What it takes to implement lights-out WAN management

Insightful analysis by consultants Steve Taylor and Jim Metzler, plus links to the latest WAN news headlines

In the last newsletter we discussed how IT organizations must implement more effective WAN management to increase WAN availability and that a key step towards this is to automate tasks that currently are highly manual, repetitive and time consuming. In this newsletter we will discuss lights-out WAN management, a phrase that refers to the automation of both problem identification and problem resolution. While this newsletter will focus on WAN management, the same concepts can be applied across all of IT.

Lights-out WAN management is built upon an integrated system that provides three key management functions: find, configure and monitor. Relative to find, what is needed as a minimum is the ability to automatically discover all of the IT infrastructure elements. These elements, such as network switches and routers, are important unto themselves and are typically used to provide resources for services such as a VLAN (Virtual LAN) or a VPN. As a result, what is also needed is the ability to discover WAN services and to be able to perform deep subcomponent discovery in order to understand the relationships between deployed services and the subtending infrastructure elements, down to the level of individual ports and interfaces.

Relative to configure, a lights out WAN management tool must allow the IT organization to configure a wide range of network devices using a broad range of approaches; i.e., GUIs, CLI, etc. As previously mentioned, successful lights out IT management requires a focus on services such as VPNs. Because these services are typically comprised of multiple devices, a lights out IT management tool must enable an IT organization to automatically configure a service and all of the subtending IT infrastructure elements.

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In the last newsletter we discussed how IT organizations must implement more effective WAN management to increase WAN availability and that a key step towards this is to automate tasks that currently are highly manual, repetitive and time consuming. In this newsletter we will discuss lights-out WAN management, a phrase that refers to the automation of both problem identification and problem resolution. While this newsletter will focus on WAN management, the same concepts can be applied across all of IT.

Lights-out WAN management is built upon an integrated system that provides three key management functions: find, configure and monitor. Relative to find, what is needed as a minimum is the ability to automatically discover all of the IT infrastructure elements. These elements, such as network switches and routers, are important unto themselves and are typically used to provide resources for services such as a VLAN (Virtual LAN) or a VPN. As a result, what is also needed is the ability to discover WAN services and to be able to perform deep subcomponent discovery in order to understand the relationships between deployed services and the subtending infrastructure elements, down to the level of individual ports and interfaces.

Relative to configure, a lights out WAN management tool must allow the IT organization to configure a wide range of network devices using a broad range of approaches; i.e., GUIs, CLI, etc. As previously mentioned, successful lights out IT management requires a focus on services such as VPNs. Because these services are typically comprised of multiple devices, a lights out IT management tool must enable an IT organization to automatically configure a service and all of the subtending IT infrastructure elements.

As noted, the third key WAN management function is monitoring. Monitoring can be done either passively or actively. Using a passive approach, an infrastructure element such as a router would inform the management tool of a problem. Using an active approach, the management tool would interrogate the router and would determine the health of the individual components and/or the associated service. Since both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages, an effective solution requires both.

As stated, we believe that implementing effective WAN management is a requirement for those IT organizations who want to increase WAN availability. More information on the topic can be found at The Mandate for Lights Out Management.

Read more about lans & wans in Network World's LANs & WANs section.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Jim Metzler is vice president of Ashton, Metzler & Associates.