Defining Network Management

Whether your company is small or large, your reliance on your network is a driving factor for your business.  In order to remain competitive, you need effective network management. Over the past 10 years, network management systems have evolved to help IT teams operate in more agile ways, incorporating advanced analytics, machine learning, and intelligent automation. Understanding just how a network management system does its job can help you and your organization make the most of your IT experience.

What is Network Management?

Network management is the process of securing, maintaining, and optimizing your data network. Today’s network management systems use both hardware and software components that continuously collect data - which businesses can use to improve network security, reliability, and performance.

Organizations must address five essential elements to create an effective IT management strategy. These types of management are:

Fault Management

As in all aspects of the IT industry, being prepared for errors is essential to success. The best network security management solutions also include keeping track of errors. Fault Management logs, detects, and responds to issues throughout the network. Your IT administrator can then handle issues such as host failure, link failure, and router hardware problems. In other words, this management is primarily concerned with detecting, isolating and resolving problems in your network.

Configuration Management

Network configurations are a key aspect of performance – as these configurations are expected to change dynamically to keep up with data and traffic demands in a large enterprise. An example of a network configuration management task is an IT professional remotely altering the connectivity settings to boost performance. Similarly to fault management, this team must also keep detailed records of all changes, issues, and outcomes to ensure success.

Accounting Management

In many businesses, network accounting management is directly linked to profitability. Account management can help you track different departments, see which ones consume the most bandwidth, and identify trends or inefficiencies in the system. In large enterprises, network accounting management is a shared service organization that leases network resources to different branches and subsidiaries to maintain an internal profit margin.

Performance Management

Network performance management involves establishing policies, workflows, and operations to solve network performance issues. This is one of the most central aspects of network management, as it involves various tasks that help boost network uptime, service availability, and concurrent bandwidth speeds. In summary, performance management ensures all business networks operate at optimal efficiency.

Security Management

Because cybersecurity risk is a constant threat for organizations of all sizes, network security management is essential. While the number and severity of threats to enterprise networks continue to increase, network security teams find themselves overwhelmed with the administration and management of security across the enterprise. Security management involves everything from network authentication to authorization, firewall configuration, auditing, intrusion detection, and threat management.

The Importance of Network Security

The principal objective of network management is to ensure your network infrastructure runs efficiently and smoothly. It also achieves:

·  Improved productivity and minimized network disruptions

·  Improved network security and protection from threats

·  Greater visibility

Network management helps organizations gain greater visibility into their networks, which in turn helps optimize network performance and prevent disruptions. Your network is the core to your IT infrastructure – and managing this network is essential to ensuring your business runs smoothly.

At Riverstrong, we value transparency and understand it to be a driving factor of success. We build robust network management solutions that align with your specific goals, and configure your infrastructure to optimize your business. 

‍To learn more about how we can manage your network and ensure security to keep your business protected, connect with us today!