Network Management Fundamentals

A guide to understanding how network management technology really works

Alexander Clemm, Ph.D.

Network management is an essential factor in successfully operating a network. As a company becomes increasingly dependent on networking services, keeping those services running is synonymous with keeping the business running. Network Management Fundamentals provides you with an accessible overview of network management covering management not just of networks themselves but also of services running over those networks.

Network Management Fundamentals explains the different technologies that are used in network management and how they relate to each other. The book focuses on fundamental concepts and principles. It provides a solid technical foundation for the practitioner to successfully navigate network management topics and apply those concepts to particular situations.

The book is divided into four parts:

• Part I provides an overview of what network management is about and why it is relevant. It also conveys an informal understanding of the functions, tools, and activities that are associated with it.

• Part II examines network management from several different angles, culminating in a discussion of how these aspects are combined into management reference models.

• Part III provides more detail into different building blocks of network management introduced in Part II, such as management protocols, management organization, and management communication patterns. 

• Part IV rounds out the book with a number of management topics of general interest, including management integration and service-level management.

Dr. Alexander Clemm is a senior architect with Cisco®. He has been involved with integrated management of networked systems and services since 1990. He has provided technical leadership for many leading-edge network management development, architecture, and engineering efforts from original conception to delivery to the customer, and he has also served as technical program co-chair of the 2005 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management.

• Grasp the business implications of network management

• Examine different management reference models, such as Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, and Security (FCAPS)

• Understand the building blocks of network management and their purposes

• Assess the implications and impact of management technologies and put them in perspective

• Prepare for decisions about network management that require an understanding of the “big picture”

This book is part of the Cisco Press® Fundamentals Series. Books in this series introduce networking professionals to new networking technologies, covering network topologies, example deployment concepts, protocols, and management techniques.

Category: Networking

Covers: Network Management

$55.00 USA / $69.00 CAN

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 4 Ratings

Compulsary Reading for Network Appliance Product Managers - 2007-11-15
Reviewer Rating:
On attending Manweek 2007 in San Jose a couple of weeks ago, I ran into Dr. Clemm and saw a copy of his book "Network Management Fundamentals" ... which, after some discussion, I managed to wrestle off of him.

Despite the highly technical subject, the book is an easy read for people with even a modest knowledge of networking and network protocols. It outlines clearly why network management is important, the different components of network management, and the different approaches and best practices for each part of a management system.

This is virtually a must-read for product managers and designers of networking appliances like accelerators, firewalls, and security devices. It is also an excellent overview for technical managers who are thinking about setting up a network or have control of a network, and for those in a network management job who just want to understand how everything fits together.

Good Foundation for the Starting Manager - 2007-02-15
Reviewer Rating:
We have reached the point where the network is almost the business. This absolutely true for an on-line business, but also for reservations systems, customer service, the accounting department and most other departments. When the network is down, so is the business and there are a lot of people standing around with nothing to do.

This book is part of Cisco's Fundamentals series. It's designed as a first step for networking professionals and introduces them to the networking technologies that they will needed for management. From this base there are other books that go into each aspect that the professional needs to cover.

As opposed to a lot of other Cisco books, this is not a book about solving every problem with more and additional Cisco products. In fact, it has very little hardware specific information in it at all.

An excellent view of the big picture for the new network manager, or for the network manager that has suddenly realized that his job is bigger than he thought.

Merging Management and Technology - 2008-09-22
Reviewer Rating:
Be not afraid of Network Management: Some are born to Network Management, some achieve Network Management, but alas most engineers in today's workplace have Network Management thrust upon them. And it is this latter category to whom Clemm's well-organized book takes particular aim. Drawing on his experience in both business and academia, Clemm synthesizes the basic fundamentals of managing a network in a well-organized and straightforward manner by adeptly presenting real-world situations and diagramming his way through the interrelationships between management theory and technological implementation. Most practitioners in the field learn their craft by brute force and seat-of-the-pants experience without ever stepping back to understand the forest before hacking away at the trees. Active network managers and, especially, their bosses will benefit from the overview and the concrete framework in which the heretofore arcane knowledge of the field are straightforwardly laid out in a simple yet nuanced approach that avoids overly jargonized vocabulary and product-specific implementations. Useful also as a textbook, the book underscores the need for tech workers to apply sound management principles to situations normally thought to reside exclusively in an engineering domain. Despite Cisco Press's lame cover image, the content is well written and Clemm's book makes for a good read.

Book was poorly organized and too general - 2008-01-15
Reviewer Rating:
The book was way too general. Much of what was discussed was just general management principals and not specific to network management. I also found it painful to read because of the way it was organized. He kept introducing the same topics over and over in different chapters. You could learn as much as I did from this book by reading a few internet articles on SNMP and MIBS.

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