Comprehensive guidance on maintaining networking systems and implementing industry-standard management practices for IT professionals and businesses.
Administration of a network includes keeping an inventory of network resources and equipment, including cables, hubs, routers, servers, and computers. In addition, it can mean setting up networks, monitoring their performance, and updating and troubleshooting software. It also involves setting up network management tools, operating systems, and software used across the entire network.
Operations is all about keeping the network running smoothly and without problems. It includes monitoring the network for performance problems and faults, as well as fixing problems before they affect end users, or at least in the timeliest manner possible.
Maintenance includes the repair and upgrade of network equipment (including routers, switches, transmission cables, servers, and workstations). It also involves updating and patching software on an ongoing basis, along with implementing preventative policies, updating access control measures, and improving faulty configurations.
The provisioning task is all about allocating and configuring network resources to best suit a particular service or need. For example, a project may have a lot of people coming in from offsite, which could increase the need for broadband. If a team member needs extra storage space or file transfer capabilities, the responsibility falls on IT. The network administrator works to provide resources to meet the growing and changing needs of the business.
Keeping a network secure is important for the network to function in a healthy way to fulfill the needs of the business. This involves installing and maintaining network protection software, monitoring IP and network behavior, tracking endpoint devices, and quickly resolving security issues or breaches.
Administrators must approach network management with an effective strategy and an arsenal of tools to allow you to do everything in one place. In this way, you have a better overall picture of your network, which makes it easier to track performance issues, spot security issues as soon as they arise, and perform more network-wide tasks automatically, rather than addressing each device individually. This reduces the downtime or potential downtime for your network, which maximizes the use of your time. There are a number of best practices you can follow to ensure your network is always in good shape.
Understanding how your network normally behaves can help you to quickly spot any abnormalities or issues, which will help you to resolve them faster. Having clear baselines in your network management software can also help you to set appropriate alerts for when something goes beyond the normal range of expected behavior.
The next step when a problem arises is to make sure the right person is notified of and aware of the issue. Having one person responsible for security, another for firewalls and another for systems or virtualization can help to speed up the resolution in each of these areas.
Make sure whatever network monitoring or management software you're using can provide information and troubleshooting at each layer of the network (e.g., physical cables, IP address issues, transport protocol issues, etc.). This allows issues to be resolved quickly.
When you use network management and monitoring software, it's normally installed on the network you are managing. This means when a problem with the network arises, the network management system can go down, too. The network should be structured in such a way the server or point at which the monitoring system is installed is accessible even in the event of a major network failure in another part of the network.
When you set up a network for your organization, always plan for it to grow. If you haven't planned for the network capacity to increase, you'll run into problems later when you try to expand the network. Use monitoring systems to ensure your network is running well within capacity and look at components that may need to be extended in the near-term future.