Management: Operation

The task of network management is to manage networks for efficient and reliable operation. This has become necessary because of the increasing complexity and size of networks. Costs for networks have become one of the most significant factors within overall budgets for computing and communication.
Like management in general network management means to plan, supervise and control any activity concerning the computer network.

To manage large networks the help of automated network management tools is needed, so that the current status and behavior of the network can be analyzed. Those network management systems show the whole network as a unified system with the possibility to access information and change current behavior of every part of the network. Therefore every network node contains software to collect and store statistical data (network management entity). In addition at least one device in the network works as a network control center, which allows access and change of this data via a user interface.

The International Standards Organization (ISO) has defined a Network Management Architecture, that specifies which functions have to be performed by a network management system and defines protocols for the exchange of relevant management data. It consists of five elements:

• Fault Management: detect and correct abnormal operation that requires management attention
• Configuration Management: control, identify, collect data from, and provide data to managed objects within the network; initializing and shutting down of network
• Performance Management: evaluate behavior and effectivness of network; to accomplish this task appropriate metrics have to be established
• Security Management: manage access to network, encryption of data, log facilities
• Accounting Management: identify costs and establish charges

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The ISO management standards are based on object-oriented thinking. In an object-oriented model the problem is devided into manageable parts called objects. Every object is described by attributes, a unique identifier, the events it creates and its relationship to other objects. In ISO management standards all network devices are seen as such managed objects. A simplified section of a network described as an OO-diagram may look like this: