Getting the Best from 3Com® Network Supervisor Software Version 3.0 for Windows® http://www.3com.com/tns Part No.
3Com Corporation 5400 Bayfront Plaza Santa Clara, California 95052-8145 Copyright © 2001, 3Com Technologies. All rights reserved. No part of this documentation may be reproduced in any form or by any means or used to make any derivative work (such as translation, transformation, or adaptation) without written permission from 3Com Technologies.
CONTENTS ABOUT THIS GUIDE How to Use This Guide 5 Who Is This Guide For? 5 Conventions 5 Related Documentation 6 Year 2000 Compliance 6 Documentation Comments 6 1 OVERVIEW OF NETWORK MANAGEMENT Why Use Network Management? 7 The Benefits of Network Management 7 Full Network View from a Single PC 7 Reducing Downtime 8 Improving Performance 8 Freeing Up Personnel 8 Reducing Equipment Costs 8 Key Network Management Functions 8 Monitoring Network Capacity 8 Predicting Problem Links and Devices 9 2 USING TRA
Monitoring Core Devices and Links 14 Reacting to Network Events 15 Viewing the Stress on your Network 15 Viewing Detailed Stress Indicators 16 Managing and Manipulating Events 19 Intelligent Event Generation 19 Instant Notification of Significant Activity Using Alerts Viewing Network Trends and Patterns 21 Tracking the Devices on Your Network 21 Planning Your Network Capacity 22 Listing All the Devices Attached to Each Port 22 Network Discovery Report 22 3 20 LIVE UPDATE About Live Update 23 Live Update
ABOUT THIS GUIDE How to Use This Guide This guide is designed to be read before you start to use 3Com® Network Supervisor. It should enable you to gain an overview of the application and how you can benefit from it. This guide outlines: ■ ■ The main concepts and benefits of network management and how you can benefit from it. An overview of Network Supervisor and how it can help you. This is not a procedural guide to using Network Supervisor.
ABOUT THIS GUIDE Related Documentation The following document provides useful background information on networks and networking. The 3Com Introduction to Networking (supplied with Network Supervisor). This document can be accessed from the Windows Start menu, then by following this path: Programs>3Com Network Supervisor>Network Supervisor Guide. Year 2000 Compliance For information on Year 2000 compliance and 3Com products, visit the 3Com Year 2000 Web page: http://www.3com.com/products/yr2000.
1 OVERVIEW OF NETWORK MANAGEMENT This chapter gives you an overview of the basic concepts of network management. It outlines: ■ Why Use Network Management? ■ The Benefits of Network Management ■ Key Network Management Functions Why Use Network Management? Many businesses today run their computers on a computer network. Using a network management solution allows you to track the performance of your network and quickly identify problems before they affect your users.
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF NETWORK MANAGEMENT Reducing Downtime Network downtime can affect your business and its productivity. When this happens, it is important that you restore connections as quickly as possible. Reactive network management does reduce downtime by responding to device and link failures. However, a network management solution provides you with a proactive management capability. This reduces the number and severity of failures and can help avoid downtime altogether.
Key Network Management Functions Predicting Problem Links and Devices 9 This lets you provide preventative solutions using less staff-hours and reduces the amount of time that your network is either inefficient or unavailable. For example, network management software can show: ■ History of problem areas. ■ Devices on your network suffering from stress. Stress is the performance measure of a network object (a device or link) against pre-defined thresholds.
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF NETWORK MANAGEMENT
2 USING NETWORK SUPERVISOR TO MANAGE YOUR NETWORK 3Com® Network Supervisor is a powerful and easy-to-use network management tool in the 3Com ® network management range. This chapter contains an overview of how you and your network can benefit from Network Supervisor. This applies whether your network has been carefully structured from the beginning or has evolved in a less planned way.
CHAPTER 2: USING NETWORK SUPERVISOR TO MANAGE YOUR NETWORK Overview of Network Supervisor Wizards Wizards are provided to guide you through the setup and configuration of Network Supervisor parameters. The Wizards often suggest useful default settings which can help you start monitoring your network even when you are not sure which values to set.
Setting up Network Supervisor for the First Time 13 Network Supervisor color-codes objects to indicate stress levels, providing an accurate and easy-to-read indication of current levels of stress on any monitored objects. A warning zone helps you predict when a device or link may be about to become a problem. Total Visibility of Network Activity You cannot always be scanning the Network Supervisor map for potential problems. You need another way of achieving total visibility of your network.
CHAPTER 2: USING NETWORK SUPERVISOR TO MANAGE YOUR NETWORK There are two steps which are used to construct a map of your network. Network Supervisor: 1 Finds the devices connected to your network (and builds a model of each one) A ping message is sent by Network Supervisor to each IP address in the range you choose to specify. Each device that responds is then contacted individually and Network Supervisor constructs a model of that device from the information it provides.
Viewing the Stress on your Network Reacting to Network Events 15 When you start monitoring for the first time, you may start to see many events in the Event List. If the number of events in the list appears to be excessive, this may indicate that the activity thresholds set are too low for your network. If this is the case, Network Supervisor lets you tune the thresholds to a more appropriate level.
CHAPTER 2: USING NETWORK SUPERVISOR TO MANAGE YOUR NETWORK The significant advantage of having a yellow (warning) zone is that it gives you a clear indication that a monitor is approaching a serious condition. This may allow you to predict some network problems before they become critical.
Viewing the Stress on your Network 17 Plain Text Interpretation of a Network Problem A textual interpretation of a network problem is a useful starting point or may provide enough information for you to identify and solve a problem. Network Supervisor provides this information with its What’s Wrong Dialog Box, shown in Figure 2. The language used in the What’s Wrong Dialog Box is non-technical, making the definitions easy to understand.
CHAPTER 2: USING NETWORK SUPERVISOR TO MANAGE YOUR NETWORK The All Monitors Dialog Box (shown in Figure 3), lets you: ■ View which monitors are being used. ■ Change the thresholds on each monitor. ■ Switch monitors on or off. A monitor is a specific stress measure for a network device or link. Information on each monitor is gathered by an individual monitor. Information from the individual monitors for each device is combined to form one overall monitor.
Managing and Manipulating Events Managing and Manipulating Events Intelligent Event Generation 19 The Network Supervisor Event List greatly improves your ability to prioritize and react to problems on your network. Network Supervisor generates events intelligently. For example, to prevent utilization ‘spikes’ causing unnecessary events, the threshold set must be exceeded for a reasonable period of time (determined by Network Supervisor) before an event is generated.
CHAPTER 2: USING NETWORK SUPERVISOR TO MANAGE YOUR NETWORK In the longer term, the Comment facility lets you build a problem solving database for your network which can help you to solve common problems quickly. Sorting Sorting lets you order events by the column headings of the Event List. For example, you can sort by event severity, time or importance. Acknowledging This lets you mark as acknowledged, events or groups of events which you have seen.
Viewing Network Trends and Patterns Viewing Network Trends and Patterns 21 Sometimes it is helpful to have an overview or statistical summary of certain aspects of your network. This type of information is useful for outlining patterns and trends in the use of your network which may not be easily visible in other views. It is especially useful for strategy and planning purposes, such as the future expansion of your network when your business, volume of network traffic and number of users expand.
CHAPTER 2: USING NETWORK SUPERVISOR TO MANAGE YOUR NETWORK Planning Your Network Capacity You can use the Network Capacity Report to calculate the number of ports available on your network and identify which devices they belong to. This provides a powerful planning tool which allows you to quickly view the devices which are close to using the maximum number of available ports. Using this information, you can then plan the number of ports that your network needs for the future.
3 LIVE UPDATE This chapter describes the features and benefits of using 3Com® Network Supervisor Live Update. It outlines: About Live Update Live Update Using Live Update Live Update Setup ■ About Live Update ■ Using Live Update 3Com Network Supervisor Live Update provides a method for actively delivering current hardware and software information for 3Com products. This proactive transaction requires that the user has version 3.0 of 3Com Network Supervisor installed.
CHAPTER 3: LIVE UPDATE To ensure security, some networks use a proxy server as an intermediary between the workstation and the server. If your default browser is using specific proxy settings, Live Update will automatically use them to connect to the Internet. Otherwise, you will need to specify custom proxy settings before Live Update can connect to the 3Com server. Select File Groups Select File Groups allows you to choose the files you wish to download.
3COM END USER SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT YOU SHOULD CAREFULLY READ THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS BEFORE USING THIS PRODUCT. IT CONTAINS SOFTWARE, THE USE OF WHICH IS LICENSED BY 3COM CORPORATION ("3COM") TO ITS CUSTOMERS FOR THEIR USE ONLY AS SET FORTH BELOW. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT, DO NOT USE OR INSTALL THE SOFTWARE. USING OR INSTALLING ANY PART OF THE SOFTWARE INDICATES THAT YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS.
GOVERNING LAW This License Agreement shall be governed by the laws of England. You agree that the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (1980) is hereby excluded in its entirety from application to this License Agreement. NO WARRANTY THE SOFTWARE AND RELATED DOCUMENTATION ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" BASIS AND ALL RISK IS WITH YOU. 3COM MAKES NO WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY AS TO ANY MATTER WHATSOEVER REGARDING THE SOFTWARE AND DOCUMENTATION.
