Using This Book

We hope our readers will gain a solid foundation for understanding the principles and practice of NMS use and development. The networking industry is highly dynamic, so referring to specific products tends to quite quickly date a book. Vendor devices and software management products come and go, but concepts tend to have a longer shelf life. For this reason, we focus mostly on principles and concepts with reference to important RFCs [IETFWeb]. The major exception to this is in Chapter 5, "A Real NMS," where the highly successful HP OpenView Network Node Manager is described. Even in this case, however, we describe generic network management areas and then see how HP supports them. Also, some mention is made of SNMP software development tools. The book can be used to:

• Assist network managers in defining management requirements for their equipment and system suppliers.

• Gain a better understanding of the relationship between network management and cost of ownership.

• Bring network management needs to the top of the priority list for NE software and hardware development engineers .

• Encourage a sound approach to development on the part of management system vendors .

• Locate Internet resources on MIBs and network management.

• Learn how to build and extend a rudimentary SNMP-based management system.

• Get a good look inside big networks from a management perspective rather than to merely present the constituent technologies.

We hope that the book gives an integrated overview of network management issues. This includes an understanding of both management system technologies and trends in NEs. Much of the technology mentioned (MPLS, VLANs, etc.) is described in Andrew S. Tanenbaum's Computer Networks [Tanenbaum2003], which also has much useful detail concerning the various standards organizations.