Network Management Industry

1. 8/28/2012 1 Network ManagementIndustry Industry Overview and Technical Summary OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn

2. 8/28/2012 2 Why is Network Management Important?

3. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 3 Why is Network Management Important? Cost - Manual management is costly. Competition - Automated management enables faster growth of network via automated planning and predicting usage trends. Customer Service - Maximizes service ability by allowing provider to know of problems before customer, and automated problem tracking. Knowledge Factor - Provides for knowledgeable decisions in capacity and planning by providing precise numbers on utilization, errors, etc.

4. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 4 Problems with Manual Management Cost of finding, training, and retaining reliable and costly knowledge base. Prone to human error. Cost of constant manual monitoring of each device in network. Problems and time in determining a network error. Takes much longer to gather the information and then plan on how to grow the network

5. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 5

6. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 6 Automated Management Allows a Company to be more Competitive It allows for faster deployment of new services. It allows for faster deployment of hardware. It allows for cheaper network, and therefore more competitive pricing of end services. It enables faster use of new and more complex protocols (e.g.: ATM) which might be too costly and complex to integrate manually.

7. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 7 Automated Management Allows for More Responsive Customer Service It allows for faster fix time for customers. It enables preventative fail over services to deter impact on customer. It enables automated notification to customers, and ongoing status. It allows customers to automatically request new services, and manage their use of services.

8. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 8 Automated Management Provides a Key Knowledge Factor It enables “smarter” planning of network growth by knowing exactly what your network utilization is at every link. It allows for maximizing utilization of current resources, by knowing the least utilized resources, you can balance your traffic load. It allows for costing analysis, and business planning, by knowing your customer utilization trends and knowing exactly where are your “problem” areas in the network.

9. 8/28/2012 9 Current Issues in Network Management Systems

10. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 10 Issues Surrounding the Purchase and Planning of a Network Management System (NMS) What platforms and protocols should you use? Can the NMS grow with the rate of your network? What is the cost of the NMS vs. the return? How much of the NMS may be purchase off the shelf and what must be developed? (Availability of off the shelf solutions) How reliable is the NMS and the information that it provides? What are the trends in the NMS industry? Differences in managing data comm or telecomm networks?

11. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 11 NMS Platforms & Protocols There are various protocols to choose from - TL1, SNMP, CMIP, or proprietary. SNMP management systems have the most off the shelf solutions. No availability of multiprotocol solutions in the market today. Some claim to provide multiprotocol support, but no REAL solutions or end to end applications.

12. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 12 Growth Capabilities of the NMS NMS platform and protocols must provide ability to grow with the network. The protocols affect growth ability of the NMS. Platform and vendor affects growth support and capacity as new hardware and protocols come available. Network industry is volatile - making 5 year plan is difficult.

13. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 13 Cost of the NMS vs. Return SNMP - cheap and readily available, however not as reliable and robust as CMIP. CMIP - very expensive and unwieldy, not readily available off the shelf solutions, however very robust and reliable. TL1 - large investments currently in TL1 based systems, however the management system must be updated to handle any new equipment code release - this is costly. Proprietary - cheap and quick for small networks - but does not provide for a mutlivendor environment as most networks are today.

14. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 14 Availability of Off The Shelf Solutions SNMP - readily and widely available. Cheap and quick to develop. Maintenance is easier than TL1. CMIP - not readily available. Expensive and slow to develop. Easy to maintain. TL1 - readily available in telco equipment. Cheap to implement, expensive to maintain. Not widely available in data comm. equipment.

15. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 15 Reliability of the NMS and the Information it Provides TL1 - ASCII based, reliable alarming. Standard “de jour” - may alter from release to release. SNMP - trap unreliability - when errors occur, notification may be lost. Knowledge and control of system is not robust, but enough to “get the job done”. CMIP - reliable alarming. Robust knowledge and control of device.

16. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 16 Trends in the NMS Industry TL1 is fading. Most telcos and vendors are trying moving away from TL1, however it has a strong base and there is a large investment in TL1 base equipment. SNMP has the lion’s share of networks (which are data primarily). Very strong and high availability of solutions. CMIP is slowly growing; skepticism is beginning to fade. Growth is found mostly within the multibillion dollar networks.

17. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 17 NMS for Data Comm or Telecomm Networks? Another issue impacting NMS trends is the volatility of networks themselves. Data comm equip. is used more and more by telcos, and vice versa. LANs are looking more like WANs and WANs are looking more like LANs. The traditional boundaries are fading. This impacts the requirements of an NMS, now it must provide systems, data, and telecommunications management.

18. 8/28/2012 18 NMS Protocols

19. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 19 NMS Protocols Religious wars still remain as to the “right NMS protocol” to use - much like token ring vs. ethernet days. Each protocol has its strength and weaknesses. Some of the arguments are beginning to turn towards the proper models to utilize in NMS systems as opposed to the “right” protocol.

20. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 20 TL1 ASCII based protocol. Found primarily in the large telco equipment. Low intelligence, can flood the network with alarms. Vendors and telcos are trying to move away from TL1, but both have multibillion dollar investments in the equipment itself and management systems. Will still be around for several years in the telcos and needs transitional software support.

21. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 21 SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol Widely embraced by the data networks. Cheap, flexible, widely available, simple and easy to develop. Unreliable trap (alarming) mechanism creates a problem in finding out about network errors. Control of devices and knowledge is not as robust as needed by telcos. Becomes difficult to scale in larger networks due to polling oriented protocol.

22. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 22 CMIP Common Management Information Protocol. Utilized primarily by telcos or multimillion dollar network providers that cannot tolerate any downtime and need a high level of control. Expensive to develop, few tools on the market, unwieldy with high overhead. Allows for robust control of devices in the network. Reliable alarming mechanism.

23. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 23 TMN Telecommunications Management Network. Theory and architecture for how to design NMS in the telecommunications environment. Used primarily in telcos. Premise lends itself to object oriented design. Relies on the CMIP protocol. Only a few TMN products available on the market. Very expensive entry costs on development.

24. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 24 Bleeding Edge Some R&D projects are working on middleware based management solutions (e.g. XOJIDM). These consist of ORB and DCE based solutions, with more of an ORB following. Some of these solutions are combined with SNMP or CMIP, and some are ORB only. Major technical issues still to need to be resolved. Viability and acceptance of this method is yet to be determined. This may be the future of NMS or may be a “flash in the pan”. The combined (ORB and SNMP or ORB and CMIP) are more widely accepted. Middleware is more widely available than all NMS platforms combined.

25. 8/28/2012 25 NMS Manager/Agent Paradigm

26. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 26 Manager/Agent Paradigm Paradigm is found in all NMS, but is more clearly delineated in CMIP and SNMP. Akin to Client/Server, but with few clients, and many servers (where the agent acts as a server and the manager acts as a client). The Manager/Agent paradigm can be viewed as a Manager/Employee relationship in the real world.

27. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 27 Manager/Agent Paradigm Agent is the employee - much like a SME (Subject Matter Expert). The agent reports problems to the manager. The agent carries out work ordered by the manager. The agent “instruments” the device (or NE-Network Element). The agent enables Manager to know, see, and control all important information regarding the device.

28. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 28 Manager/Agent Paradigm The manager is the one that contains the intelligence to make decisions about what all of the agents (or employees) are suppose to do. The manager gives orders to the various agents (or employees) in order to make the network (or organization) function smoothly. The manager must monitor agents, and administer relational tasks between agents.

29. 8/28/2012 29 Technical Overview of Protocols

30. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 30 TL1 No decision making capability commonly found in the agent. Does not conform as cleanly to the manager/agent paradigm of CMIP and SNMP. Agents are contained within device and are semi-managed by an element manager, which must be managed by a higher level management system with decision making capabilities. Agent may flood network with alarms, no correlation or fault isolation commonly built into agent. ASCII based. Flat, relational, functional. Standard “de jour” - changes from release to release and creates dependence on element managers from vendors.

31. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 31 SNMP Agent instruments a MIB (Management Information Base). Flat and relational like an RDB. The MIB defines tables, fields and indexes. Rules are loose enough to leave a difference in interpretation in most MIBs (i.e. ifInAveBits in agent1 may be updated once per second, but in agent2 it may be updated once per minute). Unreliable trap mechanism. Polling oriented protocol - this does not scale easily. Verbs - GET, SET, TRAP, GET_NEXT

32. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 32 SNMP (cont.) Agent does not commonly contain any fault correlation intelligence or decision making capability. To resolve this, “smart agents”, “roll your own MIBs”, “bimodal agents”, “manager/agents” or “site managers” have been created. These allow the user to define rules for decision making capabilities into an agent that manages the device agents at a site. This is akin to an Element Manager in TMN.

33. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 33 SNMP Availability Widely available. SNMP MIB II agent comes with all popular forms of UNIX. An SNMP agent is available for virtually all popular data communications devices (or easily developed), and a fair amount of telecommunications low end devices. It is available on many ATM platforms and some SONET equipment.

34. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 34 SNMP Platforms Sun’s SunNet Manager: One of the first widely used SNMP management platforms around. HP’s OpenView: (HP-OV) One of the more popular SNMP platforms. Technically it was a leap in the industry, this system provided a bilingual (SNMP and CMIP) stack and communications infrastructure in the early ‘90s. Bundled only with SNMP management applications. Most learned that the bilingual stack was not necessarily the best technical solution for a bilingual network. However the XOM/XMP interface provided in the system made great strides in the CMIP industry.

35. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 35 SNMP Platforms (cont.) IBM’s Netview/6000 (nv6k) - A very popular management platform with 3rd party applications. Nv6k seems to be utilized more in large scale data networks, with OpenView leading in Data Center type environments. This divergence could be due to the different third party applications available for OpenView versus nv6k. IBM purchased rights to OpenView in ‘91 and ported it to the AIX machine and sold it as Netview, which created confusion with the old SNA manager Netview. It was subsequently named Netview/6000, and is today sold as Netview for AIX under the SystemView suite of products.

36. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 36 SNMP Platforms (cont.) OSI’s NetExpert - They provide for proprietary management and have also implemented SNMP capabilities and CMIP capabilities for the platform and enhanced the rule engine. They seems to have a niche following from companies that need diverse integration. Cabletron’s Spectrum - Thought of as a very jazzy tool, with wonderful user and presentation capabilities, not necessarily as popular as HP-OV or IBM in integration capabilities, or 3rd party application availability.

37. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 37 CMIP CMIP can be thought of as Object Oriented in design . Agent’s instrument GDMOs (Guideline for the Definition of Managed Objects). The GDMOs model the objects contained in a device. The actual instantiation of the GDMOs are referred to as the MIB. CMIP has reliable alarm notification mechanism. Intelligent agents- agents can make independent “decisions” and perform fault isolation. Agents can remember “rules or policies” defined by the Manager, and allows for alteration of rules. Can be likened to an OODB. Verbs - GET, SET, CREATE, DELETE, ACTION, NOTIFICATION, CANCEL_GET

38. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 38 CMIP (cont.) Power of CMIP Verbs lies in Scoping and Filtering capabilities. GDMO’s leave too much up to interpretation of the implementer - behaviors not well defined. More of a weakness in this environment than SNMP. Not polling oriented - better suited to scaling up to large networks than SNMP. Not as many GDMOs defined for different devices as there are SNMP based MIBs.

39. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 39 CMIP Availability No real end to end solutions available off the shelf. Some agent availability - not at all as available as SNMP. Current CMIP market consists mostly of development platforms and tools. Market is beginning to move towards integration of tools and product offerings. TL1 to CMIP adapters (agents) are coming onto the market. Most of the work has been done on SONET and ATM. Electronic Bonding and LNP are furthering the popularity.

40. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 40 CMIP Platforms DSET - They provide a C++ and C interface without XOM/XMP compliance. Available on most popular platforms, allowing cross-platform development. Also support popular RTOS. Automated Agent builder, creating executable code from GDMOs. This platform seems to be popular in the Agent arena. HP OpenView DM - This is built on top of the OpenView communications infrastructure, and offers the bilingual stack. Provides automated building tools for application or agent. Several 3rd party applications available on for this platform. This platform seems to be popular in the Manager arena.

41. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 41 CMIP Platforms (cont.) IBM’s TMN/6000 - Provides a platform and development environment - with a C++ interface on top of XOM/XMP. Agent and manager builders are automated. Provides bilingual stack, but bundled with a few CMIP apps. This is built on top of the Communications Infrastructure from Netview/6000 for AIX. This platform seems to be popular in the Manager arena. DEC’s TeMIP - Platform offers integrated bilingual management of SNMP and CMIP. Provides 3rd party applications.

42. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 42 CMIP Platforms (cont.) Vertel (Spin off from RETIX) - Provide for automated agent and manager development environments. Have 3rd party agreements and integration with other development environments. They seem to be popular in the agent arena. ISR Global - Provide for automated agent and manger development environment. They come from a very OO point of view and many feel that gives them leverage in the automated development environment. They are relatively new to the industry.

43. 8/28/2012 43 TMN Overview of TMN and OSI’s Systems Management

44. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 44

45. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 45 TMN TMN (ITU’s M.3xxx series) is built upon ITU’s system management series: X.7xx. TMN defines 5 logical layers of abstraction from the Network Element layer up to the Business Management Layer (note: These are not layers in the protocol sense - and one layer may communicate with any other layer - however this is would not be the norm) ITU’s System Management defines 5 functional areas to be found in any management system. FCAPS - Fault, Config, Acct, Performance, and Security Management.

46. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 46 OSI’s System Management 5.5. OSI management functional areas 5.5.1 Introduction OSI management is required for a number of purposes. These requirements are categorized into a number of functional areas: a) fault management b) accounting management c) configuration management d) performance management e) security management

47. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 47 OSI’s Systems Management (cont.) Specific management functions, within these functional areas, are provided by OSI management mechanisms. Many of the mechanisms are general in the sense that they are used to fulfill requirements in more than one functional area. Similarly, managed objects are general in the sense that they may be common to more than one functional area. Each of these functional areas is described briefly in the next few slides. The lists of functions are not necessarily exhaustive.

48. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 48 Fault Management 5.5.2 Fault management Fault management encompasses fault detection, isolation and the correction of abnormal operation of the OSI environment. Faults cause open systems to fail to meet their operational objectives and they may be persistent or transient. Faults manifest themselves as particular events (e.g. errors) in the operation of an open system. Error detection provides a capability to recognize faults. Fault management includes functions to:

49. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 49 Fault Management (cont.) a) maintain and examine error logs; b) accept and act upon error detection notifications; c) trace and identify faults; d) carry out sequences of diagnostic tests; e) correct faults.

50. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 50 Accounting Management 5.5.3 Accounting management Accounting management enables charges to be established for the use of resources in the OSIE, and for costs to be identified for the use of those resources. Accounting management includes functions to: a) inform users of costs incurred or resources consumed; b) enable accounting limits to be set and tariff schedules to be associated with the use of resources;

51. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 51 Accounting Management (cont.) c) enable costs to be combined where multiple resources are invoked to achieve a given communication objective.

52. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 52 Configuration Management 5.5.4 Configuration management Configuration management identifies, exercises control over, collects data from and provides data to open systems for the purpose of preparing for, initializing, starting, providing for the continuous operation of, and terminating interconnection services. Configuration management includes functions to: a) set the parameters that control the routine operation of the open system;

53. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 53 Configuration Management (cont.) b) associate names with managed objects and sets of managed objects; c) initialize and close down managed objects; d) collect information on demand about the current condition of the open system; e) obtain announcements of significant changes in the condition of the open system; f) change the configuration of the open system.

54. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 54 Performance Management 5.5.5 Performance management Performance management enables the behaviour of resources in the OSIE and the effectiveness of communication activities to be evaluated. Performance management includes functions to: a) gather statistical information; b) maintain and examine logs of system state histories;

55. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 55 Performance Management (cont.) c) determine system performance under natural and artificial conditions; d) alter system modes of operation for the purpose of conducting performance management activities.

56. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 56 Security Management 5.5.6 Security management The purpose of security management is to support the application of security policies by means of functions which include: a) the creation, deletion and control of security services and mechanisms; b) the distribution of security-relevant information;

57. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 57 Security Management (cont.) c) the reporting of security-relevant events. Note - Recommendation X.800 [2] provides further information on the placement of OSI management functions within the overall security architecture.

58. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 58 TMN Layers BML - Business Management Layer - Can be thought of as a layer of abstraction that manages a network as it relates back to business functions (i.e.: back office functions). SML - Service Management Layer - Can be thought of as a layer of abstraction that manages the services provided by a network. NML - Network Management Layer - This layer manages the network as a whole, in particular relationships between the devices and groups of devices in the network.

59. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 59 TMN Layers (cont.) EML - Element Management Layer - This layer manages the elements and is generally knowledgeable about specific technologies, technological groupings, or possibly a group of equipment within a small geographical region. NEL - Network Element Layer - This layer manages the network element itself.

60. 8/28/2012 60 Summary Recommendations

61. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 61 Choosing the CMIP, SNMP, or proprietary If a minute of downtime runs into the tens of thousands of dollars, you should probably go with a TMN (CMIP) solution. If downtime is tolerable and a minute costs less than the tens of thousands, you should probably go with an SNMP solution. If you have a single vendor network, and don’t plan on any other vendors within the next couple of years, a proprietary solution may be the best way to go.

62. 8/28/2012 OpenNet Network Management Carmody Quinn 62 Notes Plan carefully on what NMS you will use, and how you will deploy it. Make sure to get the proper expertise. This can make all the difference in how the NMS supports your network. There is no one “right” protocol or solution. There are “right” tools for the job so make sure to match them properly.