Network Management

As most IT services are dependent on connectivity, Network Management will be essential to deliver services and also to enable Service Operation staff to access and manage key service components.

Network Management will have overall responsibility for all of the organization’s own Local Area Networks (LANs), Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs) – and will also be responsible for liaising with third-party network suppliers.

Their role will include the following activities:

• Initial planning and installation of new networks/network components; maintenance and upgrades to the physical network infrastructure. This is done through Service Design and Service Transition.
• Third-level support for all network related activities, including investigation of network issues (e.g. pinging or trace route and/or use of network management software tools – although it should be noted that pinging a server does not necessarily mean that the service is available!) and liaison with third-parties as necessary. This also includes the installation and use of ‘sniffer’ tools, which analyse network traffic, to assist in incident and problem resolution.
• Maintenance and support of network operating system and middleware software including patch management, upgrades, etc.
• Monitoring of network traffic to identify failures or to spot potential performance or bottleneck issues.
• Reconfiguring or rerouting of traffic to achieve improved throughput or batter balance – definition of rules for dynamic balancing/routing.
• Network security (in liaison with the organization’s Information Security Management) including firewall management, access rights, password protection etc.
• Assigning and managing IP addresses, Domain Name Systems (DNSs – which convert the name of a service to its associated IP address) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) systems, which enable access and use of the DNS.
• Managing Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
• Implementing, monitoring and maintaining Intrusion Detection Systems on behalf of Information Security Management. They will also be responsible for ensuring that there is no denial of service to legitimate users of the network.
• Updating Configuration Management as necessary by documenting CIs, status, relationships, etc.

Network Management is also often responsible, often in conjunction with Desktop Support, for remote connectivity issues such as dial-in, dial-back and VPN facilities provided to home-workers, remote workers or suppliers.

Some Network Management teams or departments will also have responsibility for voice/telephony, including the provision and support for exchanges, lines, ACD, statistical software packages etc. and for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Remote Monitoring (RMon) systems.

At the same time, many organizations see VoIP and telephony as specialized areas and have teams dedicated to managing this technology. Their activities will be similar to those described above.

Note on managing VoIP as a service

Many organizations have experienced performance and availability problems with their VoIP solutions, in spite of the fact that there seems to be more than adequate bandwidth available. This results in dropped calls and poor sound quality. This is usually because of variations in bandwidth utilization during the call, which is often the result of utilization of the network by other users, applications or other web activity. This has led to the differentiation between measuring the bandwidth available to initiate a call (Service Access Bandwidth – or SAB) and the amount of bandwidth that must be continuously available during the call (Service Utilization Bandwidth – or SUB). Care should be taken in differentiating between these when designing, managing or measuring VoIP services.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 771