Mumbai University > EXTC > Sem 8 > Telecom Network Management

Marks: 5 M

Year: May 2015

Challenges of IT Managers:

i. Managing a corporate network is becoming harder as it becomes larger and more complex.

ii. Network management, it includes not only components that transport information in the network, but also systems that generate traffic in the network.

iii. The systems could be hosts, database servers, file servers, or mail servers. In the client-server environment, network control is no longer centralized, but distributed.

iv. Computer and telecommunication networks are merging fast into converged network with common modes and media of transportation and distribution. As in the case of broadband networks, the IT manager needs to maintain both types of networks.

v. Thus, the data communications manager functions and telecommunication manager functions have been merged to that of the IT manager.

vi. With the explosion of information storage and transfer in the modern information era, management of information is also the responsibility of the IT manager, with the title of CIO, Chief Information Officer.

vii. For example, the IT manager needs to worry in detail about who can access the information and what information they can access, i.e., authentication and authorization issues of security management.

viii. The corporate network needs to be secured for privacy and content, using firewalls and encryption.

ix. Technology is moving so fast and corporate growth is so enormous, that a CIO has to keep up with new technologies and the responsibility for financial investment that the corporation commits to.

x. This amounts to millions of dollars, and the success or failure of making the right guess, not choice, could make or break the CIO's job. The IT manager needs to make provisions for contingencies to change direction when the IT industry does.

xi. A good example of indeterminacy in the fast-moving technology industry was competition between the two technologies of Ethernet and ATM to desktop.

xii. ATM was predicted to be the way to go a few years ago. However, this has not been the case because of the development of enhanced capability and speed of Ethernet.

xiii. Another current example related to this is the decision that one has to make in the adoption and deployment of WAN—whether it should be IP, ATM, or MPLS.