Network management challenges

computer networks have become norm. Today’s networks are supporting more traffic than ever. Its not
only from this computers only but smart phones are added with them and now a days Internet of Things
(IoT) is also becoming a big part of it. However, they bring unique set of challenges with them, both
when designing and maintaining them.

In small networks, it is easy to overlook minor problems, but in a large network it becomes difficult to
identify and face those challenges since it may bring entire network infrastructure down with it. Minor
and common computer network problems can be easily identified and dealt with, but there are certain
problems that can be tricky to handle, Let’s discuss about those computer network challenges. But
before going into networking challenges, Let’s first give a look at this computer network and after that
we can analyze challenges involved in computer networks that we face commonly in our day to day life.

Computer Network is basis of communication in Information Technology (IT). It refers to group of

computers linked to each other that enables one computer to communicate with another computer to
share information and resources. These devices connected to network use a set of network
protocols over digital interconnections for purpose of sharing resources located on or provided by
network nodes. The interconnections between nodes are formed based on a variety of network
topologies.

Common Challenges of Computer Network :

Performance Degradation –
Many time we have faced loss in data integrity and speed of a network which is generally down to poor
transmissions and is also known as performance degradation. Every networks that may be large or small
performance issue is everywhere but in large networks this performance degradation issue is high as
communication has to be established with in a larger area and also by help of many network devices.

Security Issues –
When it comes to computer network there this security issue arises. It is one of top issue of computer
network and a big challenge to network security engineers which generally involve protecting network
from different cyber attacks, preventing unauthorized users to enter and access system, and maintaining
network integrity. All these security issues increases with increase in network size when network size is
large there chance of security issues are more.

Host Identification –
Small networks can be easily configured with help of manual addressing, but this becomes a serious
problem in large networks when it comes to host identification. Because without any proper address of
networking it becomes difficult to establish communication in network. So proper host identification is
necessary for a network communication.
Configuration Conflicts –
Mainly large networks have to deal with configuration conflicts and busy networks, since a lot more
traffic is going through it. But in small networks a couple of thousand IP addresses with unique host
names are available so there is less chance of conflict in between devices. But now a days this problem is
less as network structures are designed in such a way that deals with configuration conflicts.

Capacity Concern –
Now a days volume of data is so high which is produced from various sources. So network capacity also
needs to grow with respect it. Today we are dealing with trends like Internet of Things (IoT), Big
Data, Data science etc and next year something new will be also added so networks also need to
improve capacity needs as well as facing cyber threats.

Slow Connectivity –
Slow connectivity over a network is more frustrating where a simple task takes a long time to be
performed over network. It’s often caused by large file transfers over a large area through network. It
becomes an unwanted challenge for users when they work over computer network.

Monitoring and maintenance –

Monitoring and maintenance of global network is one of big challenge of current time. It becomes very
difficult to monitor volume of a traffic in a large network.

Introduction

Network management is the sum total of applications, tools and processes used to provision, operate,
maintain, administer and secure network infrastructure. The overarching role of network management
is ensuring network resources are made available to users efficiently, effectively and quickly. It leverages
fault analysis and performance management to optimize network health.

Why do we need network management? A network brings together dozens, hundreds or thousands of
interacting components. These components will sometimes malfunction, be misconfigured, get over
utilized or just fail. Enterprise network management software must respond to these challenges by
employing the best suited tools required to manage, monitor and control the network.

The internet

he Internet is a worldwide network that links computers. People may exchange information and
converse through the Internet from any location with an Internet connection. The Internet is a vast
network that connects billions of computers and other electronic devices all around the world.

What is network management

Network management is the procedure of administering, managing and working a data network using a
network management system. Current network management systems use software and hardware to
constantly collect and analyse data and push out configuration changes for increasing performance,
reliability, and security.

It involves configuring monitoring and possibly reconfiguring components in a network with the goal of
providing optimal performance, minimum downtime, proper security, accountability and flexibility

Internet structure

The internet is a global network of interconnencted networks that communicate using a common set of
standards and protocols. These networks are owned and managed by a wide range of organisations,
such as national governments, private companies, and academic institutions.

It is estimated that there are over 4.5 billion internet users (June 2019). The devices they use are
connected (either wirelessly or by cable) to high speed telecommunication networks that span the
globe. At the heart of these networks is the internet backbone: a mesh of super fast fibre-optic cables
and industrial routers that move data at an eye-watering speed. Most of the backbone is provided by
giant telecommunication companies; these companies do not charge each other for their services, and
are not responsible for the availability or reliability of their services.

Managing an entity

The managing entity is the central locus of activity for network management - it controls the collection,
processing, analysis, and/or display of network management information.

Internal and external policies

Once the agency has determined that a web site will serve a useful purpose, staff will need to determine
how the web site should be built. The needs assessment process will help to determine if resources exist
within the agency to match its needs. One goal of this exercise is to see if the site should be created in
house or whether web development should be outsourced (developed by an outside company).
Additionally, staff will need to determine if the new web site should reside, physically, on servers owned
by the agency or if an outside vendor should be hired to house and maintain the web site on its servers.
Agencies with existing sites may want to revisit these issues periodically in planning for the maintenance
and upgrade of their sites. Agencies need to know if expectations based on an assessment of the needs
of the agency match the ability to meet them.

Needs Assessment Checklist

One purpose of the needs assessment might be to determine if the agency has the ability to support a
web server, portal, and computer files on its own. The following questions should be considered:

Does the agency have funds for servers and the appropriate space to house the servers?

Does the agency have staff available to maintain the servers?

If staff are available, what additional training will be needed to maintain the servers?

Should web content management be centralized or decentralized-that is, will one person/department
manage the entire site or will each department manage its own section?
What web design skills are on staff?

Once the major development is complete, can the existing staff support the system?

Will instructional applications be delivered over the web site?

The degree of difficulty in programming grows with the complexity of the web site. Some sophistication
is required to build and maintain a web site that, for example, accesses databases containing student
assessment scores and develops methodologies for making comparisons of student success rates.
Templates can be used to set up a web page or web site, but more knowledge is needed to develop a
graphic design motif that will be used to represent the agency on the World Wide Web whenever
anyone visits the web site.

Just as a computer needs software for people to use it, a web site needs applications. These applications
provide the tools that make the World Wide Web valuable to educators. Additional applications are
necessary to protect the web site and the data that may be accessed through the web.

State of network management

Network management is a multifaceted discipline that requires a cohesive effort to provision, secure,
optimize and maintain effective enterprise operations. This starts with understanding all the elements
that constitute a comprehensive IT management strategy.

Network management -- the process of administering an organization's wired and wireless

infrastructure -- entails more than just making sure gear is working. The International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) outlines five major elements that IT organizations need to address in their network
management programs. These operational areas are fault management, configuration management,
accounting management, performance management and security management, also known as FCAPS.

Each network management subdiscipline incorporates several operational elements. Here is a rundown
of the different types of network management.

Network management garter model

These are applications designed to isolate and resolve faults on the network, measure and optimize
performance, manage the network topology, track resource use over time, initially provision and
reconfigure elements, and account for network elements. Suites that include fault monitoring and
diagnosis, provisioning/configuration, accounting, performance management, and TCP/IP application
management — but only for networks — are also included here. This network management segment is
intended for products that are mainly or entirely network-oriented and used primarily by enterprises.
Also included in this category are network CM tools. These tools set, change, collect and restore
information about network devices (such as bridges, routers, switches and so forth).

Benefits of automation

Gartner’s IT Automation predictions include hyperautomation, hybrid infrastructure tools, and cost-
overruns for digital transformation. Find out more.

Written by Brian McHugh. Last Updated: June 21, 2023

As the corporate world finds a new balance post-COVID, it is taking the best advances carved out during
this historic period and incorporating them into today’s new reality. As organizations have embraced a
digital-first business model and cloud-centric approach, they are realizing the benefits of new
technologies. With it comes a greater focus on IT automation.

Each year, Gartner, Inc. releases a series of papers explaining the trends that will impact business, IT and
technology in the coming years. This year’s predictions range from the growing rise of AI and the
metaverse to sustainable technology and industry cloud platforms.

In general, most of Gartner’s 2023 predictions involve IT’s role becoming more prominent within the
organization as digital business initiatives accelerate and mature. So to help IT professionals plan for the
coming years, we’ve gone through the latest Gartner research publications and pulled out the
predictions most relevant to the IT automation market.

Overall, four major trends stick out:

IT operations will be focused on optimizing resilience, trust and overall operations.

The pace of automation is accelerating, with more organizations creating fully automated value chains.
CIOs are focusing more on scaling up productivity, customer engagement and customer value, looking
beyond just IT operations.

Sustainable, easy-to-use technology solutions are becoming increasingly important.

Now, before diving into what exactly Gartner expects for IT automation in 2023, let’s get some context
out of the way.

Lack of industry response

IT executives see the talent shortage as the most significant adoption barrier to 64% of emerging
technologies, compared with just 4% in 2020, according to a new survey from Gartner, Inc. A lack of
talent availability was cited far more often than other barriers this year, such as implementation cost
(29%) or security risk (7%).

Talent availability is cited as a leading factor inhibiting adoption among all six technology domains
included in the survey – compute infrastructure and platform services, network, security, digital
workplace, IT automation and storage and database. IT executives cited talent availability as the main
adoption risk factor for the majority of IT automation technologies (75%) and nearly half of digital
workplace technologies (41%).

“The ongoing push toward remote work and the acceleration of hiring plans in 2021 has exacerbated IT
talent scarcity, especially for sourcing skills that enable cloud and edge, automation and continuous
delivery,” said Yinuo Geng, research vice president at Gartner.

“As one example, of all the IT automation technologies profiled in the survey, only 20% of them have
moved ahead in the adoption cycle since 2020. The issue of talent is to blame here.”

Impact on business

This research serves as a structured framework and definition of nonaccounting metrics that can be
applied generically to help organizations identify how their business activities will impact financial
performance.

We believe that this standardization will enhance IT-to-business communication by allowing greater
precision and meaning in addressing increasingly complex business value creation issues. The Business
Value Model is a set of precisely defined performance metrics and is a useful tool that extends, not
replaces, traditional accounting metrics in determining the real drivers of business value and in closing
the measurement gap.

Distributed systems and new abstractions

Distributed systems form the infrastructure for much of our daily computing experience. Popular
internet services like Google search, Facebook, and Amazon are all implemented as distributed systems.
Many of these systems have been repurposed to provide compute and storage as a cloud service to
other companies, such as Airbnb. To bootstrap a tech startup today you simply pay for AWS or Azure to
provide you with nearly unbounded and elastic capacity. Computer networks, from your home router to
international ISPs, are also distributed systems: they are all in a constant state of distributed
coordination. Even your multi-core laptop has much in common with a distributed system.

Being infrastructure, distributed systems are rarely in the limelight. The purpose of this course is to
highlight these systems and the beauty behind their designs. I posit that to know the 'stack' and to
engineer robust and high-performing systems today (and even more so in the future) requires familiarity
with distributed systems.

This course will cover a broad range of topics. We will often look back to classic papers that introduced
core concepts that structure many of the existing designs. We will also discuss contemporary papers
that document the systems powering commercial services such as GMail.

Unlike standard courses on distributed systems, this course will focus on abstractions. Dijkstra has a
wonderful quote that gets to the heart of abstractions in computer science:

A review of network Elements and services

In computer networks, a network element is a manageable logical entity uniting one or more physical
devices. This allows distributed devices to be managed in a unified way using one management system.

According to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the term 'network element' refers to a facility or to
equipment used in the provision of a telecommunications service. This term also refers to features,
functions, and capabilities that are provided by means of such facility or equipment. This includes items
such as subscriber numbers, databases, signaling systems, and information that is sufficient for billing
and collection. Alternatively, it's also included if it's used in the transmission, routing, or other provision
of a telecommunications service.

Network devices and services

Network Devices: Network devices, als Network services are applications at the network application
layer that connect users working in offices, branches, or remote locations to applications and data in a
network. These services typically run on serverso known as networking hardware, are physical devices
that allow hardware on a computer network to communicate and interact with one another. For
example Repeater, Hub, Bridge, Switch, Routers, Gateway, Brouter, and NIC, etc.

Network services are applications at the network application layer that connect users working in offices,
branches, or remote locations to applications and data in a network. These services typically run on
servers

Example of network elements and services

Each service definition also specifies the interface between that

service and the environment. This includes the parameters needed to

 invoke the service, informational parameters which the service must

make available for use by setup, routing, and management mechanisms,

and information which should be carried between end-nodes and network

elements by those mechanisms in order to achieve the desired end-to-

end behavior. However, a service definition does not describe the

specific protocols or mechanisms used to establish state in the

network elements for flows that use the described service.

Services defined following the guidelines of this document are

intended for use both within the global Internet and private IP

networks. In certain cases a concatenation of network element

services may be used to provide a range of end-to-end behaviors, some

more suited to a decentralized internet and some more appropriate for

a tightly managed private network. This document points out places

where such distinction may be appropriate.

Effect of physical organization on management

There are many factors that contribute to the success of organizations today. These include a focus on
creativity and innovation, leadership, and effective communication. There is also a renewed focus on the
health, well-being, and development of knowledge workers who make up effective organizations today.
One way that organizations can stay competitive is to pay attention to the value of the physical work
environment. This review of the academic literature has shown that the design of the physical work
environment can have a positive or negative effect on organizational success and the people who work
there. According to the studies described above, the physical work environment can influence
organizational outcomes, such as performance, collaboration, innovation, effective human-resource
management, and profitability. It can also influence employee outcomes such as engagement,
performance, well-being, and satisfaction.

Basic Ethernet switch

An Ethernet switch is a type of network hardware that is foundational to networking and the internet.
Ethernet switches connect cabled devices, like computers, Wi-Fi access points, PoE lighting and IoT
devices, and servers, in an Ethernet LAN so they can communicate with each other and to the internet.

VLan switch
 VLAN is a set of end stations and the switch ports that connect them. You can have different reasons for
the logical division, such as department or project membership. The only physical requirement is that
the end station and the port to which it is connected both belong to the same VLAN.

Adding virtual LAN (VLAN) support to a Layer 2 switch offers some of the benefits of both bridging and
routing. Like a bridge, a VLAN switch forwards traffic based on the Layer 2 header, which is fast. Like a
router, it partitions the network into logical segments, which provides better administration, security,
and management of multicast traffic.

Access point for a wireless lan

An access point is a device that creates a wireless local area network, or WLAN, usually in an office or
large building. An access point connects to a wired router, switch, or hub via an Ethernet cable, and
projects a WiFi signal to a designated area. For example, if you want to enable WiFi access in your
company's reception area but don’t have a router within range, you can install an access point near the
front desk and run an Ethernet cable through the ceiling back to the server room.

Cable modem sytem

A cable modem is a device that connects a computer system to the Internet via the cable television
network. Cable Internet technology allows for transfer rates as high as 30Mbps (megabits per second, or
30 million bits per second; contrast that to phone modems at 56 thousand bits per second). However,
that bandwidth is commonly divided up among all subscribers in a defined area, such as a neighborhood
or a subdivision. Because of this, real-world transfer rates are anywhere from 256Kbps to 4Mbps. The
most common way to link to the cable modem is through an Ethernet 10BASE-T connection.