Network manager's handbook

551 Pages·2003·4.309 MB·English

by  Muller, Nathan J

Network Manager's Handbook
by Nathan J. Muller ISBN:0071405674
McGraw-Hill © 2003 (572 pages)
Here is the handbook with all the essential, nuts-and-bolts
details network managers need to know, but won't find in
any textbook.
Table of Contents Back Cover Comments
Table of Contents
Network Manager’s Handbook
Preface
Acronyms
Part I - Assembling the Infrastructure
Chapter 1 - Role of the Communications Department
Chapter 2 - The Procurement Process
Chapter 3 - Writing the Request for Proposal
Chapter 4 - Financial Planning
Chapter 5 - Managing, Evaluating, and Scheduling Technical Staff
Chapter 6 - Outsourcing Infrastructure
Part II - Organizing Technology Assets
Chapter 7 - Downsizing and Distributing Information Resources
Chapter 8 - Network Service and Facility Selection
Chapter 9 - Systems Integration
Chapter 10 - Help Desk Operations
Chapter 11 - Network Integration
Chapter 12 - Navigating Service Level Agreements
Chapter 13 - Technology Asset Management
Part III - Keeping the Network Healthy
Chapter 14 - Maintenance and Support Planning
Chapter 15 - Network Monitoring and Testing
Chapter 16 - Network Management
Chapter 17 - Network Design and Optimization
Chapter 18 - Managing Technology Transitions
Part IV - Protecting the Business
Chapter 19 - Network Security
Chapter 20 - Business Continuity Planning
Index
List of Figures
List of Tables
Network Manager’s Handbook
Nathan J. Muller
McGraw-Hill
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Muller, Nathan J.
Network manager’s handbook / Nathan J. Muller.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-07-140567-4
1. Computer networks—Management—Handbooks, manuals, etc.
I. Title. TK5105.5.M843 2002
004.6—dc21 2002032553
Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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To my wife of 33 years: Linda...you’re a keeper!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nathan J. Muller is Co-Founder and Senior Consultant of Ascent Solutions
Group, a technical marketing firm in Sterling, Virginia, which implements
custom programs for new and established technology companies that are
designed to improve internal business processes, enhance corporate image,
drive sales, and penetrate new markets. With 30 years of
telecommunications industry experience, Mr. Muller has written extensively
on many aspects of computers and communications, having published 24
books—including three encyclopedias—and more than 2000 articles in over
63 publications worldwide. He is a frequent speaker at industry trade shows,
association meetings, and customer events. He can be reached via e-mail at
[email protected].
Preface
There is no question that corporate networks have become the lifelines of
today’s information-intensive businesses. With ever more information being
entrusted to corporate networks, often for global distribution via the public
Internet or private intranets, keeping these lifelines free of congestion and
disruption has become an ongoing challenge—and for good reason. The
inability to keep data moving across the network quickly and efficiently can
result in huge financial penalties:
(cid:132) A Wall Street brokerage house can lose as much as $100,000 in
commissions per minute when buy/sell instructions from customers are
disrupted during peak hours.
(cid:132) An insurance company can lose its Fortune 500 accounts if it cannot live
up to specified levels of network uptime to process the claims of its
clients’ employees.
(cid:132) A large financial services firm can lose $200 million in transactions if its
network were to experience an outage for only 1 hour.
If these ramifications of network failure are not dramatic enough, consider
that if a major outage were to occur on any of the backbone networks in the
Federal Reserve Bank system for only an hour, the movement and
processing of as much as $5 trillion in monetary transactions could be
seriously delayed and have a ripple effect throughout the global economy.
On a smaller, but no less important, scale, businesses have similar concerns
about their networks. Distributed computing environments—distinguished by
desktop processing and resource sharing via LANs and global
interconnectivity via WANs—have corporate managers clambering for
resources that will keep their networks up and running, especially in the face
of such security threats as viruses, hackers, disgruntled employees, and,
more recently, terrorists. After all, in not providing adequate levels of network
security, reliability, and uptime, companies risk not only financial losses, but
diminished employee productivity, slower responses to competitive
pressures, erosion of customer goodwill, and, if problems persist, loss of
market share and investor confidence.
There is more to distributed computing and networking than merely
connecting various products and hoping that they will work together. This
book describes the planning, design, procurement, maintenance, security,
and management requirements for today’s increasingly sophisticated
systems and networks. Often these infrastructural requirements have more
to do with the successful implementation of communications systems and
networks than the technologies themselves. But the best technologies will be
useless if implemented in an environment characterized by poor planning,
mistakes in procurement, the inability to implement comprehensive
management, or not having the right people with the right skills. Additionally,
the organization will not realize anticipated returns on its technology
investments if the right decisions are not made in such areas as lease
versus purchase, availability of vendor maintenance and support, and
service restoration options.
This book is a practical guide that puts these and other important
infrastructural issues into proper perspective to greatly increase the chances
for success in building and operating advanced communications systems
and networks. As such, it is suited to both experienced and entry-level
professionals, as well as college and university students who are preparing
for careers in the field of telecommunications or information technology (IT)
management.
The primary reader is assumed to be a telecom or IT professional at a
company that is seeking to build, upgrade, replace, or expand its network or
integrate it with the Internet. This book is also of value to those who are
already in the process of acquiring equipment and services in support of
their organization’s business objectives. Many potential readers will be
technically oriented and have the responsibility for recommending, planning,
or implementing various pieces of the network, or integrated legacy systems
with local- and wide-area networks. Interconnect vendors and service
providers will find this book useful as a tutorial for new hires and
salespeople, and as an economical means of educating potential customers
on various network issues that their products or services address.
The information contained in this book, especially as it relates to specific
vendors and products, is believed to have been accurate at the time it was
written and is, of course, subject to change with continued advancements in
technology and shifts in market forces. The mention of specific products,
services, and vendors is intended for illustration purposes only and does not
constitute an endorsement of any kind, expressed or implied, by the author
or publisher.
Nathan J. Muller
Acronyms
AAL ATM Adaptation Layer
ABATS Automated Bit Access Test System
ABM Accunet Bandwidth Manager (AT&T)
ABR Available Bit Rate
ABS Adelphia Business Solutions
ac alternating current
AC Access Control
AC Address Copied
ACD Automated Call Distributor
ACTA Administrative Council for Terminal Attachments
ADCR Alternate Destination Call Routing (AT&T)
ADM Add-Drop Multiplexer
ADN Advanced Digital Network (Pacific Bell)
ADPCM Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation
AES Advanced Encryption Standard
AI Artificial Intelligence
AM Amplitude Modulation
AMI Alternate Mark Inversion
ANR Automatic Network Routing (IBM Corp.)
ANSI American National Standards Institute
AP Access Point
APC Access Protection Capability (AT&T)
API Application Programming Interface
APPC Advanced Program-to-Program Communications
(IBM Corp.)
APPN Advanced Peer-to-Peer Networking
ARB Adaptive Rate Based (IBM Corp.)
ARP Address Resolution Protocol
ARS Action Request System (Remedy Systems Inc.)
AS Autonomous System
ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ASIC Application-Specific Integrated Circuit
ASN.1 Abstract Syntax Notation 1
ASP Application Service Provider
ASTN Alternate Signaling Transport Network (AT&T)
AT&T American Telephone & Telegraph
ATIS Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions
ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode
ATM Automated Teller Machine
AWG American Wire Gauge
B8ZS Binary Eight Zero Substitution
BBS Bulletin Board System
BCP Business Continuity Plan
BECN Backward Explicit Congestion Notification
Bellcore Bell Communications Research
BER Bit Error Rate
BERT Bit Error Rate Tester
BGP Border Gateway Protocol
BIOS Basic Input-Output System
BMC Block Multiplexer Channel
BMS-E Bandwidth Management Service—Extended (AT&T)
BOC Bell Operating Company
BootP Boot Protocol
BPDU Bridge Protocol Data Unit
BPS Bits per Second
BPV Bipolar Violation
BQB Bluetooth Qualification Body
BQTF Bluetooth Qualification Test Facility
BRI Basic Rate Interface (ISDN)
BSC Binary Synchronous Communications
CAD Computer-Aided Design
CAM Computer-Aided Manufacturing
CAN Campus Area Network
CAP Competitive Access Provider
CASE Computer-Aided Software Engineering
CATV Cable Television
CBQ Class-Based Queuing
CBR Case-Based Reasoning
CBR Constant Bit Rate
CBT Computer-Based Training
CC Coordination Center
CCC Clear Channel Capability
CCITT Consultative Committee for International Telegraphy
and Telephony
CCR Customer-Controlled Reconfiguration
CD-ROM Compact Disk–Read Only Memory
CDN Content Delivery Network
CDP Content Delivery Provider
CDPD Cellular Digital Packet Data
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CERT Computer Emergency Response Team
CHAP Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol
CI Component Interface
CIO Chief Information Officer
CIR Committed Information Rate
CIS Center for Internet Security
CLEC Competitive Local Exchange Carrier
CLEI Common Language Equipment Identifier
CMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor
CO Central Office
CPE Customer Premises Equipment
CPU Central Processing Unit
CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check
CSA Certified Security Administrator
CSE Certified Security Engineer
CSMA/CD Carrier-Sense Multiple Access with Collision
Detection
CSU Channel Service Unit
CTI Computer-Telephony Integration
CTO Chief Technology Officer
D/E Debt/Equity (ratio)
DA Destination Address
DACS Digital Access and Cross-Connect System (AT&T)
DAP Demand Access Protocol
DASD Direct Access Storage Device (IBM Corp.)
dB Decibel
DBMS Database Management System
DBU Dial Backup Unit
dc direct current
DCE Data Communications Equipment
DCE Distributed Computing Environment
DCF Discounted Cash Flow
DCS Digital Cross-Connect System
DDS Digital Data Service
DDS/SC Digital Data Service with Secondary Channel
DEC Digital Equipment Corp.
DECT Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication
DES Data Encryption Standard
DFSMS Data Facility Storage Management Subsystem (IBM
Corp.)
DID Direct Inward Dial
DIF Digital Interface Frame
DiffServ Differentiated Services (IETF)
DIP Debtor in Possession
DLC Digital Loop Carrier
DLSw Data Link Switching (IBM Corp.)
DM Distributed Management
DME Distributed Management Environment
DMI Desktop Management Interface
DMTF Desktop Management Task Force
DNS Domain Name System
DoD Department of Defense (U.S.)
DOD Direct Outward Dial
DOS Disk Operating System
DOV Data over Voice
DS0 Digital Signal—Level Zero (64 kbps)
DS1 Digital Signal—Level One (1.544 Mbps)
DS1C Digital Signal—Level One C (3.152 Mbps)
DS2 Digital Signal—Level Two (6.312 Mbps)
DS3 Digital Signal—Level Three (44.736 Mbps)
DSL Digital Subscriber Line
DSLAM Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer
DSSS Direct-sequence spread-spectrum
DSU Data Service Unit
DTE Data Terminal Equipment
DTMF Dual Tone Multifrequency
DWDM Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing
DXI Data Exchange Interface
E-mail Electronic Mail
ECSA Exchange Carriers Standards Association
ED Ending Delimiter
EDI Electronic Data Interchange
EDRO Enhanced Diversity Routing Option (AT&T)
EDS Electronic Data Systems
EEOC Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
EFT Electronic Funds Transfer
EGP External Gateway Protocol
EIA Electronic Industries Association
EISA Extended Industry Standard Architecture
EMI Electromechanical Interference
EMS Element Management System
EOT end-of-transmission
EP Extension Point
EPS Encapsulated PostScript
ESF Extended Super Frame
FASB Financial Accounting Standards Board
FASTAR Fast Automatic Restoral (AT&T)
FAT File Allocation Table
FC Fibre Channel
FC Frame Control
FCC Federal Communications Commission
FCIA Fibre Channel Industry Association
FCS Frame Check Sequence
FDD Frequency Division Duplexing
FDDI Fiber Distributed Data Interface
FECN Forward Explicit Congestion Notification
FEP Front-End Processor
FFDT FDDI Full Duplex Technology
FHSS Frequency-Hopping Spread-Spectrum
FIFO First-In, First-Out
FM Frequency Modulation
FOD Fax on Demand
4GL Fourth-Generation Language
FRAD Frame Relay Access Device