Applications of NMS

Increasingly, NMS are required to assist in rapidly bringing up, keeping up, and downing large networks. One application of this is when a network is rebalanced after a significant hardware addition occurs, such as a new multiservice switch. The operator wants to execute this as smoothly as possible, and this may involve:

• Managing VLANs

• Tearing down existing virtual circuits

• Re-creating the virtual circuits on the new switch

• Generating CLI scripts or SNMP messages to move the connections to the new device

• Suppressing faults during the changeover

Major reconfiguration actions such as these can be recorded by the NMS and stored as command files. These can be reused at a later time when similar operations are required.