Question

Q1 A given SLA would address/target an ensemble of service level goals as its main objectives. What are the other objectives this SLA should address? Detail the additional objectives. Answer:

Q2 What will be a technique of choice that would set up an early warning system for soon-to-occur service level violations. Answer:

Q3 Discuss in depth when a service provider would oversubscribe resources. Answer:

Q4 Discuss all major business ramification(s) that good and efficient NM would address. Answer:

Q5 A successful NM can be about reducing cost but, and in many cases, can also be about revenues. Answer:

Q6 Various metrics can be used to assess the effectiveness of management. But, there is no standard sets of metrics. Discuss. Answer:

Answer 1

Q1

  A given SLA would address/target an ensemble of service level goals as its main objectives. What are the other objectives this SLA should address? Detail the additional objectives.

Answer: The additional objectives addressed by an SLA fall into two categories: service level goal tracking, and the consequences of violating the service level goals. Tracking service level goals sufficiently requires the definition of what and how parameters are measured, ensuring those parameters are relevant, as well as the verification of parameter measurements. The section on service level violations must detail how service is restored, restitution for undelivered service, and terms to nullify an agreement in the case of gross underperformance.

Q2

What will be a technique of choice that would set up an early warning system for soon-to-occur service level violations.

Answer: Trend analysis is one technique that can predict service level violations. This technique utilizes a mix of real-time data and mathematical extrapolation to predict conditions that might lead to a service-level violation.

Q3

  Discuss in depth when a service provider would oversubscribe resources.

Answer: A service provider would oversubscribe resources when there are more customers than service instances, in order to maximize efficiency of the network. This strategy is based on two ideas; customers aren’t always using their instance of the network at all, or at least not to its fullest capacity. This enables a service provider to potentially have a significant amount more customers over a certain number of network instance, thereby increasing profit.

Q4

  Discuss all major business ramification(s) that good and efficient NM would address.

Answer: The three major business ramifications that network management pertains to are cost of ownership, revenue enablement and network availability. Cost of ownership of a network can be significantly reduced using network management, as it can hypothetically make all aspects of operating a network more efficient: provisioning, planning, utilization and more. Revenue enablement pertains to a variety of factors that drive revenue: minimizing downtime, maximizing efficiency, accelerating service rollout. Lastly, network availability is impacted by network management in that it assists with preventing issues, and therefore maximizing availability.

Q5

A successful NM can be about reducing cost but, and in many cases, can also be about revenues.

Answer: Network management enables businesses to increase efficiency in a number of ways. Reducing downtime, improving provisioning and rollout, as well as making networks more reliable overall can all lead to a combination of reduced cost and increased revenues. Enhanced functionality of an NMS can create new opportunities for revenue generation, such as charging more or less based on specific use cases or location.

Q6

Various metrics can be used to assess the effectiveness of management. But, there is no standard sets of metrics. Discuss.

Answer: The absence of standardized metrics for management effectiveness is a problem shared throughout many fields. It seems the simplest, most effective way to choose metrics would be to look at factors directly related to cost and revenue. For example, does a feature in an NMS allow for effective overprovisioning? What is its failure rate? How much revenue is generated per additional user? Overall, since there is so much data captured by and through an NMS, coming up with such meaningful metrics should be relatively easy for a provider.