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An Enterprise Network Management Solution Sebastian M. Roşu, Marius M. Popescu and Ciprian A. Verişanu Abstract—Now, in the 21st century, the enterprises continuous implement ICT strategies & architectures to improve manufacture, research, products quality, sales, and services and to costs control. All enterprises have now a local area network, an Intranet and Internet, servers and workstations for operations, administration and management working together for the same objective: profits. In this paper we analyse the enterprise network and present a network monitoring solution for large enterprise, geographically dispersed using open source software. Index Terms—Enterprise Network, Network Management, Network Monitoring.

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1 INTRODUCTION

I

NFORMATION society construction can’t be realized without research and investment project in ICT. In this new era of information, the fundamental sources of wealth are knowledge and communication, and not natural resources or labour work [1], [2], [3]. In the 21st century, all organizations use Internet or Internet technologies to attract, retain and cultivate relationships with customers, streamline supply-chain, manufacturing, procurement systems and automate corporate processes to deliver the right products and services to customers quickly and cost-effectively, also to capture, explore, analyse, and automate corporate processes information on customers and company operations in order to provide better business decision [3]. The global market today increase the need for common and collaborative processes and sharing information seamlessly between companies involved in extended enterprise. All forecasts predict very rapid growth in e-commerce as part of e-business and e-services that attract increasing attention because of the impact of new information and communication technologies on firms, markets, employment, and development. Businesses have needed a standardized way for applications to communicate with one another over networks; no matter how those applications were originally implemented [4]. New enterprise model architecture uses the Intranet/Internet/Extranet infrastructure and a technology is shown in Fig. 1 [5]. There are fundamental effects on the organization of business flows and processes, transaction costs, the creation of new business models, and changes in the boundaries of firms across sectors [5]. All this effects are defining the new digital economy perspectives on business, products, individuals and technology. ————————————————

S.M. Roşu is with the Radio Communications Department, Special Telecommunications Service, Romania. M.M.Popescu is with the Information Technology Department, Special Telecommunications Service, Romania. C.A. Verişanu is with the Information Technology Department, Special Telecommunications Service, Romania.

Fig. 1. The exchange of information services and goods through enterprise networks

The Internet is a worldwide conglomerate of different networks that communicate among each other via a common protocol, independently of the hardware type used. The advantages offered by the Internet for covering the information needs are held to be the following [6]: reduction of local barriers by means of world-wide information offers; reduction of time barriers by means of permanently available information; reduction of (transaction) costs by way of automation of information processing on the supply and/or the demand side; improved coordination and cooperation with external partners using an integrated information and communication

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platform (e.g. platform independence, information exchange without media ruptures). Various network services can be used by everyone, either supplying or demanding them.

A large range of distribution, the platform independence, an big number of user friendly services that are easily accessible through the World Wide Web as well as the open standards used and free or budget-priced products (such as browsers, html editors, software updates) have lead to a high and continuously growing proliferation of the Internet [7]. As a general requirement for an infrastructure support is than the enterprises must be able to inter-operate and exchange information’s and knowledge in real time so that they can work as a single integrated unit, although keeping their independence/autonomy [3], [5]. For the future, e-services and e-business, as were defined, require the enterprise re-thinking and re-modelling, with the system and applications design for an efficient use of new network technologies [8].

other process that stands in the way of switching packets at top speed [3], [9]. The distribution layer sits between the access and core layers and helps differentiate the core from the rest of the network. The purpose of this layer is to provide boundary definition by using access lists and other filters to limit what gets into the core. Therefore, this layer defines policy for the network. A policy is an approach to handling certain kinds of traffic, including routing updates, route summaries, Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) traffic, and address aggregation. You can use policies to secure networks. The access layer feeds traffic into the network and performs network entry control. End users access the network via the access layer. As a network's "front door," the access layer employs access lists designed to prevent unauthorized users from gaining entry [3]. The access layer can also give remote sites access to the network via

2 THE ENTERPRISE NETWORK ARCHITECTURE Traditional Internet/Intranet/Extranet infrastructures type have now a fast dynamic, marking the transition to new generation networks to provide higher speeds to the user (end to end), for different types of transactions and a reduction in the number of servers by passing information between two nodes. A hierarchical network design model (Fig. 2) breaks the complex problem of network design into smaller,

Fig. 3. A three layer network design model

a wide-area technology, such as Frame Relay, ISDN, or leased lines.

Fig. 2. A hierarchical network design model

more manageable problems [3], [9]. The core of the network (Fig. 3) has one purpose: to provide an optimized and reliable transport structure by forwarding traffic at very high speeds. In other words, the core layer should switch packets as fast as possible. Devices at this layer should not be burdened with accesslist checking, data encryption, address translation, or any

Large area networks (WAN – Wide Area Network, specific large enterprise, geographically dispersed ) were designed to solve connection problems between workstations and local networks, or only the local network where the distances are too large to be able to use a simple cable connection. Large area networks are generally required for the transfer of large volumes of data over long distances. To implement a large area networks can use the following transmission media: the public switched telephone network (PSTN), leased circuits of large bandwidth and high speed, high speed fibber optic, satellite links, radio links. A high performance backbone has an intrinsic value for ultra-fast Internet connection only if the points of con-

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nection and network users, PoP (Point of Presence), providing an equivalent level of performance. Various network services can be used by everyone, either supplying or demanding them. A large range of distribution, the platform independence, an big number of user friendly services that are easily accessible through the World Wide Web as well as the open standards used and free or budget-priced products (such as browsers,

html editors, software updates) have lead to a high and continuously growing proliferation of the Internet [9]. A reliable and available network provides users with 24-hours-a-day access. In a highly reliable and available network, fault tolerance and redundancy make outages and failures invisible to the end user. We purpose in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 a general architectures using Internet or a provider network for a large enterprise

Fig. 4. A network general architecture with 3 loops (copper, fiber optic and radio), using the Internet or a provider network, for a large enterprise geographically dispersed to support transfer of large volumes of data over long distances

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Fig. 5. An ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) network for an enterprise geographically dispersed with point of presence (PoP)

or an industrial holding (with branches), geographically dispersed.

headquarters and

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3 THE ENTERPRISE NETWORK MANAGEMENT Network management represents the activities, methods, procedures, and tools (software and hardware) that pertain to the operation, administration, maintenance, and provisioning of networked systems. IT Department has this role at the enterprise level [11]. A solution proposed and implemented by us is to use a host and service monitor designed to inform as of network problems before your clients, end-users or managers do. A system and network monitoring application is Nagios . We found and took this software on the Internet through download. This software is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation (GNU General Public License is a free, copy left license for software and other kinds of works). This gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify Nagios under certain conditions. Some of the many Nagios features include [12]: Monitoring of network services (SMTP, POP3, HTTP, NNTP, PING) and monitoring of host resources (processor load, disk and memory usage, running processes, log files, etc.) and monitoring of environmental factors such as temperature (see in Fig. 6 the Nagios traffic statistics); Simple plug-in design that allows users to easily develop their own host and service checks and ability to define network host hierarchy, allowing detection of and distinction between hosts that are down and those that is unreachable; Contact notifications when service or host problems occur and get resolved (via email or other user-defined method); Optional escalation of host and service notifications to different contact groups; Ability to define event handlers to be run during service or host events for proactive problem resolution and support for implementing redundant and distributed monitoring servers; External command interface that allows on-the-fly modifications to be made to the monitoring and notification behaviour through the use of event handlers, the web interface, and third-party applications; Retention of host and service status across program restarts; Scheduled downtime for suppressing host and service notifications during periods of planned outages and ability to acknowledge problems via the web interface and A Web interface – viewing current network status, notification and problem history. Simple authorization scheme that allows you restrict what users can see and do from the web interface. Also, Nagios can do [13]: The connections state verification by PING command at monitored equipments; The loops state verification by OSFP routing protocol state monitoring; For monitored equipments configurations does default intervals saves.

Fig. 6. The Nagios® traffic statistics for an enterprise location (daily, monthly and annual traffic)

We implement Nagios to a large enterprise (see Fig. 7 and Fig. 8) which has its headquarters in Bucharest and branch offices (agencies) in the country – in big cities but also in medium and small cities. All enterprise locations have a local area network and communicate among themselves through a virtual private network. In each location were made two or three loops – one copper, one optical fibre or radio. To implement this application have used over a hundred locations. We realized more scripts as support for different operations. An example is CHECK UPS. This script monitors the status of APC UPS.

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Fig. 7. Status for an Enterprise Network – the local Enterprise Agencies of Ilfov, Dolj & Maramureş counties are down and the local Agencies of Bacău, Cluj & Satu Mare counties have long response times

Fig. 8. Status for an Enterprise Agency – the local Enterprise Agencies of Bacău providers loop status

We’ve installed Nagios

on a server with the follow-

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ing technical characteristics: 2 Dual Core Intel Xeon (TM) 3.6 GHz processors (64-bit), 2 GB RAM, 2 x 80 GB Hard Drives and Debian Linux 4.0 Operating System. In Fig. 7 are presented the locations monitored for this large enterprise – we eliminate the beneficiary name for advertising reason.

[8] [9]

[10]

4. CONCLUSION Enterprises are now facing growing global competition and the continual success in the marketplace depends very much on how efficient and effective the companies are able to respond to customer demands. The formation of enterprise network is taking up momentum to meet this challenge. This paper analysed the network architecture for an enterprise geographic dispersed. A solution for enterprise network monitoring using open source software developed by us has been presented in this paper. For an enterprise, network monitoring is a critical and very important function, which can save significant resources, increase network performance, employee productivity and maintenance cost of infrastructure. This software (Nagios ) can be developed and implemented at a corporate level but also in a company that provides telecommunication services. This work was realized at the PREMINV Research Centre, University “Politehnica” of Bucharest. The validation of this solution by a case study in the PROGPROC research project (CNMP 11014/2007, 2007-2010) is to determine the new organization type for integrating the virtual enterprise medium and to outsource shared resources from UPB-PREMINV research centre to industrial partners.

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Sebastian Marius Roşu received the B.E. in Aerospace Construction and in Informatics from University “Polytechnica” of Bucharest, in 2000 and University „Dunărea de Jos” of Galaţi in 2002, respectively. In 2009 obtained doctoral degree in Automatics from University “Polytechnica” of Bucharest. From 2001-2004, he was a Researcher in Machines and Thermal Equipment at the GRUP ROMET Buzău. Since 2004, he was Quality Surveillance Receiving Inspector and Pressure Test Supervisor at the Nuclear Power Plant Unit Two Site of Cernavodă. Since as 2006 he is programmer at the Romanian Special Telecommunication Service. He has been active in the fields of the thermodynamic, design, nuclear systems, quality control, risk management, industrial informatics, knowledge management, computers, computer integrated enterprise, computer networks, networks design and collaborative design systems. Since 2004, he has been associated with the PREMINV Research Laboratory at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest first as PhD Student and from 2009 as PhD. He has published 5 chapters in international scientific books, 13 articles in international and national journals, 41 articles in the proceedings of international conferences and 9 research reports. Marius Marian Popescu received the B.E. in Electronics from Military Technical Academy of Bucharest. Currently he is PhD candidate at University of Piteşti, Faculty of Electronics, Communications and Computers. Since as 2001 he is IT engineer at the Romanian Special Telecommunication Service. His interest areas are pattern recognition, network security, network operations center development, network project management and network equipment (VPN, IPSec). He has published articles at international conferences and journals. Ciprian Alexandru Verişanu received the B.E. in Applied Electronics from Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications, University “Polytechnica” of Bucharest. Since as 2002 he is IT engineer at the Romanian Special Telecommunication Service. His interest areas are software for fiscal electronic cash registers, development and maintenance of data networks, network security, network equipment, risk management and security policies. Since as 2002 he is technical consultant for software development and implementation on fiscal electronic cash registers to INFORMEDIA CASH SYSTEM Ploieşti.