Network Management

Network management is important for the sole reason of proper performance monitoring.

Through properly examining performance variables such as user response times, line utilization and network throughput, IT personnel can determine how well (or how poorly) their network is performing.

Ideally, you want to make sure your network is managed well enough so that it is performing acceptably at all times.

But the network management “rabbit hole” goes even deeper than that if you look – configuration, fault, security and performance are all different areas covered by network management solutions.

Performance Management

Network management can be accomplished via specialized software, which first gathers data based on the variables the network administrators set. Then that data is analyzed for averages – to gather a clear idea of what a “baseline” variable might be. Once the standard performance levels are identified, moving forward, network management solutions can identify performance thresholds that exceed these baseline variables – in other words, identifying a network problem in need of fixing.

At that point, the proper personnel are notified by the network if anything occurs that violates those preset principals. Proper network management requires that a truly reactive system be in place.

 Security Management

Hackers are everywhere these days and network security concerns are becoming more and more common.

Network management security systems partition network services into flagged authorized areas. This limits user access to certain areas.

Security management tools help identify and protect sensitive files – and they also log and monitor access points to the more sensitive network resources.

Configuration Management

This aspect of network management is a little easier to explain. Configuration management is in place to ensure that network and system information is monitored on an operational level – so that the different types of hardware and software elements can be properly overseen.

Problems that arise are categorically pinpointed.

Accounting Management

Certain individuals or groups can hog bandwidth – so network regulation equalizes the network for all users by setting parameters for usage.