FEATURE: NETWORK MONITORING
Gaining a
clearer insight
into network
performance
The monitoring of networks has
become highly complicated with
their growth under the strain of
a bandwidth-hungry world. One
of the most apparent problems
has been the fragmentation of the
network and the emergence of
multiple monitoring tools making
its management cumbersome.
T
hink of today’s network and you
might find yourself wishing for a
way to accurately analyse data.
Faced with multiple sets of data provided
by different tools operators can be
forgiven for thinking that a clear insight
into network performance is difficult, if
not near impossible, to obtain.
This can result in time being wasted
and difficulty in undertaking simple
operations on the network. Not ideal
if you are a network manager fed up
of hearing colleagues moaning about
slow networks. Fortunately, there has
been a move away from old-fashioned
network management software to
state-of-the-art container-based and
programmable software.
An efficient management system will
allow operators to manage all the
essential tasks that keep the network
running smoothly. We asked three
industry experts for their insights into
monitoring modern networks.
32
INTELLIGENTCIO
AZZ-EDDINE MANSOURI,
SENIOR DIRECTOR, SALES,
MIDDLE EAST, CIENA
Is there a tendency for end-users
to use too many monitoring tools?
Yes, there is a tendency for
network operators to use too
many monitoring tools. Network
and service management have
become highly complex activities,
as networks have grown to serve
an increasingly bandwidth-hungry
world. This rapid growth has also
spawned the related problem of
network fragmentation, covering
multiple technologies and multiple
vendors’ equipment, resulting in the
use of different monitoring tools.
The fragmented set of software
tools often required to operate these
multi-layer multi-vendor networks
makes the process of managing and
deploying services unwieldy and
time-consuming.
Are there any problems with a
‘multi-tool’ approach? Do end-
users struggle to understand
contrasting sets of network
monitoring data?
Having multiple, separate
management tools forces network
operators into time-consuming,
manual, error-prone monitoring
systems. Often ‘swivel chair’ network
management is required to monitor
different screens from different
vendors and manually correlate
the information. This results in
slow, error prone service turn-up
and the inability to integrate new
technologies. Big data is often touted
as the solution, but on its own –
especially from multiple sources
– it is not sufficient to run a high-
performance network.
A dynamic view of the network
and service topology, and real-time
analysis of different key performance
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