What is network management?

Network management helps to provision, monitor, secure, operate and maintain an organization's data transfer channels across enterprise IT ecosystems (for example, on-premises data centers, cloud environments). For example, an organization's IT staff might prioritize access to processing power and memory on the network for mission-critical applications versus less essential or nonessential applications.

Network management is crucial because it helps IT teams proactively identify and resolve network issues, optimize performance, ensure network availability and ultimately support continuity and business outcomes.

An organization might outsource some or all aspects of network management to a managed services provider (MSP) to free up internal IT staff or protect limited in-house network capabilities and expertise. An MSP helps manage basic network access and transport services such as local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) lines. They can also manage complex connections such as those in a software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN).

Software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) is a centralized approach that uses software-defined networking (SDN) and application programming interfaces (APIs) to provide a complete view of network infrastructure. This capability allows administrators to optimize network resources to increase network performance.

SD-WAN and the software-defined data center (SDDC) have become central to modern IT infrastructure, providing the agility, elasticity and scalability associated with hybrid cloud and other cloud computing ecosystems.

According to a MarketsandMarkets report, SDN is creating new opportunities for network management by integrating automation tools within network management processes. SDN, along with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), is seen as a primary driver in the global market size of network management systems, whose revenue surpassed USD 9.3 billion in 2022 and is anticipated to exhibit a CAGR of 9.4%, increasing to USD 14.6 billion by the end of 2027.¹

A network management system is an IT infrastructure system that administrators and network operations centers (NOCs) rely on to perform network provisioning, configuration management, fault management, performance management, security management and other network management tasks.

While network management refers to the tasks that administrators perform to maintain and secure a network, the network management system—also known as network management software—is a set of tools that the administrators use for performing those tasks. More specifically, a network management system uses network monitoring and observability tools to collect real-time data from network devices (for example, switches, routers, access points, user devices). It gives administrators a central control point to govern network security policies, allocate network resources and more.

For instance, a network administrator can set a failover policy for mission-critical applications to automatically switch to memory from a backup location should a network disruption threaten primary service access.

Network management systems enable the following:

• Proactive identification of network issues, using AI and ML capabilities to detect patterns in network behavior and quickly detect and respond to network issues.
• Monitoring of resource allocation and network security.
• Accelerated troubleshooting through a single point of control over network traffic and performance management.
• Network automation that removes the need for human intervention in repetitive workflows, such as network configuration management tasks and upgrades.

A network management protocol defines the processes, procedures and policies for managing, monitoring and maintaining the network. This set of rules defines how network administrators acquire and view information from a network device regarding availability, network latency, packet/data loss and errors through a network management system.

A network management system can also collect information from devices automatically through a network management protocol for automated tasks such as updating software or performance monitoring. Examples of network management protocols include:

• Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP): An SNMP is an open standard protocol that queries each network element and sends responses to the system for analysis.
• Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP): An ICMP is a TCP/IP network layer that provides troubleshooting, control and error message services.
• Streaming telemetry: Streaming telemetry is a methodology that transmits key performance indicators from network devices to the system in real-time.

Network management tasks ensure a network's health and performance, aiming to optimize resources, support business objectives and enhance user experience.

In network management, these are some examples of essential tasks:

• Software updates
• Maintenance
• Network audits
• Performance monitoring
• Threat and vulnerability management
• Security enhancement
• IP address management
• Provisioning
• Access control

Depending on the capability of the organization's IT and the network management system, updates can be pushed to devices that are integral to the operation of an enterprise network, including routers, switchers and end-user devices like printers and phones.

Network maintenance involves performing tasks necessary to fix issues as they occur and upgrading software and hardware vital for the continued operation of the network. This includes tracking metrics such as CPU usage and bandwidth on network devices.

Network audits consist of reviewing and evaluating the performance and security of network infrastructure, serving as a crucial part of monitoring and maintenance practices. Network auditing tools use automation to perform tasks such as device identification, configuration checks and vulnerability scanning.

Network performance monitoring ensures the optimal and continuous performance of network resources. Administrators can also use network topology mapping tools to provide visual representations that help network teams identify potential performance issues.

Network administrators monitor the network for signs of potential threats or breaches and use AI-powered threat management tools that alert them to cyberattacks or possible security risks, which can then be mitigated or prevented. Types of network security threats include ransomware and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

Cybersecurity teams also rely on vulnerability management practices and automated solutions to discover any flaws or weaknesses in a network’s structure. Some examples of network vulnerabilities include improperly installed hardware, insecure passwords and exploitable design flaws in an operating system.

Enhancing network security includes tasks such as creating firewalls that block suspicious activity on the network and the enforcement of multifactor authentication (MFA).

Network administrators maintain an inventory of available and unavailable IP addresses for devices that reside on the network. They assign and unassign IP addresses as devices are provisioned or de-provisioned. IP addresses are sometimes assigned dynamically through a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server, which is often found in large enterprise networks.

Network administrators provision a network infrastructure with IT system resources such as bandwidth and transport channels (for example, cable, broadband, 5G, LTE, satellite) to enable access between users, end-user devices, IoT devices, applications and data at wanted performance levels.

Setting network access controls helps regulate how devices on the edge and applications in cloud environments access data through the network. For example, an access control may be in place to prevent sensitive data from being transferred over the network into a public cloud environment.

The benefits of network management include: 

• Network visibility
• Unplanned downtime detection and prevention
• Performance optimization
• Scalability
• Cost prevention

Network operations and engineering teams use network management systems for the centralized monitoring and performance visibility of their networks and hybrid cloud environments.

Network administrators use AI-driven network monitoring tools to detect potential outages, prevent disruption or set failover policies that redirect traffic and resources.

Network management systems provide increased visibility and access to network performance data. This feature enables network operations and engineering teams to make informed decisions that result in greater network efficiency, cost-effectiveness, availability and security. Additionally, optimizing network performance can contribute to an improved user experience due to decreased latency and response time and improved availability.

Network monitoring tools support horizontal and vertical scalability. For instance, they can help scale a network by adding more devices (horizontal) to distribute load or by upgrading existing devices with more processing power (vertical), allowing the network to handle increased demands as needed.

Network management strategies help prevent network disruptions and optimize resource usage. Network management can help an organization reduce costs through regular monitoring and maintenance by supporting uptime, reliability and overall operational efficiency.