Network Configuracion & Change Management

Ed Tittel

• Understand why you need an automated network configuration and change management system

• Successfully manage change in a complex multi-vendor network environment

• Make a business case for your NCCM system

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Network Configuration

& Change Management

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Open the book and find:

• A list of reasons to pick NCCM

• Why managing change on complex networks is critical

• How to find value in automated NCCM systems

• Information on EMC technology

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If you’ve ever been curious about network configuration and change management — abbreviated in this book as NCCM — you’ve got the right book. Here, you can find out what’s up with NCCM, and why acquiring and managing such information is so important to so many enterprises and large-scale organizations.

• An NCCM primer — with explanations of basic concepts and terms

• Examine the challenges — particularly when configurations and their changes are handled in a manual environment

• Automating NCCM — the many and substantial benefits of automating NCCM and letting intelligent computer systems manage changes to configuration data

• Business use cases — that illustrate and illuminate the business benefits to using automated NCCM systems

Understand the basics of network configuration and change management

About EMC

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world’s leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information.

Helping Customers Accelerate the Journey to the Cloud

EMC helps customers meet critical business challenges with a comprehensive set of offerings, including unique capabilities that allow organizations to gain visibility into their virtualized and cloud environments, standardized planning processes, change control operational processes, and automate time consuming tasks using a scalable policy driven approach.

Information about EMC products and services that help to simplify and automate IT infrastructure management as you move from physical to virtual to cloud computing can be found at www.EMC.com.

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Network Configuration & Change Management

FOR

DUMmIES‰

EMC EDITION

by Ed Tittel

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Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies®, EMC Edition

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Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Chapter 1: Understanding Network Configuration and Change Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

The Very Basics of FCAPS ......................................................... 6An NCCM Primer ........................................................................ 6The Business Case for NCCM ................................................. 12Why NCCM Matters ................................................................. 13

Chapter 2: NCCM’s Business Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Facing Down the Challenges ................................................... 16Limiting Manual, Ad-Hoc Change ........................................... 20Supporting Multivendor Environments ................................ 21Examining the Great Chain of Management Systems .......... 22

Chapter 3: Making Best Use of NCCM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Automation Meets Key Challenges ........................................ 26How Automated NCCM Creates Value .................................. 28Key Attributes and Features of an

Automated NCCM System ................................................... 31

Chapter 4: Maximizing Automated NCCM . . . . . . . . . . .33

Putting NCCM to Work ............................................................ 33Here’s the Beef: Value Resulting from Automated NCCM... 37Introducing the EMC Ionix Network

Configuration Manager ........................................................ 38

Chapter 5: Ten Top Reasons to Pick Automated NCCM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

Save Money and Time ............................................................. 41Refocus IT Efforts ..................................................................... 42Meet IT Governance and Service Management Goals ........ 42Achieve Legal and Regulatory Compliance .......................... 42Bust Downtime ......................................................................... 43Improve Productivity .............................................................. 43Beat Human Error .................................................................... 43Match Real Configurations ..................................................... 43Work from Correct Configurations ........................................ 44Attain Complete Coverage ...................................................... 44

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Introduction

If you’ve ever been the slightest bit curious about network configuration and change management — abbreviated in

this book as NCCM — you’ve got the right book. Here, you can find out what’s up with network configuration, and why acquiring and managing such information is so important to so many enterprises and large-scale organizations. You can also learn how instituting formal change management processes and procedures, and managing configuration changes explicitly, pays nice dividends.

Although NCCM may sound strange, or perhaps even a bit exotic, it isn’t. NCCM technology relies on building and maintaining an accurate and up-to-date configuration management database, or CMDB. With a current and correct CMDB at your disposal and the right software tools and technologies in place, managing change becomes a matter of careful, regularly scheduled routine.

Major players in many industries, from network and management services, to healthcare and retirement communities, to financial services, have bet on NCCM and used it to trim costs and improve operating efficiencies and service delivery. You can do the same.

About This BookI have made some assumptions about you, our gentle reader, for this book. First, I assume that you know something about enterprise-grade networking infrastructures. Second, I assume you’re at least acquainted with the basic principles and activities involved in managing such networks. And third, I assume that you understand the basics of Internet-based communications and services, including routing behaviors, elements of TCP/IP security, and what “network discovery” means. (Hint: Network discovery uses networking protocols to probe an active network, to identify what kinds

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Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 2of devices and systems are present, and to identify what kinds of protocols and services are in use.)

This book was specifically written for EMC and includes some information about EMC products.

How This Book Is OrganizedThe five chapters in this book lead you into network configuration and change management terminology, principles, frameworks, and best practices. Here’s a snapshot of what you’ll find in each one:

✓ Chapter 1: Offers an NCCM primer with basic concepts and terms, and explains how to build a business case.

✓ Chapter 2: Explains the challenges involved in working with NCCM, particularly when configurations and their changes must be handled manually.

✓ Chapter 3: Describes the many and substantial benefits of automating NCCM, and letting intelligent computer systems manage changes to configuration data.

✓ Chapter 4: Explores several business use cases that illustrate and illuminate the business benefits to using automated NCCM systems. This chapter also covers some EMC-specific technology.

✓ Chapter 5: A list of the top ten reasons why automated NCCM creates value, helps to manage risk, and helps enterprises meet their business goals.

These chapters are designed to stand alone, so if you’re dying to read how organizations from various industries have scored wins using automated NCCM systems, jump straight to Chapter 4. If you want to understand the benefits of NCCM automation, choose Chapter 3. Or simply go to the next page and start reading!

Icons Used in This BookEvery For Dummies books uses small graphical elements called icons at its margins to call attention to specific items. Here are the icons used in this book:



Introduction 3

This icon highlights points for you to keep in mind as you immerse yourself in the world (and words) of NCCM.

This icon flags technical information you can skip if you’re not inclined to revel in details or minutiae.

Use this on-target info to help maximize your investment in NCCM.

This icon calls out situations to avoid and things to watch out for as you put NCCM to work in your operation.



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 4



Chapter 1

Understanding Network Configuration and

Change ManagementIn This Chapter▶ Digging into the basics of network management

▶ Appreciating the ins and out of network configuration

▶ Making a business case for NCCM

Network management is deceptively simple-sounding. You’ve got some — or lots — of networks, so of course

you need to manage them. What could be simpler than that? Yet network management involves a lot of complexity, lots of long-standing theory and practice, and lots of hard work.

In fact, network management is complex enough for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to have created a model for network management known as ISO/IEC 7498-4. This model is also called the Open Systems Interconnection Basic Reference Model Management Framework, but it’s most commonly known by the acronym FCAPS (short for fault-, configuration-, accounting-, performance-, and security-management).

This chapter briefly explores the components of the FCAPS model, and then focuses on two critical elements of network management: configuration management and change control. Creating and collecting configuration information for network devices and systems is a key component of systems manage-ment, as is tracking how configurations change over time.

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The Very Basics of FCAPSThe ISO network management model is called FCAPS because those are the first letters from each of the five areas of activity that fall under the model’s theoretical and practical umbrella. Those five areas are:

✓ Fault Management: The goal of this activity is detecting, identifying, isolating, correcting, and recording faults that occur in a network.

✓ Configuration Management: This involves establishing, collecting, and tracking configurations for network components, devices, and systems.

✓ Accounting Management: This involves gathering user statistics to use for billing purposes.

✓ Performance Management: The goal of this activity is tracking network behavior and activity levels.

✓ Security Management: Protecting assets on the network, and protecting them from loss, harm, or unauthorized access is the goal here.

As you dig more deeply into network configuration and change management — which I abbreviate as NCCM — don’t forget that they are just two areas involved in managing and monitoring networks properly and professionally. NCCM is, however, extremely important and unusually amenable to handling via technological solutions. That’s what the rest of this book is about.

An NCCM PrimerA basic formulation of configuration management might be:

1. Gather and store configuration data about everything on your network. This is the configuration part, where you record data for every piece of hardware and software on your network.

2. Keep track of any and all configuration data as it changes. This is the change management part, where you update your collection of records as changes occur.



Chapter 1: Understanding Network Configuration . . . 7 In this context, “change” has a broad but surprisingly

specific meaning: Anything that results in adding to, removing from, or altering the contents of your con-figuration data counts as a change.

Given a relentless focus on configuration data, it should come as no surprise that for most NCCM systems, the center of attention and activity is a database where all configuration data is stored and maintained. This is not just any old database, either, but one with its own special acronym: CMDB, which stands for — drum roll, please — configuration management database.

What is network configuration?The network configuration part of NCCM is a collection of data that represents configurations for all devices, systems, applications, and components that go into and onto a modern network. In a modern enterprise, finding tens of thousands of desktop PCs, hundreds to thousands of servers, and several thousand various and sundry network devices (routers, switches, VPN concentrators, security appliances, WAN optimization devices, and so forth) isn’t unusual.

Throw in a typical enterprise software library, which normally includes from 2,000 to 5,000 entries, and you’ve got a CMDB with at least 25,000 items in its repositories. Every one of these items has an associated set of configuration data items (which can number from the hundreds into the thousands of individual entries), and every one of those configurations has to be created, managed, and maintained. By the time you add everything up, an enterprise CMDB can easily include millions of data items.

That’s a lot of data. And for that data to have meaning and value, it must be kept completely in synch with the state of the actual device, system, or software program to which it is tied. That’s tricky to manage. On the one hand, consider the pace at which old things leave and new things enter most operations. On the other hand, ponder the pace at which patches, updates, and fixes are propagated for firmware and software programs in use in those operations. That’s why mucho management is involved in keeping a CMDB current and correct.




What is change control?Simply put, change control imposes discipline, order, and record-keeping constraints on how changes get applied to a network’s systems and components. Nobody gets to make any changes without going through a formal change management process, which involves making sure that all changes are carefully considered, and that any changes that might be made are planned, scheduled, executed, monitored closely, and reported on heavily. Any changes that might lead to adverse or unwanted consequences will include rollback or failover plans. Then, if something goes wrong during the execution phase, the network and its users will not be negatively impacted, or that impact can be minimized.

Why is this kind of structure necessary? The simplest explanations come from different perspectives on management and complexity. The first perspective might be best understood as, “There’s too much risk inherent to unplanned change.” The second perspective is probably best appreciated as, “When things change is also when they are most likely to break.”

Why planning for change makes senseAn enterprise network is like a fine piece of clockwork machinery, albeit one larger and more complex than any individual machine has a right to be. A huge number of elements are involved, and the potential consequences of network failure are dire: Workers can’t do their jobs, customers can’t buy goods or services, the bills can’t get paid, and so on.

Thus, most prudent business managers won’t risk a “try it and see what happens” approach to making changes to any of the networks and systems on which the business depends. That’s one major and overriding cause for formal change management processes and procedures. That’s also why NCCM systems are generally regarded as mission-critical.

What’s a change planning process? Glad you asked:

✓ Design and planning analysis: Change is inevitable, but not all changes should or must be made. Any proposed change begins with a change request, which explains the change proposed and explains why it should be considered. The change must then be designed, planned, and scoped so it can be considered for implementation.



Chapter 1: Understanding Network Configuration . . . 9 ✓ Change authorization and implementation: This is

when the plans for a change will be authorized or denied, depending on the merits, costs, and consequences involved. If the change is authorized, it is scheduled for implementation and its plans are executed during some appropriate change interval. (Enterprises generally open time windows to make changes monthly, quarterly, and annually, as they see fit.)

✓ Compliance checking: Once a change is implemented, it is reviewed in light of its governing plans and specifications, and also in light of prevailing regulatory and compliance requirements. Only changes that meet all compliance requirements are allowed to stand; all others are reversed or backed out.

✓ Inventory reconciliation: This is where changes executed become reflected in the contents of the CMDB. Only successful and valid changes affect the CMDB’s contents; all transitory changes are ignored (or reversed, depending on the kinds of tools used for NCCM).

These four stages form a management lifecycle, as shown in Figure 1-1.

Change authorizationand implementation

Design andplanning analysis

Compliancechecking

Inventoryreconciliation

Figure 1-1: A typical process lifecycle for network configuration and change management.

Remember the CMDB? As all this “change stuff” is underway, each update or configuration item that changes as a result must be documented, and the CMDB must be updated. Automating this process saves huge amounts of labor and prevents further complications owing to human error.




Why there’s always a rollback or failover planned for changesThe basic form of Murphy’s Law is: “What can go wrong, will.” Real life isn’t always unforgiving. A great many changes actually do go through as planned without having to be reversed or undone. But occasionally, prior testing and analysis fails to capture some circumstance or event that does cause a problem as a change is applied. And sometimes, the engineers on hand are unable to counteract the problem or devise a workaround to apply the change.

In such cases, a fallback or failover plan kicks in on its own schedule. Such plans are designed to restore a network and its systems to their pre-change states without impacting users or scheduled workloads. Subsequent analysis can determine what caused the problems, and another set of plans for a future application may be built (or not, depending on the results of problem analysis).

How NCCM processes match up with management frameworksAlthough network configuration and change management figure prominently into the ISO network management model, NCCM also plays a role in other important business process models. These include:

✓ IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL): A key framework for IT service management, ITIL covers designing, delivering, monitoring, and maintaining information technology services. In the ITIL V3 framework, change management is part of its Service Transition processes, but is driven by service design and operation, and continual service improvement as well. Figure 1-2 shows how change management plugs into the CMDB.

✓ Control Objectives for Information & related Technology. Also known as COBIT, this is a best practices framework for IT management issued in 1996 by the industry group ISACA (the Information Systems Audit and Control Association) and the IT Governance Institute in 1996. COBIT offers managers, auditors, and IT users a set



Chapter 1: Understanding Network Configuration . . . 11of generally accepted measures, indicators, processes, and best practices for maximizing benefits from use of information technology. The emphasis is on developing functional and appropriate IT governance and control.

Change control figures into the Acquire and Implement (AI) domain for COBIT, and falls specifically into the AI6 Manage Changes area, while configuration management falls into the Deliver and Support (DS) domain, in the DS9 Manage the Configuration area. The Monitor and Evaluate (ME) domain also figures into this area, with its emphasis on formal IT processes, internal controls, regulatory compliance, and IT governance.

✓ Six Sigma. This business management strategy, originally developed at Motorola in 1986, is still in wide use in many industries, and sometimes finds applications in IT deployment and use. Six Sigma’s key focus is on identifying and removing the causes of errors and problems in business processes, and is best explained by the acronym DMAIC:

CapacityMgt.

IncidentMgt.

Config-uration

Mgt.

ProblemMgt.

ReleaseMgt.

ServiceLevelMgt.

FinancialMgt.

AvailabilityMgt.

CMDB

Change Mgt.

Figure 1-2: Although other management processes can affect the CMDB, Change Management is the primary driver for all changes to this body of data.



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 12 • Define the problem

• Measure the key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data

• Analyze the data to investigate and verify causes and effects

• Improve or optimize the process

• Control the future state process to ensure appropriate service quality.

There is no explicit configuration or change management component to Six Sigma, though it can be used to develop such methodologies.

As network management frameworks go, the ITIL’s service management model represents the current state of the art for network configuration and change management. COBIT comes in a close second, with Six Sigma being more of a do-it-yourself toolset.

The Business Case for NCCM

A capable and powerful NCCM system brings significant useful function and control to the network configuration and change management process. Enterprises must often overcome serious issues when deploying an NCCM solution — especially in tying together all the many systems and network components in an IT infrastructure, and enforcing a common and consistent view of the processes involved.

As Figure 1-2 illustrates, configuration change activity can originate from many different areas or groups within an enterprise. Financial, availability, service level, and capacity management teams can have inputs, as do groups that handle incident management for security reasons or problem management for customer or user support reasons. Likewise, in-house software development teams have release management processes that drive changes as well.

Key issues that any NCCM system should address must include the following:



Chapter 1: Understanding Network Configuration . . . 13 ✓ Centralize the management and create a standard way to

represent configuration data for equipment and software from multiple vendors.

✓ Provide sufficient flexibility to accommodate increasingly virtualized components and infrastructures for networks and systems. Not only are servers and clients likely to be virtualized nowadays, but so also are network interfaces (vNICs) and switches (vSwitches).

✓ Accommodate cloud services and components, including Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), as well as Software as a Service (SaaS).

✓ Support rapid, on-the-fly configuration changes and updates, particularly when such updates come from service providers operating outside the premises and control of the enterprise.

✓ Support powerful data/model workflow integration, so that everyone shares a single, common, and consistent view of configuration data and changes to be applied to them.

✓ Support workflow integration, so that data can flow between management systems, including NCCM systems and other management consoles as needed. This ensures nothing gets lost along the way and that responsible parties participate as and when they’re needed. At its best, integration naturally brings together all the parties involved in change management not only as ITIL sees it, but also as it works on the ground.

Why NCCM MattersWhy does this stuff matter? Because change isn’t only a constant that must be carefully planned and managed. Change needs to be managed because otherwise it might provoke inefficiencies, upsets, or outright system or network failures. In short, NCCM matters so much because it is needed to ensure smooth, reliable, and ongoing function of key IT systems and assets. This also explains why automation is a key concern for any NCCM system. There is too much change, too many data items involved, and too much opportunity for human error to creep in, to handle configuration updates manually.






Chapter 2

NCCM’s Business Challenges

In This Chapter▶ Understanding how to make NCCM effective and efficient

▶ Overcoming manual labor and human error

▶ Fitting into complex, multi-vendor environments

▶ Making the most of NCCM’s tools and capabilities

Organizations interested in using network configuration and change management systems face certain challenges.

Some of these challenges relate to resources and the vast volumes of configuration data. Some of these challenges are process- or procedure-oriented, and relate to how an organization establishes and controls its use of NCCM tools.

Still other challenges come from the outside, and relate to rules and regulations that stipulate how information — particularly information related to customer or client records, financial transactions, and accounts, and their privacy and confidentiality — must be handled, audited, and stored.

Finally, organizations must recognize that configuration data is particularly attractive and interesting to the criminal element, both outside their network boundaries and among their employees, contractors, and others allowed to work in and on their networks.

There’s another elephant in this room, too. Industry analysts observe that 50 to 80 percent of all downtime stems from human error — resulting from incorrect or invalid changes to systems and networks. Unfortunately, implementing



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 16and managing changes manually introduces substantial opportunities for errors. Such errors can be caused by inadequate testing and planning or from using incorrect or invalid configuration data as the point of departure when applying changes to systems and networks.

In other words, the challenges that organizations face when implementing NCCM are sizable. In fact, implementing NCCM often requires rethinking of the way that IT operates, and establishing formal, repeatable processes and procedures to plan, manage, and document change.

Facing Down the ChallengesImplementing NCCM imposes formal structure and flow on how change is planned and implemented. It also recognizes that the processes involved must be clearly stated and well-understood. All parties involved need to understand their responsibilities to manage change in the best way possible.

The sections that follow explore issues that organizations confront when considering use of NCCM tools and methods. You learn how such issues are usually addressed when implementing NCCM and putting a formal change management process to work.

Taking time and effort up frontMake no mistake! The first steps to implementing NCCM are huge: Collecting, assembling, and rationalizing configuration data for an entire enterprise. To make that happen, you must conduct a thorough and exhaustive inventory of all systems and hardware devices, both physical and virtual, in use in the enterprise. Then you must collect (and verify) all configuration data.

The time and effort required to create an initial configuration database, even with automated discovery and data acquisition tools, usually involves one or two full-time employees for a period from one to several months. At the same time, however, planning for change processes and procedures can also get underway.



Chapter 2: NCCM’s Business Challenges 17Then you must do the same for your organization’s software library, which is the sum total of all applications (and all versions of such applications) that the organization uses. Your team will invariably uncover a few surprises along the way, which may necessitate hasty acquisitions of new software licenses. This step causes many organizations to acquire a new perspective on the thousands of applications that they own and use — and which they must monitor and manage as well.

Understanding that governance is neededIn IT terms, governance means creating value for an organization while managing risks and optimizing resources. The overarching notion is to use all these activities to achieve enterprise goals. Configuration and change management are ingredients in governance processes, but they’re also subject to governance themselves.

This means that organizations must be willing to understand and own up to the requirements that attach to formal governance to make the most of NCCM systems and methods. This is another reason why buying into NCCM in particular, and the concepts and methods of IT governance in general, usually entails major changes to an organization’s culture, mindset, and operating principles.

At the same time that configuration data is being collected, assembled, and rationalized, and change processes designed and planned, IT governance must become part of an enterprise’s processes and procedures playbook if NCCM is to succeed. This is usually driven by strong buy-in and direction from executive staff, acting as a governing body, with design and implementation coming from a management and assurance team responsible for creating, maintaining, and controlling a governance framework.

For a nice introduction to governance principles and practices see ISACA’s and the IT Governance Institute’s “Governance on A Page” at www.takinggovernanceforward.org/Pages/.




Ensuring complianceChanges to IT devices, systems, and software don’t occur in a vacuum. An NCCM system must be able to support two types of compliance checking:

✓ Framework-based processes to ensure that changes comply with requirements for formulation, approval, implementation, and validation. Changes must be checked and validated to make sure they comply with standard best practices and procedures as specified in ITIL, COBIT, and other frameworks (such as Frameworx, formerly known as NGOSS for “New Generation Operating Systems and Software” from the TeleManagement Forum).

This type of compliance checking aims to make sure that changes are properly specified and formulated, have been properly authorized and applied to their targets, and are reflected in the current state of the CMDB and related documentation. This helps ensure consistency, and to make sure that unauthorized, unwanted, incomplete, or incorrect changes aren’t allowed to stand.

✓ Mandatory processes to ensure that changes comply with all applicable rules and regulations regarding their application, content, and history. When enterprises handle certain types of data or client records, rules and regulations that govern such information must be followed.

In this case, checking compliance means maintaining a required data trail of changes so their history can be dissected and reconstructed as mandates require. It also means performing and reporting on regular audits to ensure proper and complete compliance is maintained. And finally, it means reporting and handling incidents related to potential data breaches or violations carefully, transparently, and thoroughly.

Establishing and maintaining securityNCCM systems must support management of network security, and of the devices, systems, and software involved in establishing and maintaining such security. Thus, NCCM



Chapter 2: NCCM’s Business Challenges 19must be able to manage security components that include intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS), firewalls, public key infrastructures (PKIs), and AAA (authentication, authorization, and accounting) systems. NCCM systems must also perform security logging, to attribute changes to specific user identities at specific time stamps in a permanent record.

In environments where inter-network operations occur, NCCM systems must interoperate with various third-party network authentication and authorization environments. These include TACACS+, RADIUS, and LDAP, among others.

An NCCM must be able to accommodate security updates and patches for security infrastructure elements, and applications and operating systems. This includes CERT-driven operating system and application security updates, as well as vendor-supplied security updates (like those released the second Tuesday of each month for Microsoft operating systems and applications through the Windows Update service).

Remote access control acronymsTACACS+ (Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System Plus) is a Cisco proprietary protocol that provides access control for rout-ers, network access devices, and other networked computing systems through one centralized server or several centralized servers. In gen-eral, TACACS+ delivers AAA services.

RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) is a network protocol that provides centralized AAA management for computers seeking to connect and use various network services. RADIUS started as a proprietary technology, but is

now governed by a sizable collection of Internet standard RFC documents. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RADIUS for a complete list.

LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a network protocol designed to provide access to a directory and directory services via an IP network. In practice, LDAP offers a thoroughgoing set of access tools and controls that can deliver AAA services, along with directory services, service provisioning, and service location. Microsoft uses LDAP to manage access to its Active Directory services and information.



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 20In keeping with best security practices, NCCM systems must also support virus management. This includes identification of virus-related network events, along with related impact management and remediation or rectification changes. For example, this might require rapid application of access control list (ACL) changes to contain virus or worm propagation on a production network.

Finally, and perhaps most important (for mandatory compliance as well as best practices reasons), an NCCM must support security audits on networks it manages. Human or automated auditors must be able to assess security on network devices. The NCCM must allow and support routine hardening of all network devices to maintain acceptable security.

Limiting Manual, Ad-Hoc Change

In a surprising number of organizations and enterprises, manual methods for handling changes and updates remain the norm. This approach leaves handling updates to groups responsible for their maintenance and upkeep. It exerts no formal controls over or requirements for planning, managing, and controlling changes and updates. Updates are performed ad-hoc, based on user requests or perceived need and urgency. Documenting changes is left in the hands of those who make changes, to be performed whenever they can, as best they can — or perhaps never. The result is confusion and error.

Here are some of the drawbacks for manual change methods:

✓ They’re inherently inefficient. When manual methods prevail, documentation often disagrees with actual configurations. Conscientious staff members lose time and expend extra effort confirming current status before they proceed, and changes often fail because both source and target states for change are mistaken or misinformed. Haphazard documentation updates in the wake of change also takes further time and effort, and create further opportunities for human error.

✓ They create risk. Network configuration files are syntactically complex (see Figure 2-1), so it’s easy to introduce errors when making manual changes. In



Chapter 2: NCCM’s Business Challenges 21addition, because manual change processes are often based on incorrect or invalid data, they introduce added risks of failure or post-install problems and failures in affected systems.

✓ They’re usually slow and time-consuming. In fact, manual changes may sometimes run longer than is reasonable or workable for maintenance of a standard working schedule. They might even cut into prime-time working hours or important elements in business cycle processing (end-of-month, -quarter, or -year accounting and reporting interruptions or delays serve as dramatic examples). When change processes are unplanned, untested, and loosely scheduled, they often proceed on a haphazard basis. Some changes may work, but documentation or validation may follow only later, or not at all. Some changes may fail, and subsequent repair or remediation may exceed the time window allocated for changes and updates to complete or be rolled back.

Figure 2-1: A portion of a network configuration file.

Supporting Multivendor Environments

Interoperability is a must. Given that modern enterprise networks usually include network and security devices from many vendors, switches and routers from several more,



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 22servers and storage systems from still other providers, it is imperative that NCCM systems be able to communicate with and interrogate all the devices and systems on the network. The same goes for the thousands of software programs that typically reside in an enterprise software library.

An NCCM system must be able to connect with one or many devices or servers at the same time, all under the control of a single, consistent management console and dashboard. NCCMs need to function as well on remote networks as on local ones. They should accommodate various ways to interconnect geographically distributed networks. This means support for MPLS, various routing protocols, Carrier Ethernet, and other MAN/WAN technologies.

Gathering and managing configuration data, and tracking changes to that data, means the NCCM system must be able to acquire and log all such changes, no matter what kind of managed elements sit on the other side of any network connection. This goes for virtual instances as well as physical ones. Equally important, an NCCM must be able to use this data to validate changes, and then to update relevant documentation to reflect all applied changes.

Examining the Great Chain of Management Systems

Network configuration and change management is just one area in the major models that describe how network management should be practiced. In real production environments, this means that NCCM systems must interact with numerous other management systems to exchange information and share data. This usually means interacting with a performance and monitoring system, a software release management and deployment system, and a help desk and trouble ticket or customer support and follow-up system.

NCCM doesn’t function by itself. It needs to take inputs from various systems, then provide those systems with outputs as well. None of these outputs is as important as the configuration documents that NCCM manages to reflect



Chapter 2: NCCM’s Business Challenges 23current and valid configuration data. These ultimately drive all system planning, operations, and activities, both inside and outside the scope of NCCM.

Manual change methods simply can’t cope with enterprise levels of volume, activity, and complexity. Simply put, automation is the only way to wrestle enterprise configuration data to the ground and to make it work properly. Thus, automated NCCM systems offer the only real hope of implementing and managing change management systems that comply with governance concepts, best practices, and all applicable rules and regulations.






Chapter 3

Making Best Use of NCCMIn This Chapter▶ Automating yourself out of trouble

▶ Finding value in automated NCCM systems

▶ Finding key features in automated NCCM systems

The only way to get anything out of a network configuration and change management system is to put

one to work. Start by capturing and storing configuration data for everything you’ve got, and keep up with changes as they occur. Then make sure that what’s in the CMDB matches precisely to what’s on the ground — or in the clouds, as the case may very well sometimes be on today’s heavily distributed and virtualized enterprise networks.

Sound like a daunting task? It is — but automation can help. There is no better way to acquire configuration data for an NCCM system, nor to handle and document configuration changes as they occur going forward, than through intelligent automation of configuration data acquisition and updates. If there’s one hyper-critical attribute of a workable and usable NCCM system, effective automation has to be it.

Without effective automation, human intervention of some kind is needed to create and maintain the CMDB. Given the tens of thousands of sets of configuration data in a typical CMDB, with elements and associated values for all sets in the millions of items, this isn’t the kind of chore anyone would or should tackle manually. This chapter shows why the right way to handle configuration data is to turn that responsibility over to the NCCM system, and let it do its job.




Automation Meets Key Challenges

When properly done, automation can handle all the challenges associated with running and using NCCM properly with ease. A well-designed, highly automated NCCM system can deal with these challenges:

✓ Data acquisition and CMDB population: Even with large numbers of systems and devices on modern networks and large software libraries to document, modern NCCM systems can ferret out and acquire the data they need from the elements whose configurations need to find their way into the CMDB. This may involve one-time use of a special software agent or configuration intake tool, but it can be scheduled and managed in a reasonable amount of time. Once the acquisition phase is completed, there’s no further need for ongoing interrogation and documentation of configuration data.

✓ Automatic change and update handling: Once the CMDB has been populated, only confirmed changes need to find their way into that database. A modern NCCM communicates with the systems and components involved to track such changes, and to enter them into the CMDB without human interaction or intervention.

✓ Centralized management and data for all hardware and software components: The NCCM can interact with hardware and software from any and all vendors, and obtain any needed information. Thanks to automated change tracking and recording, configuration updates can be applied automatically to the CMDB.

✓ Standardized, consistent configuration data representation: Thanks to standard and canonical ways of capturing and representing configuration data, usually based on XML (extensible markup language; which is self-documenting and self-describing), hardware and software components can present their configuration data in a standard and highly readable form to an NCCM. This makes it easy to get configurations into the CMDB, and to make sense of its contents as well.

✓ Ability to handle virtualized and real physical components and elements: Modern NCCMs are as able



Chapter 3: Making Best Use of NCCM 27to acquire and manage configuration data for virtual devices and components as they are real ones. That’s because modern NCCMs use software that interacts with individual elements directly, and inquires to obtain configuration data or change information.

✓ Accommodate cloud services and components: Modern NCCMs can work with remote devices, systems, and programs via the Internet in much the same way that they work with local networked elements. Combined with support for virtualized items, this lets these systems interact with cloud services and components to acquire necessary configuration and change data.

✓ Support rapid, on-the-fly configuration changes and updates: Particularly in virtualized environments, entire virtual networks, hosts, and clients can move around frequently and rapidly. Modern NCCM systems maintain ongoing communications with such elements, and update their configuration databases to keep pace with changes automatically. Automated discovery across converged Ethernet and IP network infrastructures lets the NCCM detect as and when changes occur, and tune into them immediately.

✓ Support powerful data model integration: This is the foundation for NCCM, and is what permits such systems to interact with hardware and software from a multitude of vendors. Thanks to standard configuration representations and ready network communications, the configuration data on individual devices, systems, and programs makes its way easily and automatically into the CMDB via the NCCM.

✓ Support workflow integration: Workflow integration enables the NCCM to interact with other management systems in a transparent and tightly controlled way. Information and approvals follow the work from system to system, and updates propagate as and where they’re needed.

✓ Offer extensibility, flexibility, and capacity to handle future growth and expansion: Because the XML used to capture and represent configuration data is easily extended, new devices, systems, and software can be added to the NCCM. Distributed, highly available consoles and database management for the CMDB enable the NCCM to adapt to just about any situation, and to accommodate



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 28various models for operation and control. Modern server clusters (or virtualized consoles and servers) make adding capacity a simple matter of licensing and configuration control — this time, for the NCCM itself! Such systems can grow and change quickly, to keep pace with changing situations and circumstances in the enterprise.

For an NCCM system to really do its job properly, it must be ready and able to interact with complex, far-flung virtual and physical devices, systems, and software across virtual and physical networks of all kinds. Automation is the key to keeping up with an ever-changing and evolving managed environment.

How Automated NCCM Creates Value

Making a business case for a technology investment requires you to understand whether — and how quickly — such an investment can pay for itself. Traditional cost justification models concentrate on key elements related to putting some technology to work. These include outright cost reductions that reduce capital outlays or lower costs of service, subscription, or use. These models also estimate increases in efficiency and productivity, and put a dollar value on those additions to offset up-front and ongoing costs related to the technology investment. In the same vein, a value is put on any improvements to service levels that the technology can deliver. And finally, a value is assigned for compliance with applicable rules and regulations that the technology investment can help to ensure.

In the sections that follow, you learn how NCCM systems can deliver such value, and how they can be cost-justified for acquisition, deployment, and use.

Reduced costs of operationIn general, network automation reduces staffing levels required when such systems are in use. Because automated network management may be centrally managed and staffed, constant or regular presence in branch offices and smaller sites is invariably reduced and sometimes becomes unnecessary.



Chapter 3: Making Best Use of NCCM 29Because NCCM systems rely on automated discovery and updates to manage everyday changes and updates, IT staff members are freed to concentrate on other higher-value tasks and projects.

NCCM also helps to improve reliability and availability of networks and systems. In addition to increases in efficiency and improved service levels discussed in the following sections, this also pays a nice dividend in requiring less staff time and effort to detect, diagnose, and repair faults and problems. When things don’t break as much, it’s not necessary to spend as much time and effort to fix them, either.

A lower level of human involvement also helps to reduce operator errors, and removes a major cause of inconsistencies between the CMDB and the various networks, systems, and software it represents. Industry analysts estimate that 50 to 80 percent of all network outages may be attributed directly to errors introduced during manual change processes. When automation is at work, such errors no longer occur, thereby saving the costs of the outages themselves along with the time and effort no longer required to set things right.

Increased efficiencyNCCM systems permit an enterprise to control the full process of network design and modification on a continuing basis. You don’t have to schedule such activity, or to allocate extra resources to undertake it. The change management process flows naturally into design, and tracks all modifications as a natural consequence of its operation.

A formal change management process model also permits the change process itself to be measured and monitored. This results in more reliable networks and improved enterprise productivity. Though more time is spent on planning and working through the change process, the total effort involved pales beside the effort required to troubleshoot problems when they’re allowed to occur — not to mention the urgency, the stress, and the unpredictability that outages can introduce into productivity, output, and revenue forecasts.

A more reliable and predictable network means that workers can be more productive, that users and customers will obtain a better online experience, and that overall resources



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 30and information can be used more quickly and effectively to get the job done. Net overall increases in productivity of 10 percent are common, with higher numbers sometimes measured as a result of formal change management.

Improved service levelsFewer outages, plus more reliability and availability translate into higher service levels across the entire enterprise. These higher levels mean that individual work items are handled more quickly, and users enjoy a more positive experience in working with systems and networks. Putting a hard and fast value on the benefits of improved employee morale can be difficult, but no such problems attach to the value of the work they produce as a consequence. A 10 percent improvement in output with little or no increases in cost makes a very nice contribution to the bottom line.

Similar improvements in remote or Web access can also pay extra dividends. When their user experience is uniformly positive, employees are more inclined to put in extra hours on the road or at home, when they’re off the clock. Likewise, enterprises with substantial customer-facing online operations can achieve round-the-clock improvements in sales and service delivery when users are glad to interact with information assets online. They’ll be more eager to log on, and less likely to log off quickly, when service levels encourage their appetites for online interaction.

In situations where service levels come with guarantees, or so-called service level agreements (SLAs), improved service levels will translate more directly into bottom-line improvements. If an organization needs to devote less time and effort to handling service-level reports and complaints, they’ll save on the staff costs always involved in working such things through. And because many SLAs assess financial penalties when they’re not met, organizations can avoid those losses if service levels remain at or above guaranteed levels more of the time.

Ensuring complianceIn many industries, information services must meet regulatory requirements for specific kinds of data, especially financial



Chapter 3: Making Best Use of NCCM 31transactions, credit-card processing, and handling of customer medical records and information. Maintaining compliance normally includes providing proof in the form of auditing and related reports. When faults, data breaches, or other incidents occur, various reports and notifications are required, and can come with substantial penalties when compliance isn’t achieved.

Formal change management systems help to document compliance as a natural consequence of the data they manage, monitor, and report on. This information can also speed audit processing and reduce the time, effort, and cost involved in meeting related reporting requirements.

And because formal change management enables changes to be checked for compliance requirements as part of the management process, unintended breaches or violations are far less likely to occur. Compliance efforts and activities are a regular part of the overall process, rather than an exceptional, every-now-and-then effort. This makes problems far less likely to occur, and associated costs and reputation damage far less likely to be assessed.

Key Attributes and Features of an Automated NCCM System

When choosing an automated NCCM system, enterprises need to be aware of lots of features and functions. In particular, choosy buyers should look for certain key attributes and features like these:

✓ Network configuration version management. Automatic numbering and tracking of configuration data (and even data elements) is important for keeping track of configurations over time, but also essential to successful rollbacks or change reversals. Version information also permits history to be fully reconstructed for after-the-fact problem analysis and process-improvement purposes.

✓ Network document generation. Automatic generation of network documents ensures that IT staff members are always working from current and correct information as they handle incidents or problems, or plan for future change and growth. Because so many errors that occur



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 32in manual systems come from outdated or incorrect documentation, it’s hard to overstate the importance of this capability.

✓ Network change job scheduling. Managing change requires formal scheduling of change jobs (when changes get executed). Time slots have to match the job requirements, and there has to be sufficient time for rollback or reversal if any problems occur as changes are applied.

✓ Change process management. The ITIL model described in Chapter 1 takes continual service improvement as a central principle in creating a formal and effective discipline for service delivery. Where change is concerned, this means monitoring and managing the change process itself, just like any other process. This is the only way to improve the change process, and to achieve higher efficiencies and fewer faults in how that process operates.

✓ Distributed device communication and control. Today’s networks are far-flung, highly distributed, and virtualized. A capable NCCM must be able to reach out and interact with devices, systems, and software no matter where they’re located, or whether they’re real or virtual, with nary a hiccup nor an access issue. This capability is an absolute must for today’s complex enterprise networks.

✓ Change auditing and reporting. To capture information about the change process, to track configurations over time, and to ensure compliance, NCCM systems must incorporate automatic auditing and reporting facilities. This makes producing necessary and valuable reports easy and timely, and helps ensure that NCCM is doing its job.

✓ Extensible, flexible data modeling and capture. Today’s enterprise networks include all kinds of devices, systems, and software. NCCM systems must be able to capture and represent all those configurations, and to accommodate new devices — and entirely new technologies — as systems change and evolve going forward.

All in all, NCCM systems represent a formidable collection of communication, command and control, data collection and management, and auditing and reporting capabilities. Buyers must be careful to ensure that any systems that make it onto their short lists of final candidates excel in all of these areas.



Chapter 4

Maximizing Automated NCCM

In This Chapter▶ Looking at specific companies that put NCCM to work

▶ Examining the benefits of NCCM for real-world companies

▶ Understanding how EMC Ionix Network Configuration Manager works

Well-run companies look for innovative ways to retain customers, get new customers, and stand out among

competitors. In the network services industry, switching to network configuration and change management (NCCM) is a prime way to meet those goals.

In this chapter, I look at four companies that chose an NCCM solution, and why. While browsing those case studies, if any of the scenarios sound familiar (same challenges in your shop?), keep reading for a description of the benefits the companies realized after making the switch to NCCM. Finally, we offer a birds-eye view of EMC Ionix Network Configuration Manager.

Putting NCCM to WorkPrevious chapters described the virtues of NCCM in general and its value to companies. Now take a look at how four well-known companies have improved their services, and their customers’ businesses, by putting NCCM to work.




CompuCom Systems, Inc.CompuCom Systems, Inc., is an IT outsourcer for Fortune 500 companies in energy, finance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, and retail. CompuCom designs, deploys, and manages IT infrastructures, in addition to developing applications and providing governance services.

Many of CompuCom’s clients began processing applications in real time and over wide-area networks. The result was heavier network loads that slowed performance. On the support side, large-scale network configuration updates were time-consuming. CompuCom administrators made many updates manually, which sometimes required upwards of two weeks to complete. In addition, it could take CompuCom up to 15 minutes to poll customer devices and over four hours to generate network maps for root-cause analysis. Senior management knew that today’s business climate requires much faster response and resolution times.

CompuCom needed a real-time monitoring and management solution that gave them true visibility into their customer’s networks. Visibility in this sense means to be aware of the devices, services, and data on a network. The better the visibility, the easier it is to detect and resolve network faults quickly.

CompuCom chose two products: EMC Ionix IT Operations Intelligence (ITOI) and EMC Ionix Network Configuration Manager (NCM). The combination of products lowered the number of monthly trouble tickets by 75 percent, dropped the time needed for root-cause analysis to less than one hour, and reduced the time for network configuration updates to about 30 minutes. As a boost to the company’s bottom line, CompuCom saved over $500,000 in the first year the tools were deployed.

Reliance GlobalcomReliance Globalcom (formerly Vanco) is a leader in global business communications. This network service provider offers data, voice, video, security, and remote access services. Customers around the world rely on Reliance Globalcom to design, deploy, and manage their global communications networks.



Chapter 4: Maximizing Automated NCCM 35Reliance Globalcom has always had high customer satisfaction rates. However, as customers deployed new technologies, their needs changed, requiring Reliance Globalcom to keep pace. Another hurdle was integrating products from different vendors.

To remain the go-to network service provider for current customers and attract new customers, Reliance Globalcom had a laundry list of requirements for a new technology solution. The tool needed to:

✓ Manage IT service delivery more efficiently

✓ Automate problem and fault tasks, and configuration and management tasks

✓ Provide complete integration with other vendor’s products

✓ Enhance security and demonstrate compliance with customers’ corporate and regulatory requirements

✓ Allow absolute control over the IT environment to maintain quality and ensure accuracy of compliance, change, and configuration processes

✓ Reduce overall costs

Like CompuCom, Reliance Globalcom chose EMC Ionix for IT Operations Intelligence (ITOI) and EMC Ionix Network Configuration Manager (NCM). The combined solution allowed Reliance Globalcom to meet its goals. Among other benefits, the company’s operations became much more efficient, reducing the time to push an update to all systems from hours to minutes, with no errors. NCM also allows the company to control who may see and make updates, and consistently monitor compliance across devices and networks.

CUNA Mutual GroupFrom its offices in Wisconsin, the CUNA Mutual Group provides insurance, loans, and other financial services to credit unions and their members. As a financial company, it must protect its customers’ data and privacy, so IT infrastructure security is a top priority.



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 36With more and more viruses, worms, and other threats hitting companies daily, CUNA Mutual took a hard look at the level of security across its business units. The company found that manual IT configuration changes to its more than 500 network devices created security vulnerabilities, mainly because different staff made changes in different ways. Standardization was needed to make network updates consistent, regardless of who performed them. And the company needed a way to audit those changes to ensure they were done according to regulatory requirements and internal security policies.

CUNA Mutual chose EMC Ionix Network Configuration Manager (NCM) to streamline its configuration change process — eliminating errors and providing an automated way to prove security compliance. Another big plus was the return on investment. Because the change process was automated, IT staff had much more time to focus on mission-critical tasks rather than routine maintenance.

NEC Unified SolutionsNEC Unified Solutions provides unified communications systems to Fortune 1,000 customers. The products include networks and network security, Internet Protocol (IP) and wireless communications, video solutions, and much more.

As many of NEC Unified Solutions’ customers migrated to new technologies, such as voice over IP (VoIP), the company looked for new ways to meet customer demands. One way was to expand from basic remote monitoring to full remote management. To give remote customers the best possible support and minimize downtime, NEC Unified Solutions needed a highly reliable configuration and change management solution.

The company selected EMC Ionix Network Configuration Manager (NMC). The tool let NEC Unified Solutions “see” customer networks completely, which made problem resolution much faster. Manual configuration changes, and even new deployments, became automated. The solution also let NEC Unified Solutions more easily provide backup and audit trails of configuration changes.



Chapter 4: Maximizing Automated NCCM 37

Here’s the Beef: Value Resulting from Automated NCCM

The four companies in our case studies realized a string of common benefits:

✓ Comprehensive network management: The companies gained a single, comprehensive management view of their network environments. Reliance Globalcom, for example, had full visibility from one interface when managing a multi-vendor network.

✓ Compliance auditing: The companies were able to track and audit configuration changes automatically. Doing so allowed them to maintain compliance with internal policies in addition to industry and regulatory requirements.

Compliance is like a spectrum. In addition to things like regulations, IT teams increasingly want to align with best practices, such as those outlined in Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL). Even having a mechanism to ensure consistency among workgroup teams can be key to an organization. No executive wants to unnecessarily take on the business risk associated with all individuals on a network team handling change-related processes inconsistently.

✓ High return on investment: Because the EMC NCM solution automates tedious manual tasks, and eliminates errors, the companies saved significant money on personnel costs. NEC Unified Solutions, for example, was able to eliminate onsite installation services and manual activations. Automation decreased the time needed for customer deployments, and slashed the cost of providing those services.

✓ Ongoing network operational efficiency: Although return on investment (ROI) and payback period associated with NCCM is compelling and quick, the real value comes from the ongoing operational application of automated NCCM. Saving time, avoiding problems, and ensuring compliance results in more efficient operations day in and day out. That increased efficiency reduces costs, and lower costs mean higher profitability.




Introducing the EMC Ionix Network Configuration Manager

EMC Ionix Network Configuration Manager is an automated network compliance, change, and configuration management tool that works seamlessly in physical and virtual environments.

One of the characteristics that makes it unique is its scalable and flexible model (shown in Figure 4-1). This model means customers can use the tool to custom-configure their networks, rather than having to adjust their processes to fit the tool.

Report Manager

• Executive level views• Compliance reports• Inventory reports• Change reports

DB Server Application Server Device Server

EMC’S Network Change and Configuration Manager (NCM)Automated Change, Configuration, and Compliance Management

Change and ConfigurationManagement

Multi-vendor network infrastructure discovery

FirewallsVPNConcentrators

Multi-Vendor Network Infrastructure

Routers

Switches

Optical Switches

BroadbandRouters

WirelessRouters

Access Points

Figure 4-1: The Network Configuration Manager model includes a multi-tiered architecture.

Network Configuration Manager integrates three important network management processes: design, change, and compliance.

DesignBefore rolling out changes or new configurations, Network Configuration Manager helps you create an implementation



Chapter 4: Maximizing Automated NCCM 39design. In this phase, you plan for and set up change automa-tion using templates — called Golden Configs in EMC-speak.

The tool’s interface, shown in Figure 4-2, is intuitive and easy to use, even when supporting large networks. It displays the information you need or makes it available with only a click or two of your mouse.

VoyenceControl was the precursor to Network Configuration Manager. Some of the Network Configuration Manager screens still carry the VoyenceControl logo and branding.

Figure 4-2: The Network Configuration Manager interface lets you easily design, and then implement, change management tasks.

ChangeAfter you design a change, you’re ready to push it to your network devices automatically. This automation is what replaces manual change processes and reduces or eliminates human errors. You don’t need to log in to devices individually to change configs, spending days or weeks to update large networks. No more bare-metal provisioning, no more site



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 40visits. The system performs discovery on a per-device basis (see Figure 4-3), providing flexibility for the customer.

Figure 4-3: An example of the Auto Discovery feature for Network Configuration Manager.

The management system runs on an application server, which can manage one or thousands of devices from different vendors. That design allows the environment to easily scale to meet needs of network environments — large, midsize, and small.

Pre- and Post-ComplianceStepping back a bit, Network Configuration Manager’s audit design feature helps ensure your automated change will be in compliance with regulations and policies before you implement changes.

Network Configuration Manager provides built-in policy tem-plates for regulations including Payment Card Industry (PCI), Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB), Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS 70), and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Once changes are made, the software tracks all changes individually. You can check settings and generate reports through the management interface on demand.



Chapter 5

Ten Top Reasons to Pick Automated NCCM

In This Chapter▶ Saving time, money, and human resources

▶ Meeting best practices, governance, and compliance requirements

▶ Reducing outages and downtime

▶ Eliminating risk of costly human errors

▶ Keeping configuration changes in sync

Traditionally, every For Dummies book ends with a Part of Tens.

Why is this? Think about it, then answer these puzzlers:

✓ How many commandments did Moses bring down from the mount?

✓ How many fingers do most people have on both hands?

✓ Solve the unknown in this phrase: “Top X List”

So here are ten benefits of network configuration and change control.

Save Money and TimeAutomated NCCM makes managing change faster, but also easier to plan for, implement, validate, and document. By adopting formal change control processes and procedures,



Network Configuration & Change Management For Dummies 42and using automated NCCM, organizations reduce the amount of time it takes to implement changes, thereby reducing needs for staff time, problem-solving, and rollbacks.

Automated NCCM users save money on IT staff costs and time spent dealing with configuration changes.

Refocus IT EffortsAutomated NCCM users can refocus IT efforts on planning and proactive efforts to create new IT services and innovate for the business, rather than spending those efforts on manual change activity.

Meet IT Governance and Service Management Goals

In the NCCM world, compliance takes two different forms. The first form usually deals with meeting IT governance and service management process models, and helps to ensure change management is working properly, efficiently, and reliably. Automated NCCM users can verify and audit that changes are authorized and correctly implemented. They can also use change processes to manage the change process itself!

Achieve Legal and Regulatory Compliance

The second form deals with legal and regulatory compliance, and the planning, assessment, auditing, and reporting it requires. Automated NCCM helps to facilitate both. Automated NCCM users can integrate regulatory and legal compliance requirements into their change planning, authorization, implementation, verification, and audit processes. This makes compliance issues routine to track, manage, research, and report.



Chapter 5: Ten Top Reasons to Pick Automated NCCM 43

Bust DowntimeProper network configuration and change management results in networks that are more reliable and available, and less subject to service degradations or outright outages. All these things contribute to a better end-user experience, and even to meeting or exceeding service level guarantees. Automating configuration changes using NCCM reduces downtime, as compared to manual change control methods.

Improve ProductivityImproved service delivery and a better end-user experience derived from NCCM systems translate into improved productivity.

Beat Human ErrorManual change processes and procedures are fraught with error and create regular problems with applications, services, and network access. Industry analysts estimate that errors related to unforeseen or unwanted side effects resulting from manual changes account for the vast majority — 50 to 80 percent — of service outages. Automated NCCM eliminates human errors associated with manual change control, and gives that time and access to those resources back to the enterprise. Automating change control procedures and related documentation helps to reduce errors significantly through proper planning, authorization, execution, verification, and audit.

Match Real ConfigurationsAutomating change control procedures and related recording of those changes ensures that configurations referenced in planning match real configurations in service. This removes a key source of error in the change management process.




Work from Correct Configurations

When it comes to understanding and explaining the errors to which manual change control is subject, the most common root cause is attributed to incorrect, invalid, missing, or out-of-date configuration data for the devices, systems, and software involved. Automated NCCM ties into the change management database (CMDB), making it easy and automatic to keep changes to systems — whether real or virtual — in agreement with each other.

Validating configuration changes ensures that configurations in the CMDB agree with configurations on the ground.

Attain Complete CoverageFlexible and far-reaching network communications and support for devices, systems, and software in NCCM ensures that systems can capture and manage all configurations for the whole enterprise. This ensures complete, consistent, and correct coverage.



About EMC

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) is the world’s leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions that enable organizations of all sizes to transform the way they compete and create value from their information.

Helping Customers Accelerate the Journey to the Cloud

EMC helps customers meet critical business challenges with a comprehensive set of offerings, including unique capabilities that allow organizations to gain visibility into their virtualized and cloud environments, standardized planning processes, change control operational processes, and automate time consuming tasks using a scalable policy driven approach.

Information about EMC products and services that help to simplify and automate IT infrastructure management as you move from physical to virtual to cloud computing can be found at www.EMC.com.

Address

EMC176 South StHopkinton, Massachusetts 01748United States of America


Ed Tittel

• Understand why you need an automated network configuration and change management system

• Successfully manage change in a complex multi-vendor network environment

• Make a business case for your NCCM system

Learn to:

Network Configuration

& Change Management

EMC EditionCompliments of

Making Everything Easier!™

Open the book and find:

• A list of reasons to pick NCCM

• Why managing change on complex networks is critical

• How to find value in automated NCCM systems

• Information on EMC technology

978-1-118-06004-9Not for resale

Go to Dummies.com®

for videos, step-by-step examples, how-to articles, or to shop!

If you’ve ever been curious about network configuration and change management — abbreviated in this book as NCCM — you’ve got the right book. Here, you can find out what’s up with NCCM, and why acquiring and managing such information is so important to so many enterprises and large-scale organizations.

• An NCCM primer — with explanations of basic concepts and terms

• Examine the challenges — particularly when configurations and their changes are handled in a manual environment

• Automating NCCM — the many and substantial benefits of automating NCCM and letting intelligent computer systems manage changes to configuration data

• Business use cases — that illustrate and illuminate the business benefits to using automated NCCM systems

Understand the basics of network configuration and change management

http://www.dummies.com

Network Configuracion & Change Management

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