Management of all the factors
related to a network is termed as Network Management. This definition stands
true both for enterprise and service provider network. So whether it is security,
topology mapping, monitoring, planning, or analysis of network performance,
Network Management Services (NMS) take care of all. Nowadays, networks have
become more dynamic and complex in nature. A company needs to build an ability
to monitor every important development happening in a network at any given
moment. This would help them identify data bottlenecks and address them on
time. The need for these enterprises to model and plan networks for either
change or expansion has also become important in current times. Keeping all
these aspects in mind, it is essential for a company to choose their NMS
prudently.
IT is the backbone of almost
every industry these days. On realizing the significance of IT for better
functioning of various industries, day-by-day the NMS are becoming more
sophisticated and intelligent. So be it large or small, complex or simple, or a
heterogeneous network, there are solutions to serve each of them. An army of
network management hardware and software solution providers are waiting to
serve you.
A company can expect the solution
provider to develop a solution catering to its specific needs or can modify the
existing solution to deal with the new challenges that its IT network faces on
daily basis. However, a comprehensive, automated network diagnostic tool has
always been in demand. A tool that can analyze wireless, VPN, VLAN, IP and VoIP
problems can never be out of demand. A solution that handles call information,
call performance, and network analysis, all at the same time, can be used for
troubleshooting specific VoIP problems. For such customized solutions, a
company may have to pay a premium but one should never treat it as expenditure
but investment as such solutions have tremendous long-run benefits.
The industry experts believe that
a modification in Enterprise Network Management Solutions to suit the ways in
which IP networks are used these days, is required. There is rapid emergence of
real-time applications to serve critical needs of IT operations but in the due
course putting immense pressure on them, making it difficult for organizations
to keep up. To solve such issues, systems management vendors would require developing fresh approaches and solutions.
Does all this mean that managing
a packet network is more difficult than a circuit-switched one? The answer is
not exactly more difficult but surely much different as it has its own set of
challenges, which might not be easy due to the newness of their nature. Though
for many years, packet networks have been managed successfully, the time has
come to develop new management techniques, keeping currently challenges of an
enterprise or industry in mind.
There is also a need to educate
the network administrators about the need for these latest approaches and
solutions. Many of them won’t realize
the need unless significant deployment problems crops up. They need to be
pushed to change their views about network performance and approach towards its
management.
Network Management Solutions are improving
in leaps and bounds; more in creative new ways. Shifting from current, reactive
support methods to an automated, customer-centric, proactive support approach
allows an organization to detect problems at an early stage and thus would be
in a better position to deal with problems at the root and save time, otherwise
used to be spent on interacting with customers, in data collection and complex
diagnostics. The end result would be utmost network performance and uptime.
