The Network Management Problems

1. The Network Management Problems Tajudin Hassen

2. Over View • Linking together of Network Management with continuing growth in traffic types and Volumes presents main problem. • The Growth adds Multiple NMS which increases operational expense • Growth of associated Management overhead. • Strong need to reduce the cost of ownership and improve the return on investment (ROI). • Requirement of Automated flow-through actions

3. Requirement of Automated flow-through actions • FCAPS areas included in the requirement • Provisioning • Detecting faults • Checking and verifying performance • Billing/accounting • Initiating repairs or network upgrades • Maintaining the network Inventory

4. Contents • Bringing the Managed Data to the Code • Scalability • The Shortage of Development Skills for Creating management systems • The Shortage of Operational Skills for running Networks

5. Bringing the Managed Data to the Code • Managed objects reside on many SNMP agent hosts • Copies of managed objects reside on SNMP management systems • Changes in agent data may have to be regularly reconciled with the management system copy • The quality of an NMS is inversely proportional to the gap between its picture of the network and the actual state of the underlying network-the smaller the gap, the better the NMS • As managed NEs become more complex. An extra burden is placed on the management system.

6. SCALABILITY • Today’s Network is Tomorrow’s NE • Layer 2 VPN Scalability • Virtual Circuit Status Monitoring • MIB Scalability • Other Enterprise Network Scalability Issues • Large Reading Trials • Large NEs

7. Today’s Network is Tomorrow’s NE • A scalability problem occurs when an increase in the number of instances of a given managed object in the network necessitates a compensating, proportional resource increase inside the management system.

8. Corporate Data • Enterprise Management Systems • IT Service level Management (Helpdesk solution, SLAs) • Enterprise Network, Applications and Systems management • Fault , Performance, Availability, Capacity Planning, and Bandwidth Management • Software deployment Management, inventory, metering, distribution, remote desktop control, application healing, and centralised controls e.t.c

9. Layer 2 VPN Scalability • A full mesh provides the necessary connectivity for the VPN. Generally referred to as the N squre problem. • When the number of sites become very large, virtual circuits required tends to become unmanagable.

10. Virtual Circuit Status Monitoring • NMS attempts to read all table entries • MIB table entries becomes very large

11. MIB Scalability • Network operators and their users increasingly demand • more bandwidth, • faster networks • and bigger devices.

12. Other Enterprise Network Scalability Issues • Scalability also affects the Enterprise • Storage solutions • Administration of firewalls • Routers, such as access control lists and static routes • Security management • Application management • Large NEs

13. Expensive and Scares Development Skill Sets • A Solutions Mindset • Distributed, Creative Problem Solving • Taking Ownership • Acquiring Domain Expertise

14. A Solutions Mindset • Reflects the move away from the purely technological aspect of products to embrace the way enterprises and service providers look at overall solutions to business problems. • FCAPS Software layers

15. Distributed, Creative Problem Solving • Software bugs • NE bugs • Performance bottlenecks • Client applications crashing intermittently • MIB table corruption • SNMP agent exception

16. Taking Ownership • All NMS software developers should strive to extend their portfolio of skills. • Institutional memory relates to individual developers with key knowledge of product infrastructure

17. Acquiring Domain Expertise • Domain expertise represents a range of detailed knowledge • Knowledge might include • Layer 2 and layer 3 traffic engineering • Layer 2 and layer 3 QoS • Network Management • Convergence of legacy technologies into IP • Backward and forward compatability

18. Linked Overviews • An ATM Linked Overview • An IP Linked Overview • Short Development Cycles • Minimizing Code Changes

19. Elements of NMS Development • NMS Development • Data Analysis • Upgrade Consideration • UML, Java, and Object-Oriented Development • Class Design for Major NMS Features • GUI Development • Middleware Using CORBA-Based Products • Insulating Applications from Low-Level Code

20. Expensive and Scarce operational Skills • The growing complexity of networks is pointing to increasingly scarce operational skills. • Multiservice Switches

21. MPLS: Second Chunk • Explicit Route Objects • Resource Blocks • Tunnels and LSPs • In-segments and Out-segments • Cross-Connects • Routing Protocols • Signaling Protocols • Label Operations • MPLS Encapsulation • QoS and Traffic Engineering • QoS

22. PROBLEMS POSED BY ENTERPRISE NETWORKING • CONNECTIVITY • LOSS OF MANAGEMENT CONTROL • ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE REQUIREMENTS • HIDDEN COSTS OF CLIENT/SERVER COMPUTING • RELIABILITY & SECURITY *

23. COSTS OF CLIENT/SERVER SYSTEMS • OPERATIONS & SUPPORT • APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT • HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, INSTALLATION, MAINTENANCE • EDUCATION & TRAINING *

24. ENTERPRISE NETWORK • HARDWARE; SOFTWARE; TELECOMMUNICATIONS, DATA RESOURCES • MORE COMPUTING POWER ON THE DESKTOP • NETWORK LINKING SMALLER NETWORKS *

25. ENTERPRISE NETWORK • HARDWARE; SOFTWARE; TELECOMMUNICATIONS, DATA RESOURCES • MORE COMPUTING POWER ON THE DESKTOP • NETWORK LINKING SMALLER NETWORKS *

26. MPLS: Second Chunk • Explicit Route Objects • Resource Blocks • Tunnels and LSPs • In-segments and Out-segments • Cross-Connects • Routing Protocols

27. Explicit Route Objects • ERO is a list of layer 3 address hops inside an MPLS cloud • Describes a list of MPLS nodes through which a tunnel passes • EROs are used by signaling protocols (such as RSVP-TE) to create tunnels

28. Resource Blocks • Components of resource block include • Maximum reserved bandwidth • Maximum traffic burst size • Packet length

29. Tunnels and LSPs • MPLS-encapsulated packets enter the tunnel exhibits 3 important characters • Forwarding is based on MPLS label rather than ip header • Resource usage is fixed, based on those reserved • Path taken by the traffic is constrained by the path chosen

30. Cross-Connects • Point-to-Point • Point-to-multipoint • Multipoint-to-point

31. Routing Protocols • MPLS incorporates standard IP routing protocols such as OSPF, IS-IS and BGP4

32. Router • Segments LANs into distinct networks and subnetworks; e.g. the distinct red, green and blue LANs with distinct network numbers. • Segments LANs into broadcast domains

33. Signaling Protocols • Signaled connections have • Resources reserved • Labels distributed • Paths selected by protocols such as RSVP_TE or LDP

34. Label Operations • MPLS-labeled traffic forwarded based on its encapsulation label value • Current MPLS node uses Label2 encaps • Operations executed against labels are • Lookup • SWAP • POP • PUSH

35. MPLS Encapsulation • The MPLS encapsulation specifies four reserved label values 0-IPV4 explicit null that signals the receiving node 1-Router alert that indicates to the receiving node 2-IPV6 explicit null 3-Implicit null that signals the receiving node

36. QoS and Traffic Engineering • Providing specific chunks of bandwidth (via MPLS LSPs) to the developers. • Traffic engineering is set to become a mandatory element of converged layer 3 enterprise networks.

37. QoS • Rating traffic as being equally important • Rating VOIP traffic as being the most important • Three approaches for network services • Best effort • Fine granularity QoS (IntServ) • Coarse granularity QoS (DiffServ)

38. MPLS and Scalability • A network containing possibly tens or hundreds of thousands of MPLS nodes. • It is not practical to try to read or write an object of this size using SNMP. • Tunnel-change table • Tunnel table

39. Summary • Bringing managed data and code together is one of the central foundation of computing and network management • Achieving union of data and code in a scalable fashion is a problem that gets more difficult as networks grow.