Network Management Overload, Rerouting Traffic

The network is down



KNG Infoway, an Internet service provider providing connectivity to both

home and corpo rate users, faced a serious problem last August. Its network was

down for several hours before the problem could be rectified. This downtime took

its toll on KNG. Several dissatisfied corporates switched over to a competitor.

Houston, we have a problem



The National Stock Exchange, which handles transactions worth hundreds of

crores daily, went down for three days due to a connectivity glitch when its

INSAT-2D satellite went down. NSE resumed operations within three days, but not

before its transaction losses swelled to more than Rs 1,000 crore.

Painting the map red



It was September, not just a week after 9-11. A large multi-national company

with a nationwide network in India was one of the hundreds hit by the Code Red

virus. At their net-ops center, engineers watched as dozens of lines turned from

green to red, on the projection of a map of India, as local offices took routers

offline for "cleapup", or the link simply went down anyway. The damage

at the end of the day–many hours of downtime, including at call centers across

the company’s network, and substantial loss of revenue.

CIOs today face the challenge of not only ensuring 24x7 connectivity to end

users, but also addressing the ever-rising thirst for information. Integrating

these with the business goals of the organization is yet another challenge.

Optimum utilization of resources is another issue. While some part of the

network may be overutilized, others may not be used to their full.

It becomes imperative, therefore, for CIOs to choose products and system

integration services that offer sufficient support and stability, as well as

ensure healthy returns on investment. Network management strategy is now driven

by the need to minimize network failure, improve service quality, reduce

operating costs, and enable new business opportunities. IT departments in

enterprises have begun to service other departments as clients, and are hence

accountable for the quality of service rendered. In such cases, huge investments

made during network deployment also have to be justified.

Routing and switching technologies are adapting to market needs, but advances

in network capacity and performance also complicate the tasks of design and

implementation and the need to optimize becomes a critical issue. The advent of

large switched networks adds another layer of complexity to network design and

provisioning for routed, switched and hybrid networks. It also raises some

burning questions for the enterprise. Is it possible to achieve high

performance, optimal dedicated bandwidth, better utilization of available

address space and a larger broadcast domain all at once? How do we incorporate

emerging technologies into existing hardware? What are the administrative

burdens associated with different solutions? How does one prepare for future

growth?

One size doesn’t fit all!



As enterprises seek to connect geographically distant locations, WAN, a ‘one

size fits all’ approach, will not work. The process of network planning

depends on the number of users to be connected and typically involves

documentation of business requirements and development of strategic network

architecture. One needs to prepare capacity plans for the physical network,

including bandwidth allocations for protocol and applications.

A thumb rule followed by many consultants in the field is to ensure that the

investment in network management is about 10% of the total network investment.

This percentage could be higher for smaller networks that require a higher

degree of management.

Customers using network management applications are realizing direct

cost-savings and IT personnel productivity gains–immediately. Network

management is not just the icing on the cake, as it can reduce bottomline

expenses and give network administrators huge efficiency savings.

A tool to suit every enterprise need



There are various kinds of tools available in this area, including simple

SNMP-based products which do a great job of monitoring at a generic level. As

against this, vendor-specific tools have a significant impact on improving

availability and predictability. These tools actually go far beyond generic

monitoring to provide the ability to keep the operating system on the device up

to date (all relevant patches applied). They monitor vendor specific information

like the ability to detect changes to the memory on the device and changes in

configuration, and the like. Another piece that gets to be important is the

ability to audit changes occurring in the network along with a trail to the

person making the changes.

Several organizations use ‘free’ software for some of their network

management needs. This is definitely an option. However, you need to be careful

on the availability of continued support and enhancements on the tools you

choose. Many tools today are ‘open source’ and supported by their users.

These are safer options. Many other organizations develop their own applications

and scripts to manage their networks.

The crucial SLA



A network management platform deployed in the enterprise manages an

infrastructure that consists of multi-vendor network elements. The platform

receives and processes events from network elements in the network. Events from

servers and other critical resources can also be forwarded to a management

platform. Network management platforms such as HP OpenView, Computer Associates’

Unicenter, and Sun Solstice can perform a discovery of network devices. Each

network device is represented by a graphical element on the management platform’s

console. Network devices can be configured to send notifications called SNMP

traps to network management platforms.

Service-level agreements are critical



Ensuring stable vendor service and support are major issues and are

important factors in the CIOs’ decision-making process. Network equipment

suppliers should be made to provide local services for replacement of parts,

global standards for on-site services through qualified support personnel.

Without this, enterprises will need to factor in unplanned downtime, which no

management will accept, as it fails to justify the investment in networked

operations. In cases of extremely large network designs, a pilot implementation

is advisable so that the features and functionality indicated by vendors are

proven.

A service-level agreement is a critical criteria to measure performance. In

the SLA model, the IT department becomes a service provider within the

enterprise, and end-users become the consumers. An effective SLA solution

requires three components:

• Enterprise-wide data collection;

• Measurement and intuitive reporting; and

• Ability to enforce the determined SLAs.

There are many options for the CIO when it comes to the

purchase of network management products. The capabilities of the products range

from monitoring to actual management (which comes with the ability to actually

make changes to the configurations and software on the device, among other

facets). Network management products could be available for free or else, the

cost could run into lakhs of rupees. If the right products are used in an

effective manner, the investment pays for itself very quickly.

Team DQ

Best Practices

Work out your needs and then double your estimates! No matter what you think you’ll

need, you’ll require more...

• Decide on a family of networking
  
  products and then try to keep it in the family. Although today’s
  
  network products conform to many protocols that promote
  
  interoperability, there are still components such as management
  
  software, that might be proprietary.

• Pay close attention to the physical
  
  environment in the space you designate for your networking equipment.
  
  Water and dust are intolerable. Heat is marginally tolerable. You
  
  should also plan to control physical access to the space to maintain
  
  security.

• There is no problem in buying
  
  networking equipment online. In fact, the high degree of
  
  standardization and interoperability makes selecting equipment this
  
  way easy.

• Suggest solutions to your value-added
  
  reseller, but then listen for a reply. Working with your consultant is
  
  important when you select a family of products or design the
  
  infrastructure. No matter how experienced you are, the VAR can usually
  
  teach you something.

• There is a whole art to licensing the
  
  software used on networks. Software companies offer a variety of
  
  plans. Buying multiple copies of programs with per-CPU licenses is
  
  usually the wrong thing to do. You can often negotiate site licenses,
  
  licenses based on the number of active users, limited-time licenses,
  
  or other types. Software licenses can get expensive as you buy more
  
  seats.

• Build a good toolbox of handy devices
  
  and utilities. Practical things to have in your networking toolbox
  
  include a cable tester, packet decoding software, a kit to crimp on
  
  cable connectors, a variety of replacement and patch cables, and
  
  cable-labeling accessories.

• Create a good plan for data backup
  
  and stick to it. Traditional data backup plans call for taking a
  
  snapshot of the system at one time of day, saving that snapshot on
  
  removable media, and moving that media to a separate physical
  
  location.

• Create a plan for remote access by
  
  employees. Organizations of all kinds must accommodate work-at-home
  
  employees and road warriors. The old approach was to use a dial-up
  
  access server. The modern approach is to use a virtual private network
  
  (VPN). In networks with a few dozen simultaneous remote callers, the
  
  VPN server can be part of a corporate firewall.

• Consider the role of wireless in your
  
  local network. Wireless can extend or replace cable. Wireless local
  
  networks require more support, but offer great flexibility.