Chapter 3

The Basic Ingredients of Network Management

Interconnection
The network being managed must be interconnected
 Allows communication between devices
Network management relies upon an interconnected network
to allow the problems to be transferred to the manager
The organization of the network is most important for the
proper running of the network
Basic components of network management
 Management support organization
 Management systems
 Management network
 Network devices
The Network Device
The managed devices are called network elements
(NE)
Elements of the management process
 Management agent
 Management information
Management Agent
Must have a way for the network device to communicate with
the managing system
Management communication is asymmetrical
 Managing application is the “manager” (client)
 Network device is the “agent” (server)
The software that connect these two together is the
management agent
The management agent consists of three parts
 Management interface handles communication
 Management information base holds data views
 Core agent logic translates between the interface, MIB, and
actual device
Management Information
Many attributes of the network device is useful to the
management of the network
 Software version needs to be known
 Use of ports must be assessed
 Environmental data helps with overheating
Fans must be monitored
 Packet counters need to be monitored
 Protocol timeout patterns must be configured
 Firewall rules must be configured to define security
policy
Managed Objects (MOs)
A real-world aspect of a network device
 Could be a fan, port, firewall rule, etc.
MIB in SNMP
Parameter in a CLI
Any other method to define the object
Not all parts (parameters) of the object are useful in a
given situation
 Abstraction is used to determine the usable details
Real Resources
The underlying object that an MO represents
Different uses for the real resource result in different
abstractions for the resource (and different MOs)
No matter what you call the real resource or how you
collect data about it, it is always the same real resource
 Example no matter how you view it, a dog is still a dog
Management Information Base
MIBs are the collection of attributes (parameters) that
are exposed to the network element’s managing systems
 Consists of all information that a management tool needs
to know about a device
 Can be thought of as a conceptual store of information
Translate this to the fields of a database
Although this database can be queried, changed and
deleted, it is connected to the real resource
 Some changes to the MIB for the real resource can change
the way that the real resource works in the network
Basic Management Ingredients II
A successful network consists of three parts
 The management support organization
 The network (or the real world)
 The management technology that acts as a buffer
between the two
Management agents
Management systems
Management protocols that allow a conversation between the
two
The Management System
Provide the tools to manage the network
 These tools were described in chapter 2
Management application = management system
Management system is not the same as a host
 Can be spread over many hosts
Scalability
Robustness
Manager Role
A manager (role) is not a management system
(application)
 One management system may play agent and manager
 One management system may be the agent for one function
and the manager for another
Data may be passed from one application to another
To be effective, the management system must be able to
“talk” to its network element(s)
 It is the consumer of the network element’s output
 Although the network element has its own MIB, often the
management system has a database of network elements
that it manages
Manager Role (cont)
Management agent is a proxy for the real device
Management system is a proxy for the real world
The two actually see their proxy systems as the real
thing
Management System’s Reason for Being
Exists only for the purpose of network management
The network can run fine without it
 Quality of service (Q0S) suffers however
The Management Network
Is a distributed application that runs over the network
Management network provides the interconnection
between the network management system and the
network elements
 That is, the managers and agents
Production network carries the traffic for the users
Can be different physical networks or a combined network
Management networks directly communicate with the
network elements
Production networks use the network elements
The Management Network (cont)
The Agents run on the network elements as apps
 E. g. Routing software
 SNMP
Agents generally have their own port
 SNMP is 161
Networking for Management
Network elements most often are connected to the
management system through their port(s)
 Routers use the serial (console) interface
 This is called a craft terminal
Connects to a laptop or
Uses a terminal server
 Can connect using multiple ports to multiple network elements
 Most have an IP address and Ethernet interface allowing for
connections through the network
 Creates a simple management network
 Biggest problem is keeping track of which network element is
connected to which terminal server port
Networking for Management
 Another connection method is to use an Ethernet port
 Creates an IP-addressed port for management purposes only
 Can also use a port that is shared with other traffic
 Called in-band management
Pros/Cons of a Dedicated Mgmt Net
Quickly creates a sophisticated network dedicated to
network management
Can be designed in two ways
 Management network is overlaid on the production
network
 The two can be separate networks
Which to use?
 It depends on the network, design, and devices
Pros/Cons (cont)
Advantages of using a dedicated management network
 Reliability
 Interference avoidance
 Ease of network planning
 Security
Disadvantages
 Cost and overhead
 No reasonable alternative (no way to easily make a
dedicated management network)
Pros/Cons (cont)
Will we need a management management network?
 Management network will provide management for its
separate network elements as well as the production net
Because cost is a big drawback, we can use a hybrid
management system for some networks
The Management Support Organization
We need a support organization (people) to use the
management system and technology associated with it
Operational support system (OSS)
 The combination of the technical and the organizational
aspects
Managing the Management
Tasks required of the organization
 Monitoring the network for failures
 Diagnosing failures and communications outages
 Planning for new services and user changes
 Keeping the network performance acceptable
 Planning network upgrades
 Planning network topology and future additions
Managing the Management
Structure the organizational support by
 Analyzing the tasks required of the staff
 Determine the workflows associated with each one
 Divide up this information into units and assign
responsibility to staff for each
Make sure that dependencies between different units are found
and planned for
 One example of units
Network planning
Network operations
Network administration
 The only group to physically interact with the network elements
Customer management
Managing the Management (cont)
Network operator – generic staff member
Various units are not entirely independent
 One feeds off the other’s output producing new output
Telecom success relies upon efficiency which is derived
from optimization of the organization
Larger IT companies embrace a lot of the Telecom
Smaller IT companies and departments have to farm
out some or most of their requirements to 3rd parties
Managing the Management (cont)
Requirements to have a smooth-running network
 Good organizational structure
 Clear network management responsibilities
 Established processes and policies
Includes necessary documentation
 Auditing and personnel auditing trails
 Network documentation
 Reliable backup/restore procedures
 Emphasis on keeping the structure secure
Inside the Network Operations Center
Location of the real resources is important for larger
companies
The NOC is the place from which large companies’
networks are run
Houses the management systems
Often has real resources
Really large global companies use many NOCs
 Use the “follow the sun” methodology
Sometimes NOCs are referred to as central offices (CO)
 Sometimes COs are terminals for the network
Chapter Summary
Network devices are agents, management systems are
managers, MIBs (or similar) hold the conceptual data
store and real resources are the managed objects
The management network connects the manager to the
managed objects
 It can be dedicated or run on the production network
 Dedicated management networks add significant cost
Besides the physical part of the network, organizational
segments (staff) are needed
 The organization is often divided up according to function
 The management center is called the NOC