Network Management Fundamentals

Chapter 3. The Basic Ingredients of Network Management

Chapters 1, “Setting the Stage,” and 2, “On the Job with a Network Manager,” explored what network management does, why it is important, where its challenges lie, and what kinds of activities and tools are associated with it. But what does network management, at a very basic level, really consist of? First, there is, of course, the network that is to be managed, consisting of a multitude of interconnected devices that collectively shuffle data (for example, web pages, e-mails, voice packets of phone calls, and video frames) across the network. Second, there are the systems and applications that are used to manage the network, many of which were described in Chapter 2. In those systems the ...