Case Study

This case study illustrates how a network might be managed. Figure 18-2 depicts a simple three-node Frame Relay WAN. This Frame Relay WAN is managed by a third-party (neither the customer nor the network service provider) network management entity.

Figure 18-2. Network Managed Frame Relay WAN

This third-party entity requires a Frame Relay Permanent Virtual Circuit (PVC) to each managed site so that it can have visibility into managed devices at those respective sites. The network manager uses SNMPv2 so that device status can be collected without having to be polled from the network management console, conserving network bandwidth by minimizing the amount of network management traffic and utilizing the manager console for data collection and analysis rather than as a polling server.

This same network manager console provides the network manager remote access to the managed devices at each site for change management, such as configuration or router software (IOS) upgrades.