NetCare (R) Network Management Services - Managing multi-vendor networks

In the past, network management was primarily a centralized endeavor carrie d out by a virtual priesthood of technicians who stared at arcane command-l ine screens all day. Now management tasks are distributed to the most appro priate machine, and various tasks executing on different platforms can now be integrated. The centralized point-to-point connections used in the past have been replaced with large clouds of packet/cell switching networks or d ual-purpose voice/data ISDN connections. In fact, opening voice circuits to the public has enabled many companies to implement combined voice/data net works. These have resulted in highly effective multi-vendor networks. The p rimary job of network management is to monitor and report on the status of the entire network. At NetCare((R)) Network Management Services, we track t he status of every component in the network, regardless of who the manufact urer is or what type of network it is operating. This paper describes our s uccessful approach to multi-vendor network management.