Cloud Computing and Its Effects on Network Management

Grazed from CloudTweaks. Author: Brad Hale.

The delivery of computing as a service, or cloud computing, over a network is becoming more and more mainstream and is allowing businesses of all sizes to get their applications up and running faster, with easier manageability and less maintenance. Cloud computing allows enterprises, and enables IT, to more rapidly adjust IT resources (apps, servers, storage, and networking) to meet fluctuating and unpredictable business demand.

Cloud computing forces us to change our traditional approach to application and network management. No longer do we have a fixed number of assets that must remain running 100% of the time, and performing to the best of their abilities. Instead, we have on-demand computing where resource needs, such as servers and applications, and capacity fluctuates based on demand…

Traditional Network Management vs. Cloud Network Management

In a traditional, non-cloud based, network implementation, network and application monitoring primarily focuses on the availability and performance of the network and server infrastructure. Monitoring of network devices (routers, switches, and firewalls) is usually accomplished with a network management system (NMS) that uses traditional protocols such as SNMP, ICMP, and WMI to gather performance statistics. Advanced management systems typically include network device discovery and mapping, network device performance monitoring, real-time intelligent alerting and reporting, application monitoring and many more features that assist the IT professional in monitoring and managing the performance of their network…

Read more from the source @ http://www.cloudtweaks.com/2013/01/cloud-computing-and-its-effects-on-network-management/