☰ Chapter 3: What/Why/Who in Network Management

Alexander Clemm network

management fundamentals
Outline
♦ What is Network Management?

♦ Why Network Management?

♦ Who is Who in Network Management?

♦ What is going in Real Network Management Systems?

♦ Why is Network Management Challenging?

♦ Network Management Evolution

Today’s Networks

What is Network Management?

♦ Computer networks are complex live systems
 Require a great deal of attention to be kept up &
running

- E.g. Failures, Performance tuning, Service

Provisioning, Accounting, …

♦ Network management:

Everything that is involved in running of a network:

- Technologies/Protocols

- Tools/Software

- Activities

- Procedures

- People

Running a Network: OAM&P

♦ Operations

Daily work to keep the network running smoothly

including monitor for alarms, watch for intrusions and
attacks, ...

♦ Administration

High level & long-term decisions to keep track what’s

in the network (topology & service), who uses what,
expiation,…

♦ Maintenance

Repairs failures and upgrades network

♦ Provisioning
 Configure the network to provide services, turn up
services for end customers

What is Network Management?

♦ Therefore, network management is the activities, methods,
procedures, and tools that pertain to the operation,
administration, maintenance, and provisioning of networks

Network Management System

(NMS)
Network Management Example
♦ Medium-sized business network
Other Perspectives/Dimensions
♦ The NM operations & procedures & functionalities is classified
from other perspectives/dimensions than (traditional) OAM&P

♦ Classification based functionalities

ISO’s point of view: FCAPS

♦ Classification based on layers

ITU-T’s point of view: TMN

♦ Classification based on business model

TMF’s point of view: eTOM

♦ Other classifications?

Why Network Management?

♦ There a many obvious reasons, e.g.,

- Faults should be detected & resolved

- New customer should be able to use the network

- New devices should be configured properly

- Resource usage must be accounted

…?

♦ These are technical & low-level requirements

♦ However, there are also less obvious but important reasons

from business management point of view
 Need for efficient network management is also
satisfied by high level business management

♦ Computer/Teleco networking is a business

Networks are built to make money

♦ Income (revenue) vs. TCO (Total Cost of Ownership)

♦ Income: Service provision for customers with desired QoS

♦ TCO: Cost to build up the network and its operation cost

♦ Cost (to provide the services)

NM to maximize efficiency, thus minimizing cost

♦ Revenue (realized through the services)

NM to ensure services are accounted for and delivered

when and where they are needed

♦ Quality (of the delivered services)

NM to maximize the inherent “value” of the managed

network and services provided

These factors affect the business of service provider. Cost and

revenue directly affect and the quality parameter indirectly
influence the success of business of the service provider.

Why NM: Cost

♦ CAPEX (Capital Expenditure): Equipments, Software, License,
Location, …

♦ OPEX (Operational Expenditure): People, electricity,

maintenance, …

♦ Important fact

OPEX >> CAPEX

While network equipment and NM software are expensive, but

the cost is amortized over the lifetime of the network

♦ So, we should attempt to decrease OPEX

- Even if it results in increasing in CAPEX

♦ Efficient network management system can decrease OPEX

significantly, e.g., …

♦ More efficient troubleshooting and diagnostics

- Free up operators from routine problems to focus on

the hard stuff

- Reduce amount of expertise required

- Reduce SLA penalties

♦ Automation of service provisioning by workflows -

Less operator involvement

Less prone to operator error

>50% of network & service outages! (impacts cost

and quality)

♦ Planning, bottleneck analysis

- Deploy resources where they are needed most

- Optimization of topologies

- Minimize investment needed for given network goals

- And more …

Reduce the skill level that is required to manage the network,

easier to find such operators with less salary

Why NM: Revenue

♦ Flexible billing and accounting systems

- Combine multiple services to increase incoming

♦ Automated provisioning systems

Quicker time to revenue generation

- Reduce the time that elapses from the time a service

is ordered to the time the service is actually turned up

♦ Customer views of services delivered

- Stats on calls made, bandwidth consumed, service

levels
 - Attract more customer for more expensive services

♦ Make possible new source of revenue

- Provisioning new & complex & expensive services is

(economically/technically) possible only via efficient
NMS

♦ And more …

Why NM: Quality (cont’d)

♦ Automated provisioning

- More efficient provisioning (less order-to-service

time)

- Avoid misconfiguration through end-to-end

provisioning

♦ Provision network for certain quality

Proper dimensioning, Tested service configurations,

Policies for traffic shaping, connection admission
control

- To increase reliability and availability of the service

♦ Help identify, diagnose, fix problems (reactive)

- Alarm correlation, faster problem is resolved,

minimizing the time of outages, try not to wait until
customer complains
Who is Who in Network
Management?
Network Management: The Players

Network management is a big industry with many partnerships

Service Provider Interest in NM

♦ Service providers sell communication services

- Many market segments: Long Distance versus Local

Exchange Carriers, Voice, Data, Video, …

Whereas differentiation in services

- All running networks is their core business

♦ However, many companies offering the same services

- Compare airlines: same air planes, same airports,

same “function”
♦ Major differentiation: Quality (SLA)

♦ NM is the main tool to improve the quality - Turning up new

services the fastest

- Running the network at lowest cost

- Fixing problems the most efficiently, or avoid them

altogether

- Ability to give service level guarantees, and keep

them

- Best customer service

- And more …

Enterprise Interest in NM
Enterprise networks are different from service provider
networks

♦ Running networks is not the core business

- Communication services for enterprise operation

- IT departments are cost centers

♦ The network has only one customer & the customer has not
any alternative options

The network is not the primary competitive

differentiator

♦ It’s not just the network, it’s also Data Centers, applications,
and Desktop, Servers, …
♦ No revenue ⇒ efficient management = minimizing operation
costs. E.g.,

- Efficient (automated) implementation of workflows

- Efficient usages of resources

- Minimize outage

Imagine one hour outage at a financial brokerage, at

a car manufacturer, …

♦ And more …

- Consider university, what are your expectations

from the information center?

♦ No revenue ⇒ Networks & NM is cost ⇒ less investment on NM

systems

End Users (Managers)

♦ Network managers: Many roles, for example

- Network administrators

- Craft Technicians

- Device administrators

- Help desk operators

- Network planners

♦ Network management systems, software, interfaces to

support and help them be effective
End Users (Costumers)
♦ Customers of communication services

♦ Not interested in management unless part of the service (“self

service”)

- Customer care system

- Trouble ticketing system

- Service on demand

- One bill

- Service statistics online

- Set up usage policies for kids

- And more …

NM users have different (conflicting)

expectation from it

Equipment Vendors Interest in NM

♦ Make a business out of selling networking and data center
equipment

- Not management systems (application software)

♦ Manageability: Ease with which a vendor’s equipment can be

managed

Shift in perception
 - Past: network management a necessary evil

- Present: network management competitive

differentiator

NM Application Vendors
♦ Make a business out of developing, selling, servicing network
management applications

♦ Fill the gaps that equipment vendors leave open

- Multi-vendor support

- Complete end-to-end NM instead of device

management

- Management functionalities instead of managing

devices, e.g., work flow, customer care, …

♦ Competitive features

- Multi-vendor support

- Customizable

- High-end management functionalities

- Easy to use and integrate

System Integrators
♦ Make a business out of network management

- How when NM Application providers develop the

tools?
- Fact 1) in real world,

No one tool or application can do every management tasks ⇒

Multiple applications for different purposes

♦ These applications manage the same network (from different

aspects); hence, should be integrated, because

♦ Work on the same databases

♦ Used in the same workflow procedure

- Fact 2) While there are many management standard protocols

and interfaces, in real world

♦ Applications don’t work together as easy as it seems - NM

users need more integrated functionalities

♦ Fill the gap between COTS (Commercial of-the-shelf) and

custom development by network providers

- Specific operations support infrastructure

- The required management applications to integrate

♦ Develop software wrappers, protocol converter/gateways, API

customization, …

♦ Make a business out of management requirements that are

specific only to particular management users

Summary
Summary
Real Network Management Systems
NMS & NOC
NMS & NOC
♦ Managers manage the network using NMS in NOC

♦ NMS: Network Management System - To perform NM

functions (FCAPS)

- Interface (The following slides)

- Core logic (Software Engineering)

- Protocols e.g. SNMP

♦ NOC: Network Operation Center

- Where the NMS servers & clients are installed

Network Management Tools

♦ Management tools: management systems that network
managers interact with

Text-based interfaces: CLI

Often preferred by power users

More productive, don’t be slowed down by mouse

clicks and navigation, scripting (automated
configuration), …

♦ GUIs

Occasional users

“Legitimate” GUI uses: Monitoring, Visualization of

large quantities of data, Summary reports

Web Based GUI is common interface

NM Tools Examples: Traffic Analyzer

♦ Inspect and “sniff” network traffic

♦ Analyze individual packets to understand what’s going on

♦ Low-level troubleshooting activities

♦ Statistics

- Per protocol

- Per host

- Multicast, Broadcast, Unicast

…
Network Analyzer: MaaTech

Traffic Analyzer: Wireshark

NM Tools Examples: Device
Managers
♦ View and manage individual devices one at a time

- View statistics

- View alarms

- View configuration

- Change & tune parameters

♦ Most basic interface: Telnet/SSH sessions, CLI

- Can do anything on a per-device level

- Often interface of choice for network administrators

♦ GUI, Web app more user friendly (easier to operate, but

sometimes less productive for “power users”)

♦ Often specific to a particular vendor and device type 42

Device Manager: CiscoView

NM Tools Examples: Element Managers

♦ View and manage individual devices in a network, similar to

device managers; however

♦ Auto-discovers devices on a network

♦ Provides overview of all (or many) devices in a network

♦ Maintains state, e.g. database with network elements

♦ Allow to display devices on a logical topology map

- Topology often not discovered but edited by an

administrator

♦ Often specific to devices of a particular vendor

♦ “Northbound interfaces” to interact with other systems

Element Manger: Example

NM Tools Examples: Network Managers

♦ Additional functions to deal with connectivity

- Discover logical topology

- Indicate state of connections

♦ Wider range of supported devices

- Integration of multiple devices types from multiple

vendors becomes a “must”

♦ Often built on the basis of vendor-independent management

platforms

Device/Element/Network Managers
NM Tools Examples: Performance
Analysis Systems
♦ Collect performance statistics

♦ Monitor performance tends

♦ Detect performance bottlenecks

♦ Uses for

- Service level management

- Monitor if agreed-to service levels are being kept

Examples: Delay, jitter, voice quality, …

- Proactive fault management

 - Detect problems that are brewing

- E.g. deteriorating response times

- Troubleshooting and diagnostics

- Network planning

Other Example Tools

♦ Service order management systems

- Entry of service orders

- Adding, deleting, modifying a service

- Orchestration of service order process, e.g.

- Turning on billing

- Credit card verification

- Flow-through systems to provision the service

- Tracking of service order status

♦ Work order management systems

- Equipment installation, wiring, repair, replacement

- Management of truck rolls

- Interaction with inventory and ordering systems for

spares

- Interaction with workforce planning systems

Other Example Tools (cont’d)

♦ Address management systems - Helpdesk systems

♦ Customer Relationship Management Systems - Workflow

engines

♦ Intrusion detection systems - Billing systems

Why is Network Management

Challenging?
♦ Network management is a complicated process

- Very wide: Various functionalities, Different

objectives, …

- With many details: All protocols in networks need to

be managed!!!

- From different perspectives/Dimensions

- Technical issues, Managerial issues, Human!!

♦ Challenges

- Technical challenges

- Organization and operation challenges

- Business challenges

Challenges Example: Technical

♦ The first and obvious set of challenges

♦ NM system is a very big and complex SW, general issues:

 - SW architectural design issues

- Appropriate technologies

- Development & documentation

- Test & troubleshooting

♦ NM context issues:

- Application characteristics

- Scale

- Technology cross-section

- Integration

Technical Challenges: Application

Characteristics
♦ NM is composed of different functionalities (e.g., FCAPS)

- Have own requirements and characteristics from SW

engineering point of view

♦ Some example characteristics

- Transaction-Based System Characteristics

- Interrupt-Driven System Characteristics

- Efficient Data Analysis System Characteristics

Transaction-Based Characteristics
♦ Network configuration for service provisioning

- Rollback in the case of any failure/error

Interrupt-Driven Characteristics
♦ Network health tracking is an objective of NM

- Devices inform events to manager through alarm

message ⇒unsolicited message (interrupt)
♦ Challenges

- Real-time processing & response - High volume of

interrupts

- E.g., a broken router

- Multiple physical link failure alarms

- So many service disruption alarms

- Unexpected routing updates

- ….
♦ Correlation between events

-…

Efficient Data Analysis System

Characteristics
♦ Operators need to analyze network performance to

- Identify bottlenecks

- Guarantee SLA

- Evaluate utilization of network resources

- Understand traffic patterns

♦ Challenges

- Gathering large volume of data

- Processing data

- Statistical analysis and interference: Efficient &

complex algorithms

Technical Challenges: Scale

♦ Computer networks are large scale systems

- Scalability is a fundamental requirement in NM

♦ Scalability needs proper design and technologies

 - NM for ~10 node is completely different from NM for
~1000 node!

♦ As a general rule scalability is a SW architecture problem

rather than HW platforms

- While hardware performance is increasing, NM

processing requirements increase more

Technical Challenges: Technologies

♦ Many different technologies need to be used to build a NM
system ⇒ Many technologist with different expertise

♦ Examples

♦ Information modeling: How network devices, links, service,

management parameters, … are modeled?

♦ Database: How to design required NM DBs (devices, links,

services, customers, configurations, …)

♦ Distributed computing: By definition, NM is distributed

computing

♦ Moreover, to achieve scalability & reliability, distributed

computing is needed

♦ Network protocols

♦ User interface

- Visualization of large volume of data efficiently &

user-friendly

- Support large number of user for customer care

software
Technical Challenges: Integration
♦ Swivel-chair syndrome

Technical Challenges: Integration

♦ Make different NM applications as if they were a “NM system”

Organization & Operations

Challenges
♦ How human are organized for NM is an important issue

- Specially in large enterprises with IT departments

- Specially in service provider networks (e.g., TIC)

♦ How to divide the tasks of NM?

- Network planning, deployment, operation,

maintenance, …
♦ Which process & workflow should be used for each task

- It is not easy, eTOM tried to answer

♦ It is an other dimension (rather than technology) for

successful network management

Business Challenges
♦ Different players in NM ⇒ Different objectives

- Equipment vendors focus on managing own devices

not high-end management functionalities

- Service providers focus on business success

thorough efficient NM

- Enterprises need cost efficient NM

- Network operators need user-friendly high-level

NMS

- Customers needs easy-to-use customer care portals

♦ NM tools providers and Integrator have their own business

goal and constraints

♦ These business objectives are conflicting

Network Management Evolution

Telecommunications Services Evolution
Management Functionality Evolution
♦ Traditional (PSTN) networks

♦ Circuit switching: F > C > A > P > S

- Fault = service disruption

- Configuration = service provisioning

- Per call accounting = Business

- Ignore performance since resources are reserved

- No security

♦ Next Generation Networks (NGN)

♦ Data/Multimedia IP networks:

-S>P>A~C~F

- Security is the essential requirement

- Efficient resource utilization through Performance

management
 - Bulk bandwidth or usage based accounting

- Misconfiguration and faults are tolerable in some

cases

Network Management Vision

Evolution
♦ Traditional management

- Element management

Get/Set device management parameters

Get alarms from equipments

♦ Current trend (vision)

- Service & Business management

- Process & Workflow management

- TeleManagement Forum (TMF) is the driving force

behind this vision

Network Management Technical

Evolution
♦ New paradigms in networking

- SDN and NFV

♦ Lead to new network architecture

 - New components

SDN Controller

NFV MANO, VIM, VFNM, …

♦ The main question: NM in these new Arch.

- Relation between NMS/OSS and the new

components

Simplification or Complication of NM?!!

Typical Service Providers’ NM

♦ NOC (Network Operation Center)

- NMS (Network Management System)

Device & Network Management

- OSS (Operation Support System)

High-level management work-flows

- BSS (Business Support System)

Operations related to business management

♦ SOC (Security Operation Center)

- Operations related to security management

Security policies, implementation, monitoring, …

Summary
♦ What is Network Management?

- OAM&P or FCAPS or FAB or …

♦ Why Network Management?

- Cost and Revenue is determined by it

♦ Who is Who in Network Management?

- NM Provider (Equipment, NP Application,

Integration) & NM Users (Service Providers, End
users)

♦ What is going in Real Network Management Systems?

- Many applications in NOC

♦ Why is Network Management Challenging?

- Technical, Organizational, …

References
♦ Reading Assignment: Chapter 1 & 2 of “Alexander Clemm,
‘Network Management Fundamentals’ , Cisco Press, 2007”

♦ Alexander Clemm, “Network Management”, Santa Clara

University, http://www.engr.scu.edu/~aclemm

♦ Woraphon Lilakiatsakun, “Network Management”, Mahanakorn

University of Technology,
http://www.msit2005.mut.ac.th/msit_media/1_2553/ITEC4611/

♦ J. Won-Ki Hong, “Network Management System”, PosTech

University, dpnm.postech.ac.kr/cs607/