Network Discovery

When starting to automate your network monitoring the first key step is to understand what is in the network and how it is being used. A discovery needs to do more than list the devices you have, but also how are the devices are interacting with each other.

Performance Management

Once you have a picture of what is in the network we can then start to understand how it is working. Performance management is no longer only about how we are moving packets of data around or utilization, but also includes Servers, Applications and business processes

To see how the systems and services are performing we need the most accurate information from the environment. You need to collect different protocols to ensure the widest possible source of information for each metric. You can supplement this with active testing so you can understand the performance between devices and integrating this with NetFlow information will allow you to predict when certain thresholds will be reached

Many Enterprise Network Teams still regard Servers, Applications and networks as separate teams needing separate management tools. Since these systems are separate and as issues arise, we spend more time defending our turf vs. finding the solution

Server Monitoring

To stop this you need to capture detailed information from the servers, so that you can correlate values between the network and server components. Monitoring the application layer within the server, allows you to analyse layer 1 through 7 and into the application processes themselves, for real performance monitoring.

Fault Management

So now that we have all the information, about the devices and how they interact under normal conditions, we can now start to look at error events, and discover the “Root Cause” and develop an impact analysis by mapping servers, applications and there current state to a service overview

Reporting

All this information is useless unless you can communicate it to others, so having flexible reports, and dashboards that everyone can use is a must

Network Configuration and Change Management

We have all the information about our devices and how they are deployed, so the final piece is how they are configured, and how that affects operations.

Network Configuration Management

The first step is configuration management, is getting a complete backup of every device and storing that information in the database. You can then view any configuration file differences in a side by side comparison, and to be able to restore any configurations, should you notice a change

Configuration Change Management and Auditing

You then need to control change and audit any changes on the devices you need to be able to detect real time configuration changes, and ensure we maintain the latest configuration.

Configuration Policy Management

Once we have the current configuration of the devices we can then start to build policies.

NCCM – Vulnerability Management

Being able to check against announcement form manufactures, and be able to check every component of the configuration, hardware and software to highlight vulnerabilities

NCCM - End of Life or Service Management

These devices can expose networks to risk, and knowing when these devices will be end of life is critical to asset planning for the future.

So, look for a single unified management system that will allow you to manage the performance of the network, detect faults and ensure all the devices are configured properly. Ask about your options to move to a next generation performance management system