What is network management?

Network management is the process of monitoring, optimizing, and managing computer networks. A holistic network management software can help network admins ensure efficient network performance by monitoring and managing various aspects of a network, including hardware, software, protocols, and network connectivity. Network management tasks include monitoring network traffic, configuring devices, troubleshooting network issues, ensuring device availability and security, and optimizing resource utilization.

OpManager is a comprehensive and unified network management solution that simplifies the management of network devices, applications, IP addresses, switch ports, firewall, network configurations, traffic and bandwidth. It helps network admins track network health, performance, and availability based on the thresholds they set. Incorporating a holistic network management tool like OpManager is vital for your IT enterprise network. On this page we will be looking into,

The importance of network management

Consistent network maintenance is essential for IT organizations to maximize productivity, minimize network outages, and optimize network performance. Here are several reasons why network admins require a network management system for their enterprise:

  • Network transparency: Network management benefits network administrators by offering a detailed view of their enterprise's network infrastructure. This encompasses devices such as routers, switches, servers, and other network-connected devices. With access to these details, administrators can not only effectively monitor and manage their network but also protect it from external rogue devices attempting to connect.
  • Network availability: The primary purpose of a network management software is to detect and troubleshoot network downtime. Monitoring network availability is crucial for IT enterprises as it boosts productivity and minimizes downtime for business-critical network devices.
  • Network performance: Managing and maintaining the performance of your network is a key component that helps maximize your network efficiency. An inefficient network can lead to mishaps in operational efficiency, user experience, and business continuity.

A robust, secure, yet affordable network management solution such as OpManager, which enables enhanced network visibility, minimized network downtime, and improved network performance, is your best choice for streamlining network management.

Challenges faced by network admins to manage enterprise networks

Effectively managing a network presents network admins with a myriad of challenges to guarantee consistent network performance, health, and availability. Here are some prevalent challenges that network admins face in their day-to-day network management operations:

  • Complexity: Networks expanding across wired, wireless, and virtual IT environments lead to increased complexity in network infrastructures. This is a major challenge for network admins managing enterprise networks that scale frequently.
  • Choosing the right network management tool: With a plethora of network management solutions available, selecting the right one becomes crucial to assist network admins in handling diverse network metrics efficiently.
  • Agent/Agentless monitoring: Two primary approaches used by network management tools to gather data and metrics from network devices are agent-based and agentless monitoring. Network admins often face challenges choosing between these monitoring methods that have a direct impact on the efficiency of network monitoring operations, influencing the overall network management strategy.
  • The need for a comprehensive network solution: Comprehensive network management solutions are to be preferred for large organizational networks as they help reduce the complexity involved in depending on multiple tools to manage networks. Hence, choosing a comprehensive network management software is revolutionary for your IT enterprise.

OpManager stands as a proactive network management software specifically aimed at reducing network outages swiftly and gaining comprehensive control over network operations.

The different functional areas of network management

Primarily, there are five different types of network management that is defined by the ISO (International Standards Organization). They are:

Network fault management:

The biggest challenge with today's networking management tools is to proactively identify and manage network faults before they impact end-users. Among numerous network monitoring tools, ManageEngine OpManager, a trusted network management system, detects, isolates and troubleshoots faults, raises alarms to remediate faults quickly.

How OpManager helps identify and manage network faults

OpManager is a comprehensive enterprise network management solution which enables you to monitor the performance, availability and health of all your network devices. This network management system uses the SNMP/WMI/CLI network protocols to fetch performance data from network devices. This data is then displayed to the network admins on the network management tool's web console, which helps them identify and troubleshoot issues easily.

Using OpManager's network management solution, you can

  • Set multiple thresholds for performance metrics.
  • Stay ahead of network issues with the network manager tool's adaptive threshold based alerts.
  • Keep an eye on monitored metrics with the network management dashboard.
  • Get proactively notified for threshold violations and faults through email and SMS.
  • Process SNMP traps and syslogs and raise alerts based on threshold set on the networking management software.
  • Automatically log alarms as tickets into a service desk software.

Hence, OpManager undoubtedly is an advanced network management software that helps identify and troubleshoot network faults.

Network configuration management:

Network configurations are important for any network, and any change in them adversely impacts the security, reliability, and quality of service provided. These changes are complex to manage, and this increases multi-fold when done manually and requires robust network management configuration tools. According to an internal survey, nearly 50% of IT pros agreed that changes to network configurations led to outages several times a year. In these cases, a network configuration management tool will be handy to prevent such changes in the first place or roll back immediately.

How OpManage helps manage network configurations

ManageEngine OpManager's network configuration module aids in network management by automating configuration backups, detecting network changes and ensuring that the compliance policies are adhered. With approval based configuration changes, administrators can be aware of any external network changes by allowing or denying network users to make changes to device configurations.

With OpManager, an integrated network management software, you can:

  • Automating configuration backups.
  • Discovering and remediating network policy violations.
  • Executing scripts automatically to combat unauthorized network changes.
  • Visualizing trends in device configuration changes.
  • Verifying configurations/device for PCI compliance.

Network performance management:

Network performance management involves troubleshooting faults either through a manual or automated approach so that the network performance is restored to its original or improved condition. For this task, network admins rely on real-time network management solutions that offer comprehensive details into network performance metrics such as disk space, utilization, and so on. A reliable network manager software provides real-time network management services, addressing both basic and advanced network management needs to rectify faults that adversely impact network performance.

How OpManager helps boost network performance

OpManager assists network administrators in associating performance monitors, such as CPU utilization, disk utilization, SysUp Time, network usage, and more, either individually or in bulk, based on the type of network devices. This network monitoring software also has essential built-in tools like ping, traceroute, MIB browser, remote control, and more to effectively troubleshoot basic network performance issues.

Using OpManager, a reliable network management tool, you have the capability to:

  • Associate network performance monitors based on device templates and vendors.
  • Set thresholds and monitor network devices based on various network performance metrics.
  • Associate performance monitors for a bulk number of devices simultaneously.
  • Receive alarms via notification profiles based on the thresholds you set for monitoring and managing network performance.
  • Generate granular reports and graphs on network performance.

Network accounting management

Network accounting management optimizes the allocation of network resources among end-users to enhance overall network efficiency. Achieving this involves implementing access controls for users, dictating the network resources they can access and utilize. This strategic approach not only conserves significant network resources but also contributes to cost-effective network management.

How OpManager's Role Based Access Control helps

  • It lets you create customized roles for users and define them based on your preference.
  • You can take advantage of the default roles (Administrator and Operator) in OpManager.
  • You can assign roles for users, set passwords for authentication, and enable read/write permissions for users.

Network security management:

The primary role of network security management is to help safeguard sensitive information and prevent unauthorized access from accessing your enterprise network. Continuously monitoring firewall rules, compliance, and logs are essential for an enterprise to adapt to evolving cyber threats and maintain a resilient defense against malicious activities.

With OpManager Firewall Analyzer module, network admins can optimize network security management through proactive firewall strategies, including firewall rule optimization, firewall configuration tracking, security audits, compliance management, and insightful log analysis for complete protection against potential threats and vulnerabilities.

Using OpManager's network management capabilities, you can

  • Optimize firewall rules by reorganizing and identifying poorly constructed ones.
  • Conduct thorough security audits within the firewall to ensure robust protection and identify potential vulnerabilities.
  • Generate comprehensive compliance management reports to ensure adherence to security standards and regulatory requirements.
  • Efficiently manage firewall configurations by tracking and documenting changes for enhanced security insight.
  • Analyze firewall logs to generate detailed traffic and security reports, providing valuable insights into network activity for proactive threat detection and response.
Network fault management

Network fault management

Network fault management

Network fault management

Network fault management

Network fault management

Network configuration management

Network configuration management

Network performance management

Network performance management

Network accounting management

Network accounting management

Network security management

Network security management

 
 

Additional areas of network management

Apart from the ISO standards (FCAPS), there are other functional areas network admins need to cover for efficiently managing networks. They are:

IP address and switch port management:

OpManager's IP address and switch port management module allows network admins to monitor and manage IP addresses and switch ports easily. With OpManager, you can monitor IPv4, IPv6 subnets, check for available IP addresses, allocate these IP addresses to network devices and avoid IP conflicts. The Switch Port Mapper module offers real-time discovery of devices connected to switch ports. With the help of end-to-end mapping, you can locate the physical location of the devices, monitor them, and remotely block them if they turn rogue. The Rogue Detection module automatically scans routers, switches, and subnets for rouge devices. With the help of this network management feature, network admins can establish more control by tagging their network devices as trusted, guest, or rogue, and receiving alerts based on it.

Bandwidth management:

The usage of bandwidth is critical metric that needs to be monitored in any organization. Monitoring real-time traffic, analyzing usage patters, and tracking bandwidth usage are some key factors to ensure that the business critical applications never run out.

OpManger's network management solution helps network admins identify the root cause of bandwidth issues and offer solutions such as cutting down on bandwidth on certain areas of an enterprise network, or expanding the infrastructure and so on. This network management tool offers application and protocol monitoring through a user-friendly dashboard, enabling users to drill down into specific traffic details. It also allows network admins to view protocol distribution, enable the implementation of Quality of Service (QoS) policies and traffic shaping to control bandwidth consumption effectively.

Compliance management:

Network compliance is essential for organizations as security threats to network resources continue to rise, and adherence to industry standards is crucial. OpManager's NCM add-on simplifies Network Compliance Automation, allowing organizations to verify, manage, and stay compliant with industry standards such as CIS, SOX, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and custom policies. This network management tool assists network admins in scrutinizing and implementing security policies across diverse network devices from multiple vendors, ensuring complete network configuration compliance.

With OpManager, a potent network management solution, you can:

  • Automate compliance checks on configurations, generate alerts, and report on policy violations.
  • Execute CLI commands, secure SNMP communities, and conduct compliance checks for specific standards such CIS.
  • Implement access controls, generate compliance reports and monitor user activities to ensure HIPAA compliance standard.
  • Audit IT infrastructure, streamline reporting processes, and enhance security risk management to ensure SOX compliance
  • Maintain passwords, control authentication processes, and generate detailed PCI compliance reports for multiple devices.

OpManager, a reliable network management tool, offers an efficient solution for maintaining network compliance through various compliance templates and routine checks. These features guarantee adherence to standards and simplify the process of keeping your network compliant and secure.

IP address and switch port management

IP address and switch port management

Bandwidth management

Bandwidth management

Compliance management

Compliance management

 
 

Important network management tasks

In addition to monitoring various functional areas of network management, OpManager also executes essential network management tasks, empowering network administrators to efficiently managing their networks. These tasks include:

Network Provisioning

An important aspect of network management is network provisioning. Every network monitor must have network provisioning, which involves calculating the load handled by the network and future demands based on the current network trend. It also involves keeping resources in reserve so that when a need arises, it becomes easier to handle. A network control software would enable you to identify network trends and effectively provision your network.

OpManager network management service helps in resource management with:

  • Capacity planning reports - OpManager is pre built with 150+ network management reports that provide information on device upgrades, bandwidth usage, disk & memory utilization etc. These reports help in identifying network trends and assist in resource allocation.
  • OpManager inventory - OpManager keeps a comprehensive inventory of all network resources, including hardware devices such as servers, routers, switches and virtual devices. Using this feature, network admins can view and plan resources to ensure maximum efficiency in their enterprise network.

Maintaining QoS in network management

It is common for network performance to degrade as years pass by. Therefore, it is essential to deliver quality IT services to end-users meet the SLA month on month. OpManager, the automated network management tool helps you adhere to service level agreements and achieves 99.9% availability for your network and business critical applications. With business level dashboards, it is possible to detect the factors affecting your business in real time.

Workflows in network management

Enterprise network management involves on-demand and scheduled tasks such as testing network faults, executing backup scripts, etc. Most of these network management tasks are repetitive and time-consuming. Automating such tasks will help admins and technicians save a lot of time and effort. Automated network management also helps you reduce your workforce and enable the implementation of simple automated troubleshooting techniques for your network.

For example, whenever you get a device down alarm, you will ping the device and do a traceroute to know if there is any packet loss, where exactly it is happening, or if the device is actually down. These repetitive tasks can be automated with workflows.OpManager, the trusted network management and monitoring tool supports around 80 actions that can be automated with workflows.

Some of the network management tasks handled by OpManager workflows include:

  • Automatically stop/restart a service or a process.
  • Shutdown/restart/suspend a VM.
  • Execute the scripts and verify their output.
  • Backup network configurations automatically.
  • Detect the last changes done on a network device.
Network provisioning

Network provisioning

Network provisioning

Network provisioning

Maintaining QoS

Maintaining QoS

Workflows

Workflows

 
 

Therefore, in addition to addressing ISO-defined functional areas such as fault, configuration, performance, accounting, and security management, OpManager stands out in managing IP addresses, optimizing bandwidth, and enhancing network security. It also proficiently handles crucial network management tasks including network provisioning, Quality of Service (QoS) maintenance, and workflow automation. OpManager emerges as an advanced and versatile network management software, providing a comprehensive solution for efficient and streamlined network management in the dynamic IT landscape.

Interested in OpManager? Schedule a live demo with our product experts. We'd be delighted to showcase all the features OpManager has to offer and address any questions you may have. Ready to explore OpManager for free? Download our 30-day trial and get started in minutes. Make OpManager your go-to network management solution and experience hassle-free network management!

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