IP Network Management

Centralized and standardized techniques for remote management of the devices that make up a network. The term network management is used to cover all aspects of configuration, control, and reporting that are useful to a network operator who is trying to understand how a network is functioning, commissioning new equipment, directing traffic along specific paths, or performing maintenance on parts of the network.

We begin with a brief description of the benefits of network management and then discuss some common techniques for the collection of operational statistics and the motivation for doing so. The tutorial moves on to compare the benefits of proprietary configuration methods with standardized approaches, followed by the introduction of some of the standardized management models-management information bases (MIBs), the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), the eXtensible Markup Language (XML), and the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA). After a discussion of the differences between the management models, the tutorial concludes with a description of the use of policy within modern networks.

This tutorial is not intended to present each management mechanism in detail but rather to give a working overview. Where specific protocol-related components exist they are highlighted and described.