We've made a list of some of some frequently asked questions
that give you a crash course in Network Management and help
you understand its scope better.
- What is Network Management?
- What is a Network Management System?
- What are the basic levels of functionality
in Network Management Architecture?
- What are the key functional areas of Network
Management?
- Which organizations are engaged in working
out standards for Network Management?
- What is OAM&P?
- What is TMN?
- What do you understand by SNMP?
- What is RMON?
- What is MISA(Management of Integrated
SDH and ATM Networks) ?
1. What is Network Management?
Network Management refers to monitoring and control of network
architectural hardware (e.g.such as Routers, Bridges, Terminal
Multiplexers).
- Network Monitoring is concerned with observing and analyzing
the status and behavior of the configuration and its components.
- Network Control is concerned with altering of parameters
of various components of the configuration and causing those
components to perform predefined actions.
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2. What is a Network Management
System?
Network Management System is an integrated conglomeration
of tools for Network Management. It consists of the incremental
hardware and software additions implemented among existing
components. The software used in accomplishing the network
management tasks resides in the host computers and communication
processors(e.g. bridges, routers etc). It is designed to view
the entire network as a unified architecture, with addresses
and labels assigned to each point and the specific attributes
of each element and link known to the system. The active elements
of the network provide regular feedback of status information
to the network-control center.
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3. What are the basic levels
of functionality in Network Management Architecture?
Network Management Systems have four basic levels of functionality,
each having a set of tasks defined to provide, format,or collect
data necessary to manage the objects. The levels are:
- Managed Objects : Managed Objects are
the device, systems and/or any other network element requiring
some form of monitoring and management. E.g. routers, concentrators,
hosts, servers.
- Element Management System (EMS) : An Element
Management System manages a specific portion of the network.
Element Managers may manage async lines, multiplexers, PABX's,
proprietary systems or an application.
- Manager of Managers Systems (MoM) : MoM
systems integrate together the information associated with
several element management systems, usually performing alarm
correlation between EMS's.
- User Interface : The information gathered,
be it the real time alarms and alerts or the trend analysis
graphs and reports, is distributed to the whole MIS organization
to keep people informed and to enable team communications.
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4. What are the key functional
areas of Network Management?
The key functional areas of Network Management, as defined
by the International Organization of Standardization are:
- Fault Management : The facilities that
enable detection, isolation, and correction of abnormal
operation. It deals most commonly with events and traps
as they occur on the network.
- Configuration Management : The facilities
that exercise control over, identify, collect data from,
and provide data to managed objects for the purpose of assisting
in providing for continuous operation of interconnection
service.
- Accounting Management : The facilities
that enable charges to be established for the use of managed
objects and costs to be identified for the use of those
managed objects.
- Performance Management : The facilities
needed to evaluate the behavior of managed objects and the
effectiveness of communication activities.
- Security Management : Address those aspects
of OSI security essential to operate OSI network management
correctly and to protect managed objects.
The above set of functional areas are collectively known
as FCAPS.
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5. Which organizations
are engaged in working out standards for Network Management?
The various organizations are :
- ISO : International Standards Organization -
focuses on data application management.
- ITU-T: International Telecom Union (Telecom)
- focuses on telecom network management.
- ETSI : European Telecom Standards Institute
- ANSI : American National Standards Institute
- TTC : Japanese standard making body.
- NMF : Network Management Forum
- IETF : Internet Engineering Task Force
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6. What is OAM&P?
OAM&P stands for :-
- Operation
- Administration
- Maintenance
- Provisioning
These terms encapsulate design, planning, installation, provisioning,
maintenance, performance, security, accounting and customer
query and control of telecom management.
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7. What is TMN?
TMN, Telecommunication Management Network, is a Management
Architecture proposed by ITU-T. It provides means to transport
and process information related to the management of telecommunication
networks.
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8. What do you understand
by SNMP?
SNMP stands for Simple Network Management Protocol. SNMP
set of standards provides a framework for the definition of
management information and a protocol for the exchange of
that information. The SNMP model assumes the existence of
managers and agents.
- The Manager is a software module in
a management system responsible for managing part or all
the configuration on behalf of network management applications
and users.
- The Agent is a software module in a managed
device responsible for maintaining local management information
and delivering that information to a manager via SNMP. The
management information exchange can be initiated by the
manager (referred to as Polling) or by the agent (refereed
to as Traps).
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9. What is RMON?
Remote Monitoring (RMON) is a SNMP standard for a Management
Information base (MIB) that controls remote agents. RMON agents
gather information for analysis tools. They are embedded in
network products such as hubs and switches.
RMON agents:
gather physical and data link layer data RMON2 does it at
the network and application layers.
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10. What is MISA(Management
of Integrated SDH and ATM Networks) ?
The management of broadband multipoint, multiple bit rate
connections has been found to be very complex, especially
in a multi-provider, multi-domain environment. The setting
up and re-configuration of such connections are performed
through manual actions using faxes and telephone calls as
typical procedures. The goal of MISA is to automate the procedures
so as to satisfy the end-user requirements in a matter of
seconds. This will be achieved by provisioning of open interfaces
to the management centres for the necessary co-operation between
management systems. This goal is vital to progress the development
of the Integrated Broadband Communication (IBC) Infrastructure.
The overall vision of the MISA project is to realise and validate
via field trials the optimum integrated end-to-end management
of hybrid SDH and ATM Networks in the framework of Open Network
Provision (ONP) Environment.
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Last updated : February 2, 2004
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