Network Management and Diagnosis of Enterprise-Wide Networks

Abstract

PCs and workstations are the tools of choice for many workgroup applications. When attached to increasingly large and complex Local Area Networks (LANs), they share their own resources and those in diverse widely distributed servers. Increasingly, Wide Area Networks (WANs) are linking these LANs to form geographically distributed LAN/WANs with large numbers of computing and communication components. An effective network management system for these new enterprise networks must help manage a variety of vendor equipment, operating systems, and software components. The open systems solution to this problem is to define a widely accepted Network Management systems framework and a standard for a Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP) [1,2]. Although the International Standards Organization Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) committees have made good progress, these new heterogeneous networks will have a large diversity of standard and proprietary components. The installed base of these networks will continue to grow for many years to come. For this reason, OSI compliant LAN/WAN Network Management Systems architectures should provide modular adaptation to a variety of standardized and proprietary component types. They must also grow gracefully in modular increments, and remain operational in the presence of the very problems and incompatibilities it is designed to help manage.