Alexander Davis
NETW420
Week 7 Paper
Metrics
In order to understand network management effectiveness, factors in management effectiveness called metrics have to put into place that will impact the management bottom line. Still no single metric can be used to assess the effectiveness that the management provides, so a couple of metrics can be reviewed which will help with the overall effectiveness. Some of the more common metrics that fall into the categories of assessment of network management include management metrics to track business impact, metrics for complexity of operational tasks, scale metrics, and then other metrics.
Management metrics to track business impact can include factors such as total cost of ownership, impact on revenue, and reliability and availability of the network and services. The total cost of ownership describes the cost of the operations staff and the amortization (write-off) cost for the support structure. This can be accomplished by looking at the number of devices, number of ports, number of service instances, and number of end-users that can be normalized in ways that will lower the costs.
Impact on revenue includes many factors other than revenue that can be attributed to management. Some examples can include service level dissatisfaction, which can lead to customers leaving and taking their money with them. The time that it takes between service orders to service activation can also have an impact on revenue as well as the penalties accrued from SLA violations.
Many Network models can change due to the implementation of different technologies and applications on the Network. The goal of each Network is achieving maximum Network Efficiency. In order to achieve network effectiveness different metrics are put in place. These metrics must be reviewed often to determine their overall effectiveness on the network.
Some common metrics that organizations may implement include...