Adage Networks has developed
a comprehensive approach to solving management requirements
for network, systems, applications, and security. With our
long history in providing customers solutions that are tailored
to their business and operational environment, our consultants
focus on the five areas of Network Management processes defined
by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
We have a proven methodology for delivering Infrastructure
Management solutions, and have even assisted our clients to
develop best practices to streamline their IT operations and
reduce Network Management cost. Based on the ISO framework
Adage uses the following approach to deliver a complete Infrastructure
Management Solution for customers:
- Problem/Fault/Event Management
- Problem is a critical function related to fault management
that defines such things as help desk functions, problem
prioritization, escalation plans and procedures, and
the logging and reporting of problems.
- Fault Management defines the detection, isolation,
diagnosis and correction of problems within the network.
- Configuration and Change Management
- Configuration Management involves the tracking of
network component configurations, parameter changes
and evaluation of network state.
- Change Management is an organized, systematic application
of the knowledge, tools, and resources of change that
provides organizations with a key process to achieve
their business strategy.
- Performance and Management Reporting
- Performance Management defines system performance
measurement, satisfactory levels of performance, and
criteria for adjustment.
- Accounting and Asset Management
- Accounting involves tracking network usage for the
purposes of charge-back or detecting usage abuse.
- Asset management refers to equipment asset management
(EAM) from the IT perspective to procure, deploy, maintain,
and retire fixed assets.
- Security Management
- Security Management provides a method for maintaining
network component authentication and authorization information.
Adage consultants will conduct interviews based on detailed
questionnaires to gather the customer’s business and
technical drivers for an infrastructure management solution.
Adage will use the results of questionnaires and interviews
to help define the requirements. The results will be captured
in the form of meeting minutes and high level reference architectures.
These documents will be used to create the customer’s
Network Management requirements document and the Network Management
Conceptual Architecture deliverables. These deliverables will
be used as input to determine the Design Strategy for subsequent
activities within the project.
Strategy / Plan
– Business Requirements
Business Strategy
- Goals and Objectives
- Business and Operational Processes and Functions
- People, Organization, and locations
- Motivations, Risks, and control objectives
- Financial Budgets, Technical Issues, and constraints
Technical Requirements
- Network Infrastructure
- Network Management
- Security
- Applications
- Business Continuity
Deliverables
- Network Management Current-State and Requirements document
containing a summary of the current state and a description
of the business context in which systems must be designed,
built, and operated in the future. This document will discuss
the existing managed environment, growth trends and new
technologies to be considered during the technical architecture
definition.
- Network Management Conceptual Architecture document –
this document will include the overall concept by which
the business requirements of the enterprise may be met.
- Network Management Design Strategy – this document
is based on the prioritized business goals, service definitions,
service levels and the organization structure. The focus
of this document is to propose a design plan that will allow
for maximum benefit, while maintaining a logical implementation
sequence of events based on business priorities.
Implementation and operation of high performance, high availability
network management solutions are dependent on a mix of business
and operational requirements, aligned with leading technologies.
They must also incorporate financial constraints and be able
to scale to meet emerging technologies and future technology
initiatives. Adage understands that our client’s Network
Management solution is an essential enabling element to ensure
that the underlying network infrastructure is delivering the
highest levels of service to their downstream customers.
Below are some typical High-Performance Network Management
solutions functional capabilities and design considerations:
Network Management System and Console – support
for a centralized management platform, which allows optimized
user interfaces for collecting, correlating, analyzing,
and monitoring events and alarms from various element managers
and provide the flexibility to scale to manage large mission
critical global networks.
- Network Operations Control capabilities strategically
located using distributed management components.
- Strategically distributed management components lend
to a hierarchical implementation, making the infrastructure
solutions more scalable and flexible; localizing network
management traffic, with roll-up data and exceptions reported
centrally.
- Additionally, personnel with regional responsibilities
and sometimes customers should be able to securely view
select portions of the overall Network Management system.
Trouble Ticketing – central tracking, escalation
and notification of hardware and software problems with
several viewing options for local personnel, and optimized
for viewing by remote personnel through a standard web browser.
Asset Database – tracking of network equipment
and maintenance of hardware and software information
Change Management – management of hardware
and software changes, including those related to network
events. Provide for recent change linkages to trouble tickets,
problem diagnosis, and facilitated resolution.
Management Reports and Trending/Analysis –
performance data collection, capacity planning and identification
of real time performance problems
Alerts Resolution Knowledge Database – knowledge
capture and distribution to enhance overall learning related
to infrastructure support
Remote, Secure Management Access – remote
and secure client/service based access to management applications
Integrated and Scalable Solution – Ability
to scale the solution to support the expected number of
worldwide facilities
Enabling technology for service level agreements
– ability to measure and collect the values of types
of items committed to in Service Level Agreements, e.g.
availability, performance, customer response time, etc.
Support of Standards – support of industry
standards including SNMP and RMON
These capabilities typically are required to support management
of global networks with distributed regional facilities managed
from a single Network Management center. Adage acknowledges
that a combination of the above requirements may be considered
during design to architect the appropriate platform that fully
supports the customer’s needs. The knowledge and experience
Adage brings will allow our customers’ to create an
integrated solution that supports the business requirements
today and the foundation for tomorrow.
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