Network Management

Groshan Fabiola asked:


Fault Management is a crucial facet of monitoring networks and IT infrastructure. A good fault management system gives the network administrator a central place to receive, acknowledge, and organize all important and often critical information from agents and devices on the network. Diagnostic information can be retrieved directly by proactively querying the information from network devices by using protocols like Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). It can also be acquired simply by listening for messages sent from the agents on those devices in the form of SNMP Traps, Informs, and Notifications. These messages are also known as alarms. The agents that have the capability to send diagnostic information in these formats have to be told where to send the information. Fault management is a key technology because it uses a passive method of monitoring to capture the critical events sent by agents. This in essence is taking advantage of the agent’s “push technology”, and most of the work is done by the agent, not by the fault manager. Simple network management collection (i.e. polling devices using SNMP for metrics like octets, cpu utilization, operstatus, etc.), uses “pull technology”, and puts more of the work on the network management system (NMS), than does fault management. Once these metrics are polled, the NMS has to analyze statistics and compare them with the last values polled to find trends or threshold crossings. SNMP Traps contain that critical information already (i.e. a message saying “cpu utilization over 90%”), so the fault management system doesn’t have to crunch numbers, it knows right away.

Once events are received, they can be filtered through complex identification systems that will identify the alarms and possibly execute pre-defined actions or notification mechanisms. Fault Managers can automatically categorize alarms into named buckets or assign severities that indicate to the IT Manager how important the alarm is and how quickly it should be addressed.

The most sophisticated systems also have the capability of modifying the information in some way and use notification or forwarding systems to send updated messages to machines and/or individuals about these occurrences. These messages can be sent via email, Pager, SMS to the user’s mobile phone, etc. This allows the IT Manager to be notified of any critical events that may be happening on the network, and allows him or her to take appropriate action and rectify the situation immediately.

Everyday we are increasingly dependent on today’s high-speed networks. These data networks are not crucial only for doing business, but also for our modern lives. Network connections are ubiquitous and whether it involves our cellular phone, laptop, an ATM or credit-card transaction, data is being transferred from point A to point B, with or without wires. Almost every aspect of our society relies in some way on computer and data networks. When there is a breakdown in our data networks, a disruption is caused throughout many areas of our society, often affecting millions of people. Without advanced network and fault managers, modern society could not function in the way which we have become accustomed.

For more resources about mib browser and especially about fault management please review this webpage http://www.oidview.com/fault_management_solutions.html



DIRK