Availability Management - Network Brick

Network management includes the administrative services performed in managing NIHnet and the Institute and Center (IC) networks, including network devices, network topology and software configuration, monitoring network performance, maintaining network operations, and diagnosing and troubleshooting problems. Network management requires the skillful integration of software tools, management processes and resources to provide enterprise managers with a coherent view of network availability and performance. This task becomes increasingly difficult as business applications become more reliant on and intertwined with network infrastructure and as users come to expect nearly unlimited, “free” bandwidth.

An NIH Network Operations Center will provide NIHnet with Performance Monitoring, Proactive Fault Prediction and Restoral, a method to identify critical outages and 24x7 network monitoring for all ICs.

A Manager of Managers network management capability must be developed based on Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) version 3, and all network management solutions must interface to HP OpenView for compliance to this architecture.

• NIH needs to choose either the HP OpenView or CA Unicenter framework as the enterprise strength network management tool.
• Tactical and strategic products were selected to leverage NIH's investment in products that are a proven fit for NIH's known future needs. Leveraging baseline products in the future will minimize the operations, maintenance, support and training costs of new products.
• Some baseline products have been designated retirement and containment. These products are either not as widely or successfully deployed at NIH, or they do not provide as much functionality, value, or Total Cost of Ownership as the selected tactical and strategic products.