Network Management

Is automation the right path for improving network management capabilities?

According to industry expert Pam Snaith, a product marketing manager in the enterprise systems management business unit of CA (News - Alert) Enterprise Systems Management, “one decision to make regarding network configuration and change management is what solution you are going to deploy — a niche stand-alone application or one incorporated into your fault and performance management solution.”

The more tools you have, Snaith says, “the less integrated the management of various technology domains and the less efficient your IT staff will be.” As she explains, a niche tool only exhibits its excellence in its native environment: “With many different vendors and platforms, the amount of manual correlation is significant and you lose the opportunity to speed up and clean up change processes.”

A single tool has the advantage of allowing administrators to have control of who has viewing access, Snaith explains, “or can perform configuration tasks, further reducing errors. The combination of a single tool, plus automation, will bring clarity to change management.” So for a change of pace, she says, try automation.

As Snaith writes, managing configuration changes well takes two key capabilities — “awareness and automation. Network configuration management needs to notice and notify when changes are made to network devices. Awareness of configuration changes won’t always prevent downtime or degradation but it does provide the opportunity to make a fast correction, such as a fall back to a previous, working configuration.”

So change awareness, integrated into your network fault management product, “should identify configuration changes in real-time,” Snaith says, “and verify them against established correct configurations and notify the correct individual regarding unexpected changes.”

She concludes that automation “gives you the opportunity to add action — and speed — to awareness. Today’s fault management tools depend upon automation to take immediate action to prevent downtime and to correct developing performance problems. While automated actions must be based on business policies established by trusted technical advisors, automating the resulting action eliminates a great deal of risk. Automation improves both your proactive change management and your reactive change management.”