Network Management Paper

Introduction

Network management tools are significant in today’s complex network environment as they assist network administrators/managers to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness in managing network operations. Networks are a central component in information technology organizations as even a short downtime leads to significant losses in productivity. The various roles played by network management tools to assist in effective and efficient management of networks in IT organizations include;

1. Use various strategies that assist in minimizing the total cost of network ownership
2. Assist in reducing network management costs through simplification of network management
3. Assist in the prevention of downtime of mission-critical network resources
4. Allow network managers in the analysis of all nodes in a network by offering current and accurate statistics concerning the node performance and operation (Bidgoli, 2000).

The section below discusses network management tools used to ensure policy compliance, bandwidth management and also asset management.

Policy Compliance

Policy compliance in an IT organization aims at verifying that all the controls that are defined by the policy get executed and also remain operational as implemented. One of the commonly used policy compliance tool in network management is the Cisco Tetration Analytics tool that ensures that all the software and hardware in a network is compliant with all the necessary standards, regulations and policies. The tool assists in the detection of the exact policy that should be implemented so as to ensure proper and safe operation of an application. This network management tool utilizes unsupervised machine learning for the generation of accurate clustering of the same peripheral points, and also uses the whitelist policies, which are in the requirement for secure application communication. Whitelist policies are however unfavorable because they are expensive to implement and also difficult to maintain.

Bandwidth Management

Bandwidth management tools in a network are responsible for allocation of scarce WAN bandwidth among different applications and network users. Effective bandwidth management is essential on the Internet as well as the intranet area of a network. The bandwidth monitoring tool provides a graphical representation of the real-time traffic in a switch or router. In an IT based organization, the tool is suitable for the identification of bottlenecks that are related to bandwidth with a network.

One of the best network bandwidth management tool is the Paessler PRTG. PRTG network monitoring tool has a free version that assists in managing internet bandwidth, to monitor how the bandwidth is used and also allows to connect to switches, firewalls, and routers. The network tool also assists in monitoring the type of devices and applications using the internet bandwidth. PRTG network monitor tool is also critical since it can assist in solving computer network problems and also in saving money in an organization (Stair & Reynolds, 2013). Another bandwidth management tool is the NetFlow Traffic Analyzer used for monitoring the bandwidth in a network and also tracking the protocols.

Asset Management

Asset management is crucial for all organizations including IT-based organizations. In IT organizations, asset management entails network inventory as well as software distribution. Network inventory packages provide a monitoring tool that assists in the automatic tracking of the organization’s network assets.

Examples of network asset management tools are the MS System Center Configuration Manager and the ManageEngineAssetExplorer. The MS System Center Configuration Manager is the best network asset management tool. The tool assists network managers to track assets; monitoring software deployment, monitoring operating system deployment as well as monitoring updates. This configuration tool not only performs hardware and software inventory but also allows the network administrator to perform the required configuration management in a network (Meyler, Holt & Ramsey, 2009).The tool is excellent because it operates across both wide area network as well as local area network. The ManageEngineAssetExplorer is a web-based asset management tool used in the tracking of IT assets from the planning stage to the disposal phase.

Conclusion

The paper discusses various network management tools related to policy compliance, internet bandwidth management as well as asset management. Different network management tools have varying features and capabilities. Therefore, network administrators should select the network management tool that suits their organization.

References

Bidgoli, H. (2000). Handbook of business data communications: A managerial perspective. Academic Press.

Meyler, K., Holt, B., & Ramsey, G. (2009). System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Unleashed. Sams Publishing.

Stair, R., & Reynolds, G. (2013). The Principles of information systems, Cengage Learning.

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