Network monitoring: Present and future

Network monitoring guides network operators in understanding the current behavior of a network. Therefore, accurate and efficient monitoring is vital to ensure that the network operates according to the intended behavior and then to troubleshoot any deviations. However, the current practice of network-monitoring largely depends on manual operations, and thus enterprises spend a significant portion of their budgets on the workforce that monitor their networks. We analyze present network-monitoring technologies, identify open problems, and suggest future directions. In particular, our findings are based on two different analyses. The first analysis assesses how well present technologies integrate with the entire cycle of network-management operations: design, deployment, and monitoring. Network operators first design network configurations, given a set of requirements, then they deploy the new design, and finally they verify it by continuously monitoring the network’s behavior. One of our observations is that the efficiency of this cycle can be greatly improved by automated deployment of pre-designed configurations, in response to changes in monitored network behavior. Our second analysis focuses on network-monitoring technologies and group issues in these technologies into five categories. Such grouping leads to the identification of major problem groups in network monitoring, e.g., efficient management of increasing amounts of measurements for storage, analysis, and presentation. We argue that continuous effort is needed in improving network-monitoring since the presented problems will become even more serious in the future, as networks grow in size and carry more data.