FEATURE: NETWORK MONITORING
Azz-Eddine Mansouri, Senior
Director, Sales, Middle East, Ciena
“MCP represents
a shift from
legacy,
monolithic
network
management
software
to flexible,
container-based
next generation
software which
enables the
transformation
to programmable,
IT-centric
operations.”
indicators, are required to drive
informed operational decisions.
Would end-users be better off
utilising a single, integrated
approach to monitoring?
Yes, with an integrated approach,
operators can plan, provision, and turn-
www.intelligentcio.com
up multi-layer services quickly using a
single, intuitive interface. They gain a
unified, real-time view of the network
and services, allowing for more rapid
troubleshooting. Network operators can
more easily perform all the essential
tasks that keep the network running
smoothly today and in the future. This
means they can fulfil customer service
requests rapidly and accurately assure
high service quality. With the ability to
analyse network data more accurately,
operators can ensure the network can
satisfy customers’ bandwidth and
quality demands going forward.
What are the consequences of
an ineffective network
monitoring system?
There can be multiple consequences
of an ineffective monitoring system.
Faced with multiple sets of data
from different tools, operators may
struggle to gain insights into network
performance and be unable to
troubleshoot problems adequately.
This lack of insight can make it more
difficult to monitor traffic, identify
usage patterns and plan future
capacity additions and upgrades.
Grappling with multiple tools can waste
time and make it more difficult to
perform simple remedial actions on the
network. This results in, not only lost
productivity for the operator, but also
dissatisfaction from the end-users.
How important is flexibility in a
single, integrated monitoring tool?
Traditionally (legacy) network
management software has been built
as a large single monolithic software
load, meaning that any changes require
significant software development
and testing. This seriously limits the
flexibility of network operators to
add new types of technology, new
network elements, or deploy new
services. Ciena’s Blue Planet MCP is
built using flexible, container-based
next generation software which allows
individual software functions to be
modified and hence greatly enhances
the agility of the network operator to
respond to new business challenges
and opportunities.
How will an effective network
monitoring system help CIOs explain
how the network is performing?
In today’s world, customer experience
is key for business success, and an
effective management system allows
operators to manage all the essential
tasks that keep the network running
smoothly and proactively measure,
report and ensure that all their customer
service SLAs are being met. Operators
need to be able to deploy services
rapidly across their infrastructure for
faster time to revenue, to troubleshoot
performance issues quickly, to correlate
with their customers’ services, and
leverage network data analysis and
utilisation levels for real time capacity
planning. Data must be collected
from the network dynamically, so the
operator always has the most accurate
view of the network and service
topology, without needing to reconcile
multiple, static inventory spreadsheets
or tools. With confidence in the
underlying data, users can manage the
full-service lifecycle in conjunction with
underlying network resources.
“In today’s
world, customer
experience is
key for business
success, and
an effective
management
system allows
operators to
manage all the
essential tasks
that keep the
network running
smoothly.
INTELLIGENTCIO
33