Network Management by Woraphon 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

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

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

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 – 3 rd party management vendor tends to lag behind Economics Customer expectation