September 2006 issue

Overcoming Today's Network Management
Challenges--What You Should Know

By Mary Shacklett

Network management tools have advanced to where they can span heterogeneous networks, protocols and equipment in a mixed communications environment of voice, video and data. The best of these systems accomplish this out of the box, with little or no customization. Nevertheless, a significant number of enterprises are still playing "catch up" with network management technology - with an end goal of being able to see everything on the network at both general and detailed levels in a single view.

This article discusses the current state of network management technology in enterprises, and then takes a look at trends and best practices in network management.

Current state of enterprise network management

Depending on their industry and their resources, companies have moved at different rates in network management--but all agree that older tools that used to do the trick must be embellished with new capabilities with the coming of new technologies and market forces like VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and on demand computing.

"We commonly see two groups of companies out there now," said Josh Stephens, director of research and development for SolarWinds, www.solarwinds.net, a network management solutions provider. "The first group of companies has made a conscious decision to move forward into formal network management systems, and has these systems in place today. They are now demanding more depth when they look at their data. They also want answers to questions like how often are specific groups of data are being used? They also want comprehensive access to data such as network traffic analysis and security logs. To get there, they require more sophisticated tools for detailed visibility and analysis... The second group of companies doesn't have formal network management in place, and that includes some Fortune 500 companies."

The bedrock of a sound network management practice is sound policies and procedures that both staff and software can apply. Unfortunately, many companies still do not have formal policies and procedures in place for network management.

"We often find that, if companies do have their network management policies and procedures defined, they find that significant rewriting is required to realign the strategy with today's networking environment," said SolarWinds' Stephens. "This is because initially many sets of corporate procedures are developed by outside consulting firms. They are tied to legacy systems, and are very general. When IT finds that the procedures are too high-level or don't apply to new systems, it has to re-draft them in terms that an everyday person performing daily functions can apply. Once again, this is why it is very important to thoroughly define your requirements up front-- not only for your network management software, but for your network management policies and procedures...

"Part of the initial investment that a company makes has to be in understanding the policies and procedures that are needed for its particular network operations at the detail level, whether these procedures address reliability, security, data management, or something else. It is these policies and procedures that form the backbone of your network actions, and that should be audited regularly to ensure that they are meeting all of the corporate goals for your network."

Once companies have their arms around their network management systems, including their policies and their procedures, most move to set goals for and manage network availability and traffic. From there, they move to quality of service (QoS), especially with voice-based traffic.

With the basic priorities secured, they must also keep an eye out for new communications trends that will affect their networks.

Shaping network management

Four key trends that are or will affect network management strategies are:

• Staff reductions in IT
• Heterogeneous computing environments
• Convergence
• On-demand computing

Staff reductions in IT

Companies (and IT) are reducing their numbers of employees. In IT, this means that there are fewer sites with dedicated resources for network management. Most organizations have chosen to address this quandary with network engineers who have a more generic understanding of the network, instead of niche specialists. At the same time, companies are moving away from complicated network frameworks and toward solutions that are easy to deploy, use and maintain out of the box...

Heterogeneous computing environments

A corporate network management solution should be able to monitor and manage in a heterogeneous computing environment, meaning that the management solution should operate using standard interfaces, with some capability for customization in unusual environments.

"We use standard interfaces to work with virtually any type of equipment, and we supply templates for customers who use very esoteric equipment that some of our customers use for which we supply templates," Stephens said. "All of our templates are written in plain language, so there is no need for programming or scripting. This allows users of all levels to use the software."

Convergence

Enterprises are preparing for or have already implemented voice/data/video convergence. The network management software must be capable of managing all of these converged communications. By the 2007-08 timeframe, Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) will also be a market force.

In an FMC scenario, tracking all mobile and remote devices along with their data usage; administering security and other policies to these devices in the field; and being able to "lock down" mobile devices that get lost in the field will all be important.

On-demand computing

On-demand computing is a growing issue for both companies and service providers. Stephens mentioned a large retail chain customer whose on-demand service provider also uses SolarWind's network management products.

"One of the main questions for the enterprise are how do I plan for extra capacity during the peak holiday sales season - and how do I know that I am not overpaying for the service?" Stephens asked. "In this case, both the enterprise and the service provider are independently monitoring their own networks - but each has end to end visibility of the other's network. On the service provider's side, this network management system is partitioned so that any given customer can only see its network, and not the networks of other clients."

Planning and implementation considerations

The network management field is changing rapidly, with most enterprises taking steps to enhance or adopt industrial-strength network management software and practices.

For those in planning and implementation stages, here are several recommendations:

Before implementing a network management solution, carefully evaluate your needs. This begins with a look at your IT organization. For example, will you have dedicated network management staff? Or a group or people who watch the network, but who also have other responsibilities? Do you need someone to physically monitor the network on a 24/7 basis? Do you plan to dedicate a team to maintaining the network management system?

Second, assess what you are trying to audit on your network. How far down the network infrastructure do you need to go? Is it to a WAN (wide area network) link, or a server or an application? Based on that, select a product that will get you to that level.

Implement a network management system with an open architecture that is modular. In this way, you can add on easily when new technologies or technology initiatives come along.

For any network management solution, make sure that the fault management process meets your needs. Fault Management can pertain to nodes, applications, interfaces - or to anything that is critical to your network. Also set up your alerting mechanism for when you have outages.

Understand how big your network really is. "This is important because many of our customers don't realize how big their networks really are," said Stephens. "They may think that they have 500 network elements when they really have 8,000 or more. This is important to understand before you set the scope for your project."

Finally, don't forget compliance. No matter who you are, you have compliance requirements to meet. Build compliance into your network and your network management from day one--and be sure that your network management vendor has a platform that will support your compliance requirements. In the future, there will be many more internal policies that businesses will need to implement for compliance--and they will extend far beyond those of Sarbanes Oxley.

Mary Shacklett is a PCI contributing editor specializing in technology and enterprise IT issues. She is president of Transworld Data, a business strategic planning and information technology company in Olympia, Wash. Shacklett may be contacted by e-mail at TWD_Transworld@msn.com.

This article appears in the September 2006 issue of Enterprise Networks & Servers.