Running head: METRICS USED TO GAUGE NETWORK EFFECTIVENESS AND

Metrics Used to Gauge Network Effectiveness and Efficiency

James Hicks

June 11, 2014

METRICS USED TO GAUGE NETWORK EFFECTIVENESS AND

There are different factors that help determine management effectiveness, many of these
factors influence management at multiple levels. The first one is the manageability referring to
the ease which managed systems and devices allow themselves to be managed. Secondly,
another influence is the level of management applications and operations help support the
infrastructure. Finally, it is the level of the management organization itself that uses the tools and
infrastructure. Understanding those factors is the first step in determining what measures can be
taken to increase management effectiveness. In this paper I will discuss the factors that
management must monitor and understand known as metrics manageability. I will identify and
discuss the various metrics that are defined and used to effectively manage a system.
Manageability refers to the collective set of properties of an entity (known as a device or
a network) that allows it to be managed. Those properties can be largely attributed to the
entitys management instrumentation-the management interfaces that it exposes and the
capabilities that those interfaces provide.(Clemm, 2007) However, it also involves other
properties as well as makes the devices easier to manage. There are several manageability factors
that affect cost of ownership. These two factors are always associated with cost of ownership as
well as the cost of integrating the managed devices into an operations support environment.
Finally the cost of operating and maintaining the device also are determining factors and can
play a big role. The second aspect of cost of ownership concerns lowering operational cost.
Loosely speaking, this refers to the cost that is required for operations personnel to support
networking equipment.(Clemm, 2007) With this being said often operations personnel do not
interact with the managed devices instead its interaction occurs within the management system in

METRICS USED TO GAUGE NETWORK EFFECTIVENESS AND

the operations support infrastructure. It must be understood that management systems themselves
are cost factors, even if that cost is more than the benefits they provide. The capability of a
management application to scale is extremely important for the good of the network.
Management applications that scale well might reduce the number of hosts that are required as
part of the operational support infrastructure. This lowers the secondary cost of needing to
manage that operations support infrastructure itself. Another valid point for saving money for the
company could be the facilitation of integration of the applications amongst the interfaces
facilitated in the network. The capability of a management system to integrate with different
systems can simplify workflows and avoid the need to enter and maintain redundant
data.(Clemm, 2007) Manageability and management of the applications are not only about
reducing operation cost but increasing the revenue as well. Finally, the management organization
set features that contribute to management working properly. The question is what is needed to
set metrics to measure the effectiveness of the management in general. Understanding the
metrics, as well as understanding the different ways in which management technology
contributes to these metrics can provide valuable guidance when determining the priorities in
development and deployment in the network.
There are many different contributions that impact network management these are known
as management metrics. These are defined as cost savings, revenues, and improved services
themselves, which are specifically regarding reliability and availability. This includes the cost
of the operations staff and the amortization cost of the operations support
infrastructure.(Clemm, 2007) Other metrics to include tracking the individual cost factors,
operator productivity, measuring the number of devices, ports, service instances, or end users
that a single operator can support. Sometimes the ratio between different cost factors can provide

METRICS USED TO GAUGE NETWORK EFFECTIVENESS AND

useful information as well, metrics in that regard concern the ratio of operations support
infrastructure cost to personnel cost. There are also metrics that involve network managements
impact on revenue; the main problem is that management is a contributing factor. One can never
determine managements contributing factors or determine them. These factors include customer
loss rate, time for a service order, average size of the customer backlog, customer defections,
total penalties for service level agreement violations, and finally ratio between penalties. Other
forms of classic metrics include availability which is the percentage of time during which a
service is functioning properly. Secondly, the MTBF which stands for mean time between
failures determines the metrics for cost to failure. A classical measure of reliability, gives an
indication of how often a service or device becomes unavailable, regardless of the duration of the
failure.(Clemm, 2007) Finally, MTTR which stands for mean time to repair, which also is a
measure that determines how long it takes for services that are impacted by failures, can be
restored. The good thing about service availability can be much higher than availability of the
network or network devices. It is important to keep an eye on these measures at a device level
because poor reliability and availability of network equipment could affect services as well.
Management metrics can be used to assess management business impact and the
effectiveness of the management. Some of these features manage applications which make
managers more productive, this makes sure management cant introduce inconsistent
configurations. Other forms of metrics that contribute management effectiveness are based
towards operational tasks. It reduces operational cost because operators generally have fewer
steps to perform. Execution for operations metrics including execution, parameter complexity,
and memory complexity. Memory complexity concerns the amount of memory that is required
in the mind of a network manager to perform the steps. It takes into account the number of

METRICS USED TO GAUGE NETWORK EFFECTIVENESS AND

parameters that must be remembered, the length of time they must be retained in memory, and
how many intervening items were stored in memory between uses of a remembered
parameter.(Clemm, 2007) Related to these metrics are metrics that are intended to capture
operational complexity for network managers. Metrics that attempt to capture operational
complexity for management applications make process quick and without as many side tracking
errors. Instead of the number complexity of individuals operational steps the key is in the
number and complexity of communication exchanges that need to take place.
In conclusion, metrics help make a network administrators job easier by keeping track of
data and financial information in the network that can be used to measure and determine the
procedures that need to take place to make sure that the network is running properly. These
metrics are determining factors for financial information in regards to running the network.
Whether it is cost savings, revenues, improved services themselves, which are specifically
regarding reliability and availability. Or other forms of metrics that contribute management
effectiveness which are based towards operational tasks themselves all play an important role.
These metrics gather the information that is needed to make educated decisions based upon the
outcomes. If the network team does not use metrics to determine facts associated with the
network chances are they will know nothing about the networks functionality and will ultimately
cost the company money in the long run. Metrics offer the opportunity to determine data that
without a properly working metric system would be left to a human guess which most likely
could lead to a mistake.

METRICS USED TO GAUGE NETWORK EFFECTIVENESS AND

References

Clemm, A. (2007). Network Management Fundamentals. In Network Management

Fundamentals (pp. 62-73). Retrieved from
http://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781256084068/pages/34121987