Network Management

Network Management

Richard Cogdal

NTC/411

5/04/2015

Dennis Miller

NTC411 Week 2 IA R. Cogdal

Introduction

     Network management is an essential part of any network system. Today, with technology advancing on a continuous basis, it also affects the systems being run. Managing a network sometimes can be a tough job. Managers have to decide what is the best approach for their network should certain issues or problems continue to plague the network, which includes but not limited to hardware break downs, intrusions, disasters and security.

     When it comes to performance requirements there are a set of protocols that are kept to when information is transmitted across the network.This paper will discuss out-of-band and in-band network management. Also, some examples of the protocols that used in both types of network management, the effects of enterprise systems and its influence by business intelligence (BI) as well as decision support systems.

 Out-of-band/In-band Network Management

     Two types of networking management that will be described here are, out-of-band and in-band network management. In-band and Out-of-band refer to whether the solution or technique sits in the flow of the network traffic or out of the flow. “An in-band management involves managing devices through the common protocols such as telnet or SSH, using the network itself as a media” (Tulman, 2010). The in-band management is the most common and widely used but, it does have some drawbacks to it. This being, it is only operational during the full operation of the system. In-band is a way to manage a system through a local network site with the use of telnet connected to a router. If the network is down, network mangers using in-band type of management have no way to access necessary components that may be affected affected or to resolve any issues.

     In situations such as this, a company needs to have a secure, emergency  backup access to the network.This would allow network managers to be able to troubleshoot system components if needed,should the network not be available.

All networking equipment used with in-band such as switches, routers, network appliances and servers can be managed using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). An example of this type of protocol that could handle this type of management would be, Open View. When it comes to larger more critical networks the methods used with in-band management alone is not enough. In order to handle tasks for larger networks or if the network is down an alternate type of method to use is recommended that is, out-of-band management.

     “The out of band management solution provides network administrators with an alternate means to remotely access network devices when the primary network is down or unavailable. This method of management usually consists of, a terminal server or console server which resides on a secondary maintenance network, which is able to contact network devices on the primary network via cable connection to serial console ports on the network devices” ("Out Of Band Management", 2013).

     When using the out of band method (OBM) with a data network, it is in place as a separate network used to manage and control the network. One advantage of the out of band is, the network traffic is not impacted because it only runs when the main source in-band is unavailable or down. Both in-band and out-of-band network management work with each other as both are utilized to resolve network issues in a timely manner.