Our advice: Network organization staffing models should be guided, in our view, by business-process considerations. In this context the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Management Framework provides a useful starting point where network management processes are:
- Fault management -- Detect, isolate, notify, and correct faults encountered in the network
- Configuration management -- Configuration aspects of network devices such as configuration file management, inventory management, and software management
- Performance management -- Monitor and measure various aspects of performance so that overall performance can be maintained at an acceptable level
- Security management -- Provide controlled access to network devices and corporate resources to authorized individuals
- Accounting management -- Collect network support and usage information, allocate expenses, bill for network services, and prepare financial reports
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The process of developing a network architecture can be broken down into six steps:
- Prepare needs analysis
- Identify architectural issues and projects
- Develop architectural alternatives
- Select optimal alternative
- Conduct competitive procurement
- Manage implementation
Since network technology encompasses a wide scope, the work tasks can be grouped into technical specialties, including:
- Local-area data communications -- LAN, wireless, video (IP multicast), VPN, network management systems
- Data-communications security -- Firewall, DMZ, antivirus, anti-spam, access-control tools, intrusion detection, network-security standards, network-security monitoring tools
- WAN -- Routers, WAN services, Internet service
- Network media -- Cable, wire, outside plant, wire closets
Staffing Recommendations
Staff roles (job descriptions) should be aligned primarily with the five network-management processes and the six network-planning and -architecture processes, and secondarily with the four groups of technical specialties. For a 10,000-node network, we recommend a staff of at least six--a network operations manager, a project management and architecture manager, and at least four network-support specialists.
Organizational structure, performance measurement, and compensation should be established after, and conform to, a needs analysis and formal definition of the work processes. Redoing the organization without identifying needs and rethinking processes is best characterized as "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."
-- Michael Kennedy
Beth Cohen, TAC Thought Leader, has more than 20 years of experience building strong IT-delivery organizations from user and vendor perspectives. Having worked as a technologist for BBN, the company that literally invented the Internet, she not only knows where technology is today but where it's heading in the future. Her specific expertise includes building scaleable, robust IT architectures, operating systems, desktop support, process improvement, program management, IT/business alignment, security, and integration of networks, applications, and systems.
Michael Kennedy, TAC Expert, has more than 25 years experience helping enterprises including utilities, universities and financial-services firms develop network architectures and designs that meet business goals as well as develop operationally mature management processes. Founder and president of Network Strategy Partners, a management-consulting firm helping clients make strategic decisions, mitigate risk, and effect change through business- and technology-consulting engagements. He has had more than 200 presentations and articles published and writes a bimonthly column on the business applications of networking technology. He was a financial analyst at Soundview Financial and AT&T, and worked in telecommunications and IT engineering at Bell Labs and IBM.
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