In case, the configuration changes are not successful, they will turn the configuration to the previous working state by undoing the changes as recorded by them in the documentation.Period polling is one method that looks to quantify network usage of network elements to gauge the requirements of the infrastructure. They login to each device separately and carry out the change. While carrying out changes, most of the administrators document the proposed changes.It is evident that administrators face pressures from multiple angles but, how do they normally manage configurations? Let us have a look at some of the traditional network configuration management practices: This drives them take extra care while changing configurations.Īdministrators also have to continuously monitor the changes carried out to the devices, as any unauthorized change can wreak havoc to the network.
Ensuring compliance has become a priority for network administrators nowadays. They find it hard to concentrate on strategic network engineering and administration tasks.īesides, with increasing security threats to mission-critical network resources and serious legal consequences of information mis-management, enterprises everywhere are required not just to follow standard practices, internal security policies, stringent Government regulations and industrial guidelines, but also demonstrate that the policies are enforced and network devices remain compliant to the policies defined. Yet, as even minor errors in configuration changes to the devices in production carry the risk of causing network outage, the skilled network administrators spend a significant part of their time on configuring the devices. Ironically, most of the configuration changes are repetitive, labor-intensive tasks - for instance, changing passwords and Access Control Lists. But, even the highly skilled are not immune to committing mistakes. Naturally, the highly skilled network administrators carry out the configuration changes. It requires specialized knowledge, familiarity with all types of devices from different vendors, awareness on the impact of changes, precision and accuracy.
So, it is highly important to prevent network outages arising due to faulty configuration changes.īusiness needs are in a constant state of flux and administrators are required to respond to the needs often by configuring the network devices, which is a sensitive and time-consuming task. Network Management experts repeatedly point out that more than half of the network outages and performance degradation issues are caused by faulty configuration changes. Not just network availability, but also ensuring security and reliability, optimizing performance, capacity and utilization of the network fall under the ambit of the administrators. The enterprise naturally puts the squeeze on the few network administrators mandating them with the responsibility of ensuring network availability. But, that alone may not be sufficient to prevent all network outages.Īs business needs grow, network complexity also grows up exponentially. With world-class ManageEngine OpManager in place, you have perfect control over the Network Monitoring arena.
To keep the network up and running, it is bare essential to have a robust, reliable fault and performance management software that helps in effectively monitoring the network. Even a few minutes of network outage could have a rippling effect on the revenue stream as critical business services get affected. In heterogeneous networks with hundreds/ thousands of mission-critical edge devices such as switches, routers, firewalls and others from multiple hardware vendors, managing the network becomes a challenging task.
The ChallengeĮnterprises - big and small, depend on network availability for business continuity. This paper discusses the network configuration management challenges, the need for the NCM add-on and its benefits. OpManager and NCM add-on together make Network Management not only efficient but also truly centralized. But, to prevent network problems and performance degradation issues arising due to faulty device configuration changes, OpManager NCM add-on is essential.