– William Stallings
Definition of 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
• Operation deals with keeping the network
(and the services that network provides) up
and running smoothly
• It includes monitoring the network to spot
problems ASAP before a user is affected
Administration
• 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.
– Monitoring
– Documentation
Maintenance
• Maintenance is concerned with performing repairs
and upgrades
– When a line card must be replaced
– When a router needs a new OS image with a patch
– When a new switch should be added to the network
• It also involves corrective and preventive proactive
measures
– Adjusting device parameters as needed
Provisioning
• Provisioning is concerned with configuring
resources in the network to support a given
service.
– Setting up the network so that a new customer
can receive voice service
Organization
Network
Operates
Administers
maintains
provisions
Organization
Network Management
uses
Network
manages
Network Management
Support
Activities and Operational
Procedures
Systems and Applications
Use and leverage
Related terminology
• Organization is the one who relates to network
management function (as described)
• Network is the communication networks
• Network management system is the system to
provide network management functions
– Systems and applications / Activities and operational
procedures
– Manager/Agent
Important of Network
Management (1)
• 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
Important of Network
Management (2)
• 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 and minimize TCO
(Total Cost of Ownership) that is associated
with the network
Total Cost of Ownership (1)
• Operational cost
• Equipment cost
– Amortized over several
years
Operational Cost
people , electricity ,
physical space
Equipment Cost
amortized over equipment lifetime
TCO
(Total Cost of Ownership)
– Operating personnel
– Electricity
– Physical space
– Operation support
infrastructure
Total Cost of Ownership (2)
• Operating cost can be higher than the cost of
amortizing the network equipment
– May be a factor of 2 or more
– After a few years, TCO will be dominated by operating cost
• Let ‘s consider
– Operating cost 200,000 Baht/year
– Equipment cost 300,000 Baht (amortized 100,000/year)
– Efficiently operation can save 50,000 baht /year
• Make business more competitive
Total Cost of Ownership (2)
How to save operating cost (1)
• Network testing and troubleshooting tools
– More quickly identify and isolate problems
– Automating troubleshooting for routine problems
enables personnel to focus on the really tough issues
• System that facilitate turn-up of service and
automate provisioning
– Reduce human error because most of steps required
to enable a service for an end user can be completed
by automating system
How to save operating cost (2)
• Performance reporting tool and bottleneck
analysis
– Allocate network resources to where they are
needed most
• Minimize the required investment
• Maximize the “bang for the buck”
• Other ?
– Reduce skill level of the network operators
• Reduce in investment in training and hiring
Quality
• Getting users have good experiences for using
services.
– Bandwidth – use efficiently
– delay - minimize
• Service providers need to emphasize on
– Reliability
• Traffic can go through steadily
• Services can run without any problems
– Availability - working most of the time
• Redundancy (in case of equipments fail)
How to improve the quality (1)
• System for the end to end provisioning of a
service automates many steps that be
configured
– More efficient (provide service faster) and less
error prone / Misconfiguration (operators less
involve)
• Misconfiguration can result in lower network
service availability and reliability
• Hard to troubleshooting and slow to fix
How to improve the quality (2)
• Performance trend analysis
– Help network managers detect potential network
bottlenecks
– Take preventive action before problems occur
– Improve the level of service being delivered such as
• Bandwidth that is effectively available to users
• Delay that is introduced in the networks
• 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 networking cost from inefficient
utilization or network resources
– More network equipments to support a certain level of
service
– More space is required for new equipments
• Higher operation cost
– To fix the problems
Revenue (1)
• Open up market opportunities
• Service provisioning systems
– Reduce turn on service time
• start from a service is ordered to a service actually turned up
• Increase capability of revenue generation and satisfying the
user
• Augment a service offering management-related
capabilities
– Provide user to configure their service features over
Web.
– Attract more customers
Revenue (2)
• Make certain services possible
– Some services need to operate at lower cost so
the operation must be worked efficiently
– Competition between ISP/Mobile phone provider
Players in Network Management
space
Enterprise IT
Department
Equipment Vendor
Service provider
Third-party
Application Vendor
End Users
System Integrator
Users of
Network Management
Providers of
Network Management
The service provider
• The Service Provider
– Telecommunication services - Telephone, voice mail
– Data services - Leased line, Internet connectivity
– Application services providers - ???
• Running networks is the core of their business
– The network management is really important to keep business
alive
• 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 IT Department (1)
• The Enterprise IT Department
– In charge of running the network inside an enterprise
• Providing the enterprise with all its internal communication needs
– 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
The Enterprise IT Department (2)
• 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 the persons who keep network
running “Network Manager” whose roles
might be the following
– Network administrator – configure network
devices / troubleshoot (remotely)
– Craft Technician – fix problems (on site)
– Help desk representatives – take user calls and
support
– Network planner – design the network, plan
the topology
The Equipment Vendor
• Recently, capability to manage networking
equipment is increasingly being recognized as
competitive differentiator
• Management function is a part of system rather than
out of box
• The equipment vendor can set high price for a
special management function.
• In some cases, a management software might bundle
with the equipment
Third-party Application Vendor
• Benefits
– Multivendor support
• Flexible to networks that are using different vendors
• Drawbacks
– Not own the equipment
• Some features can not be supported
The system Integrator
• For large enterprise, no one tool or application
can do it all
• Provide services to integrate a set of
management applications with a specific
network and operations support environment
Challenges relating to network
management systems
• Technical challenges
• Organization and operation challenges
• Business challenges
Technical challenges
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Application Characteristics
Scale
Cross-section of technologies
Integration
Application characteristics (1)
• Transaction-based system characteristics (requestresponse)
– Provisioning applications - it drives desired configurations
down to network devices
– To perform provisioning, a management system typically
send requests to set of network elements and processes
the responses returned from the network
– To support dozens of different equipment types and
technologies each App. Require a distinct set of
parameters
Application characteristics (2)
Provisioning System
Application characteristics (3)
• 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
• It is not easy! to keep network operators up to date
with the states of thousands of network devices
Application characteristics (4)
Alarm monitoring
Application characteristics (5)
• Number-crunching system characteristics
• Network performance analysis
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Identify bottlenecks
Assess whether service levels are being met
Evaluate utilization of network resources
Understanding traffic pattern
Analyze trends for planning future network rollout
• It requires
– collecting large volumes of data
– Large numbers of data points collected continuously
over different period of time
Scale (1)
• Need to be carefully considered at the first
place
• 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
Scale (2)
• Pic 1-12
Impact of operations concurrency on Operations throughput
Scale (3)
• 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
– Quickly identify where it belongs
– What its implication is
– What else might be affected
Scale (4)
• Scoping
– How to access and manipulate large chunks of
management information efficiently and through
single operation without the need for tedious
incremental operations
Scale (5)
• Fig 1-13
Impact of bulk operations on management efficiency
Scale (6)
• Distribution and addressing
– How to allow processing to be distributed across
different systems
– How to provide for location transparency and
efficient addressing
Scale (7)
• Most network management providers claim that
their management apps are scalable
• To be comparable, the following parameters are
checked
– Management operation throughput
• per time unit with stated assumption on the nature of operation
/ the number and complexity of parameters / the number of
network element involved
– Event throughput
• Per time unit , maximum throughput and sustained raw receipt
of events
– Network synchronization capacity
• How many network elements an application can synchronize
with (retrieve information in a unit of time)
Cross-section technologies (1)
• Information Modeling
– EX. Object-oriented analysis and design
techniques such as Unified Modeling Language
(UML)
• Databases
– Ex. persistent storage such as to store
configuration information with which to
provision the network and services
Cross-section technologies (2)
• Distributed system
– To meet requirement for scale as well as for
reliability and availability, managing system
need to be distributed
– EX. Global management operations that can
shift the main management load among
operation center
Cross-section technologies (3)
• Communication protocols
– Management apps have to communicate with other
systems by management protocols
– Thus, management protocols need to be well understood
• User Interfaces
– Make operators performing their task efficiently
– Also preventing operational errors
Cross-section technologies (4)
• Other consideration
• Specific requirements for various services might be taken into
account
– Ex. Management of a voice network and management of an optical
transport network have many aspects in commons
• Topologies need to be displayed on a map
• Devices must be monitored for alarms
– some aspects are completely different.
• Voice network requires management of the dial plan
• Optical network involve managing how optical links can carry different
wavelengths
• Finally, understanding network provider’s workflow are
required along with how the management system fits in the
overall operation structure
Integration (1)
• A network management system might consist
of
– Different applications used to monitor a network
and to provision services
– Equipment from different vendors , each of which
may come with its own software
Integration (2)
• Fig 1-15
Integration (3)
Management integration
Organization and Operations
challenge (1)
• Functional division of Tasks (1)
– Network planning – topology /nodes/links
– Network deployment - to install equipment
– Network operation – to monitor the network
for any problems, failures and issues with
performance
– Network maintenance and maintenance
planning – to perform equipment and software
upgrades provision services and tune network
parameters
Organization and Operations
challenge (2)
• Functional division of Tasks (2)
– Workforce management - to manage maintenance and
deployment personnel
– Inventory management – to keep track of what is and
what should be in the network and to maintain spare
equipment
– Order management – take orders for services from
customers, dispatch requests to get the services
provisioned and track their execution
– Customer help desk – to provide level 1 support (take
calls from customers, answer simple questions, direct
customers to the proper person)
– Billing and billing dispute resolution – to charge
customers and collect revenue
Organization and Operations
challenge (3)
• Geographical distribution
– Support and manage globally
• Operation Procedures and contingency planning
– Because a network provider need to ensure that the network is
managed in an orderly fashion and must stay in control
– Introducing comprehensive operational procedure and guidelines
and documenting is an important tool.
– This establishes a process that helps ensure that activities can be
tracked in an orderly fashion
– Documented guidelines ensure a consistent way of dealing with
network management tasks and problems
– Part of the operational procedures should deal with contingency
planning
• What should be done when a virus outbreak inside the network or
under denial of service attack
Business challenges (1)
• Placing a value on network management
– ROI model is needed but it is hard to quantify
– In term of equipment vendors, it is difficult to recoup
investment in management application development than
investment in networking feature development
– In term of a service provider, the operational cost might
actually exceed the cost of the equipment
• Good network management can save operational cost
Business challenges (2)
• Feature Vs Product
– How to determine right level of investment (about
management function) for the product
– As a cost factor, the challenge is
• management apps. must be kept to the minimum investment but
not jeopardize equipment sales
– As a competitive differentiator, the challenge is
• how to show that business can be improved and competitive
Business challenges (3)
• Uneven competitive landscape (between 3rd party and
equipment vendor to develop management application)
– Timing – 3rd party management vendor tends to lag behind the
equipment vendor
– Economics – management software might be included in the product
• To be competitive ,the 3rd party should provide additional value such as
support for multiple vendors
– Customer expectation
• Economies of scale
• The area in favor of the management vendor
– Ties management software with business process Ex. Billing software
Network Management Tools (1)
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Device Manager and craft terminal
Network Analyzers
Element Managers
Management Platforms
Collectors and Probes
Intrusion Detection Systems
Performance Analysis Systems
Network Management Tools (2)
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Alarm Management systems
Trouble Ticket Systems
Work Order Systems
Workflow Management Systems and Workflow
Engines
Inventory System
Service Provisioning Systems
Service Order-Management Systems
Billing System
Device Manager – ciscoview (1)
Device Manager – ciscoview (2)
Network Analyzer -MaaTech (1)
Network Analyzer -MaaTech (2)