Lesson 14: Network Management Basics

In this lesson we going learn about the network Management and why the network to be Managed.

The Agenda

- Why Is Network Management Important?

- The Network Management Process

- Network Management Basics

- Management Intranet Basics

- Policy Management Basics

Why Is Network Management Important?

Today the networks have become a critical piece of the business process so Downtime costs money and if they Efficient networks, that means additional revenue.

Network management is a proactive tool and it gives many advantages like:

- Provides visibility into current network operations
- Reduces network cost of ownership
- Leverages IT personnel

Where Are Most Customers Today?

Today most of the customers like to have networkes which with new technologies like Performing ad hoc device management on evolving networks and technologies. Struggling with the transition to proactive, business-oriented service-level management.

Network Management Process

The following figger gives you the clear view of how should be the Management Process done.

There are some three staps which are more importance when we conducting a Management Segment

Plan / Design:

- Build history
- Baseline
- Trend analysis
- Capacity planning
- Procurement
- Topology design

Implement / Deploy

- Installation and configuration
- Address management
- Adds, moves, changes
- Security
- Accounting/billing
- Assets/inventory
- User management
- Data management

Oparate / Maintain

- Define thresholds
- Monitor exceptions
- Notify
- Correlate
- Isolate problems
- Troubleshoot
- Bypass/resolve
- Validate and report

Network Management Basics

Let's take a close look of Network Management Basics.

Network Management Architecture

In a network management system, the system manages the argent which are dirived from the main system like Management Database, with the help of Network Management Protocol,which are cleared by the figger.

Network Management Building Blocks

Following are the Management Building Bloks of Natwork Management System.

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)

this is a protocol which is comming under the management building blocks. this use to provide status massages and problemreports across a network to the Management system. SNMP uses Use DAtagram Protocol as a transport mechanism. It employs different terms from TCP/IP, working with managers and agents instead of clients, and servers. An agent usually provides information about a device, the manager communicates across a network with the agents.

there are two vertions of SNMP they:

SNMP V2

- Addressed performance issues

SNMP V3

- Multilingual implementations (coexistence of versions)
- Enhanced security

SNMP Message Types

SNMP messages are the request and responses between the Manager and Agent. Once the Agent gets a request from the manager as a MIB variable, then Agent gives manager a response as the same variable. And also Trap for the unsolicited alarm conditions.

Management Information Base (MIB)

MIB is a database of objects for a specific device within the network agent.

Types of MIBs:

MIB I
- 114 standard objects
- Objects included are considered essential for either fault or configuration management

MIB II
- Extends MIB I
- 185 objects defined

Other standard MIBs
- RMON, host, router, ...

Proprietary MIBs
- Extensions to standard MIBs

Sample MIB Variables

Network Management System (NMS)

NMS playies the important rall at the Management system, That is it Polls agents on network and Receives traps, Gathers and displays information about the status around the Network and it is the Platform for integration

Example: HP OpenView

Campus Agent Technologies

This is an technology which is comming under the NMS to manage the agents and this going to provaid the customers the industry standards like

SNMP: Device get and sets
RMON, RMON2: Traffic monitoring
ILMI: ATM discovery

which most related with the cisco extensions like,

CDP: Adjacent neighbor discovery
ISL: VLAN trunking
DISL: Error-free ISL enablement
VTP: Automated VLAN setup
VQP: Dynamic station ID

Management Traffic Overhead

If a NMS faced a problem with the Traffic Overhead then there should be some reasion, to reduce this the NMS should set polling interval wisely betwen the agents and the bandwidth issues should lower than befor on lower-speed links

Example:

1 manager, multiple managed devices
64-Kb access link
1 request = 1-KB packet (avg.)
1 poll = getreq + getresp = 2 KB
Assume 1 object polled/managed device

Remote MONitoring (RMON)

RMON or Remote MONitoring MIB was designed to manage the network itself. MIB I/II could be used to check each machines network performance, but would lead to large amounts of bandwidth for management traffic. Using RMON you see the wire view of the network and not just a single host’s view. RMON has the capability to set performance thresholds and only report if the threshold is breached, again helping to reduce management traffic (effectively distributing the network management smarts!). RMON agents can reside in routers, switches, and dedicated boxes. The agents will gather up to 19 groups of statistics. The agents then forward this information upon request from a client.

Because RMON agents must look at every frame on the network, performance is a must. Early RMON agent’s performance could be classified based on processing power and memory.

Network Monitoring with RMON

Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP)

Automatic Network Discovery. and the following are the activities of CDP:

- CDP agent polls neighbor devices
- Physical interface, IP address, chassis type exchanged
- Each device maintains “CDP” cache table
- Tables are read by management application
- Applicable across frame networks
- ILMI for ATM networks

Inter-Switch Link (ISL)

Maintains Switch-to-Switch Performance and the following are the activities of ISL:

- Establishes membership through ASICs
- Eliminates lookups and tables
- Labels each packet as received (i.e., “packet tagging”)
- Transports multiple VLANs across links
- Maps effectively across mixed backbones
- Protocol, end-station independent

Virtual Trunking Protocol (VTP)

Activities of VTP:

- Assigns virtual interfaces across backbone
- Maintains and manages global mapping table
- Based on Layer 2 periodic advertisements
- Reduces setup time and improves reliability
- VTP pruning enhances VLAN efficiencies

Management Intranet Basics

Traditional Management Model Can’t Keep Pace

Here are the reasons, Why the Traditional Management Model can not keep pace when the management Intranet Basics

- Focused point products
- Hierarchical platforms
- Minimal integration
- Proprietary solutions and APIs
- Product conflicts—What works with what?

New Model of Integration— Management Intranet

Multiple Web-accessible management tools can be hyperlinked, and management information shared easily with the DMTF's Common Information Model (CIM) standard. Cisco's approach to Web-based enterprise management goes beyond mere browser access to embrace the total rearchitecting and reengineering of its management products as true network-based applications. It also includes leadership in creation and adoption of standards such as CIM for multivendor management data integration. Cisco is aggressively applying Internet technologies and standards to create comprehensive enterprise management that easily integrates with leading third-party tools and enterprise system and service management frameworks through the Cisco Management Connection.

CIM Data Exchange

For the Web model to deliver substantial value for the management software industry, however, the vendors must agree on content standards for sharing of management information. Such a set of Web-oriented standards for exchanging basic management information is being defined under the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) initiative, spearheaded by vendors such as Cisco, HP, Intel, Compaq, BMC, Microsoft, IBM/Tivoli and others. The Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) is now leading the effort to standardize the technologies of WBEM. The first of these, the CIM provides an extensible data model of the enterprise computing environment. Recent work by the DMTF makes the CIM model the basis for Web-based integration using XML (see sidebar on Web-Based Enterprise Management Standards for details).

Under the emerging Web-based management architecture, separate tools and management applications can be integrated via a common browser interface that supports hyperlinking and the exchange of management data via CIM. Leading vendors, including Microsoft, Computer Associates, IBM/Tivoli, and Cisco have announced or released products that implement the early versions of CIM standards. Already, Cisco and IBM/Tivoli have demonstrated use of CIM for two-way device data exchange between their management software packages. In addition to CIM-based data exchange, tools can be hyperlinked to provide easy shifting within the browser from tool to tool as an operator executes a task such as isolating and solving a problem. In this way, the most basic launch-level integration, popular for many years in existing management platforms, becomes available with minimal effort for practically any tool. Cisco is exploiting this technique to link its growing body of management tools and distributed management data collection infrastructure with third-party ISV packages. It already has available Web-linking to more than 30 leading third-party applications and is making it easy for its customers to create a "management intranet"

Role of Directories

- Single-user identity
- User profiles, applications, and network services
- Integrated policies
- Common information model

Directory Enabled Networks (DEN) Standards

The future of the Directory Enabled Network is to extend the directory throughout the elements of the network.
We can then provide a unified view of all the network resources at our disposal. From a user perspective, you'll not need to be authenticated on a half a dozen different devices just to get your job done.

Policy Management Basics

Need for Policy

Poicy management iis mast important one, Which coming under natwork management.

Aligning Network Resources with Business Objectives

- Application-aware network
- Intelligent network services
- Network-wide service policy
- Control by application & user

What Is a Network Policy?

The network Plicy is a set of high-level business directives that control the deployment of network services (e.g., security and QoS). And areated on the basis and in terms of established business practices

Example: Allow all members of the Engineering department access to corporate resources using Telnet, FTP, HTTP, and e-mail, 24 x 7

Role of QoS

Quality of service should be used wherever applications share network resources.

There are two broad application areas where QoS technologies are needed:

- Mission-critical applications need QoS to ensure delivery and that their traffic is not impacted by misbehaving applications using the network.
- Real-time applications such as multimedia and voice need QoS to guarantee bandwidth and minimize jitter. This ensures the stability and reliability of existing applications when new applications are added.

Voice and data convergence is the first compelling application requiring delay-sensitive traffic handling on the data network. The move to save costs and add new features by converging the voice and data networks--using voice over IP, VoFR, or VoATM--has a number of implications for network management:

- Users will expect the combined voice and data network to be as reliable as the voice network: 99.999% availability
- To even approach such a level of reliability requires a sophisticated management capability; policies come into play again

Cisco’s unique service is the ability to offer products that let network managers prioritize applications in today’s evolving networks.
Let’s take a look at QoS in more detail.

What Is Quality of Service (QoS)?

The ability of the network to provide better or “special” service to users/applications.

Where Is QoS Important?

Exactly where the QoS need LAN or WAN..

QoS Building Blocks

The following atre the important building blocks of QoS:

- Classification
- Policing
- Shaping
- Congestion avoidance

QoS and Network/Policy Management

Here we going to know QoS with the Network Policy management.

Role of Security

Enterprises are more aware of security issues than ever before, with business globalization, growing numbers of remote users, and especially the press buzz about the Internet and VPNs forcing security to their attention. Security needs to be tied to policies, so that it can be applied consistently, without leaving hidden holes subject to hacker penetration.

Followig are the Activities:

Authentication and authorization
- Employees, partners, customers
Firewalls
- Protect corporate resources
- Enable safe Internet use
Encryption
- Ensure data confidentiality
- Secure Virtual Private Networks

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- SUMMARY -

- SNMP, MIBs, RMON, and network management systems are the building blocks of network management tools

- The management intranet promises greater integration and easier-to-use tools

- Policy-based management will allow enterprises to align network resources with business objectives