Essay on Large network enterprise
Nowadays, network management is more and more challenging not only because of a complex collection of different applications and devices, but also due to its ever-increasing sizes. In addition, an enterprise network is not only used by the internal consumers, but also by the external users, such as different organizations, business partners or suppliers, etc. As a result, all this leads to a significant increase in different network traffics. According to Zhang and Zorn (1998), “Today’s network management is dominatedby a platform-centered paradigm based on theClient/Server (C/S) technologies” (p. 1551).
Thus, in this paper we are going to explain and discuss services provided in enterprise networks, components needed for making enterprise networks manageable and aspects of enterprise network management.
To start with, network management is a performance of multiple functions required for monitoring, planning, selection, implementation, and coordination of computer network resources.
An enterprise network provides different services, such as initial network planning, frequency allocation, predestination routes traffic to support load balancing, distribution of cryptographic keys, configuration management, fault tolerance, security, performance and accounting information.
The important components needed for making enterprise networks manageable are the following ones:
The first one is the MBI. It provides a detailed and specified description of manageable and controlled data objects. Mainly, each MIB object’s description includes the following elements:
- Status (compulsory or optional);
- Accessibility (accessible, not accessible, read write, and read-only);
The second one is entities and agents that provide different management tools and facilities.
The third one is the scripts for operating the MIB objects.
The fourth component is Java, C, or C++ that are software modules required for operating different MIB objects.
The last one is entities or agents in SNMPv3, which map the objects and carry out the MIB to true data on the NE.
Furthermore, there are important aspects of enterprise network management that consist of:
- Inventory and discovery management;
- Availability of different services, links, NEs and interfaces;
- VLAN that is a group of hosts with a common set of requirements, which interact each other as if they were connected to a broadcast domain, regardless of their physical location. VLAN has the same properties as a physical LAN, but allows the end stations to group together, even if they are not in the same physical network. This reorganization can be made basing on software instead of physically relocating devices;
- Monitoring the condition of virtual circuits, NEs, links, and consequently, interfaces;
- Measurement of some traffic levels and control over network congestion;
- Configurations, such as SAN volume setup, VLAN setup, remote control and regulation software, and the last one storage allocations;
- Service level agreement (SLA) verification between SP and an organization or enterprise and SLA reporting;
- Disaster and emergency recovery;
- Scalability that means processing heightened numbers of NEs, different traffics and users;
- Security control, which is characterized by different resistances to the attacks from the firewall.
In summary, it is possible to draw a conclusion that enterprise network management is related to different activities, such as tools, procedures, services and methods, whichdeal with the operations, maintenance, administration, and provision of some networked systems. Nowadays, enterprise networks have more functions and are operating more effectively than they were doing soonerin respect to huge numbers of different applications and increasing number of consumers who have access to them.
