NETWORK PERFORMANCE AND STATUS MONITORING

The campus network has achieved the status of a utility grade infrastructure, requiring an appropriate level of stewardship. Performance and status monitoring of the campus network needs to be an on-going and continuous process. Community supported tools in combination with vendor specific applications allow network staff to baseline, trouble shoot and plan future capacity needs of the campus network. Network performance monitoring is a natural complement to network security and should interface with security tools. Often, performance irregularities are early indicators of user behaviors that might impact security.

Best Practices

Performance and status monitoring must be a continuing and constant process. The best approach is to use a relatively small set of software tools which provides a broad range of performance measures. Both qualitative and quantitative information are important to network professionals. Real time indicators in software which provide go/no-go indication of equipment status are needed allow staff to quickly repair equipment problems Software which can provide at least one year of historical data in graphic form is valuable for spotting subtle performance shifts and identifying links which may soon need increased capacity.

Considerable data are generated by network equipment as it reports status and condition information to the campus network operations center (NOC). Consideration should be given to providing dedicated command and control links from network gear distributed throughout the campus back to the NOC. The cost of providing additional wiring or fiber cable at time of installation is small. The benefit of dedicated command and control circuits is that strict regulation of the network may be maintained even when production links are overloaded by accident or abuse. The cost of separate command and control links is modest because considerably less bandwidth (i.e. less expensive electronics) is required as compared to the production network. At the very least command and control should be conducted on a logically separate Virtual or Emulated LAN network, should physically separate wiring not be possible.

Virtually all network electronics suitable for a utility grade production environment provide a protocol interface via SNMP or RMON for configuring and controlling the equipment in real time from a central NOC. SNMP and RMON are widely supported by custom software available from equipment manufacturers. SNMP and RMON also provide a standard base which is widely supported in community written free software. A well equipped NOC will employ best of breed monitoring software from proprietary, commercial and free sources. As the campus network develops and grows, the staff will develop the most responsive and sensitive set of monitoring tools.

Network performance and status monitoring is a developing processes that changes as the network itself grows and changes. The primary vendor of equipment used in the network is the most likely source of initial software. The primary vendor is most likely to have the most complete set of tools for configuration of equipment. Commercial and free tools often excel at sensitivity and rapidity of response. Tools will change and develop as the staff builds experience.