The comprehensive management of an organization's information technology (IT) infrastructure is a fundamental requirement.
Employees and customers rely on IT services where availability and performance are mandated, and problems can be quickly identified and resolved.
Mean time to repair (MTTR) must be as short as possible to avoid system downtimes where a loss of revenue or lives is possible.
In turn, the management station can be configured to make a network administrator aware of problems (by email, paging, or on-screen messages), allowing appropriate action to be taken.
For example, the gathering of more data to identify the nature and severity of the problem or to bring backup equipment on-line.
Network elements produce alarms (also known as "traps" or "indications") that are monitored by a Fault management system.
[1] Fault management systems include HP Network Node Manager i,[2] IBM Tivoli,[3] EMC Smarts, CA Spectrum, NetIQ, TTI Telecom Netrac, Objective Systems Integrators NETeXPERT, opEvents by Opmantek,[4] Centina's vSure, Infosim StableNet,[5] iReveal,[6] ERAMON etc.
This area is especially important, since many network issues arise as a direct result of changes made to configuration files, updated software versions, or changes to system hardware.
A proper configuration management strategy involves tracking all changes made to network hardware and software.
Examples include altering the running configuration of a device, updating the OS version of a router or switch, or adding a new modular interface card.
While it is possible to track these changes manually, a more common approach is to gather this information using configuration management software, such as CiscoWorks 2000, HP Network Automation,[7] ERAMON and Infosim.
This information is usually gathered through the implementation of an SNMP management system, either actively monitored, or configured to alert administrators when performance moves above or below predefined thresholds.
Other common tasks include the configuration and management of network firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and security policies (such as access lists).
FCAPS: Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, Security, are the categories defined by the ISO model.
Looking into the industry aspects, there are various players in the market like Nokia - NetAct, IBM - NetCool or Opmantek.