Active
Bandwidth
Management
By
Jun
Yan
Background:
Richard
Naden,
IT
director
of
Dell
Technologies,
has
presented
a
case
of
active
bandwidth
management
at
Dell.
From
his
presentation,
a
number
of
questions
can
be
identified
and
addressed
from
different
perspectives.
I
would
encourage
you
to
listen
to
the
recording
of
his
presentation
and
try
to
develop
your
own
understanding
of
the
problem,
and
subsequently,
propose
your
solution.
This
document
just
summarises
my
perception
and
understanding,
thus
should
not
be
used
to
constrain
your
exploration
of
the
problem.
Problem
statement:
Dell’s
enterprise
network
categorises
network
traffic
into
classes
(3
data
classes
and
1
video
class)
which
have
multiple
Class
of
Service
(CoS)
requirements.
All
devices
in
the
network
(including
the
carrier
devices)
are
configured
statically
to
support
predefined
CoS
requirements.
As
business
is
dynamic
and
often
changes
rapidly,
Dell
would
like
to
develop
a
management
solution
for
automatic
management
of
CoS
in
the
dynamic
business
environment.
Scenarios:
The
following
scenarios
might
explain
the
problem
but
they
are
by
no
means
exhaustive.
Scenario
1:
The
marketing
unit
of
Dell
is
planning
for
a
major
marketing
campaign.
As
a
part
of
the
planning,
it
needs
to
estimate
the
impact
of
marketing
activities
on
the
corporate
infrastructure,
including
the
network
infrastructure.
It
is
estimated
that
during
the
promotion,
there
will
be
2000
more
business
transactions
and
1000
more
customer
phone
calls
per
day.
Dell’s
network
management
is
able
to
proactively
manage
the
network
resources
prior
to
the
promotion,
to
ensure
that
adequate
resources
are
assigned
to
support
additional
network
traffic
and
satisfy
SLAs
for
relevant
classes.
Once
the
promotion
is
over,
changes
need
to
be
made
to
network
again
to
ensure
that
network
resources
are
used
efficiently.
Scenario
2:
Unexpectedly,
Dell’s
call
center
receives
more
customer
phone
calls
that
is
was
planned
for.
Before
the
customers
experience
problems
like
deteriorated
call
quality
and
call
drops,
Dell’s
network
management
is
able
to
detect
this
problem
and
react
rapidly.
Network
configuration
is
updated
to
make
sure
that
the
quality
of
voice
class
complies
with
SLA.
Scenario
3:
Although
all
the
CoS
requirements
are
met,
Dell
would
like
to
find
out
if
the
current
configuration
is
effective.
Are
the
resources
over
‐
provisioned?
Is
the
current
configuration
flexible
to
deal
with
traffic
fluctuation?
Are
additional
resources
needed
in
the
network
and
if
the
answer
is
yes,
where
the
additional
resources
should
be
applied?
Scenario
4:
Dell’s
current
communication
to
carriers
is
via
email
and
phone
call.
It
is
often
slow
when
the
network
conditions
require
quick
response.
Dell
would
like
to
have
a
solution
to
accelerate
the
communication
with
carriers.
For
example,
can
Dell’s
network
management
system
be
integrated
with
the
carrier’s
management
system?
With
proper
authentication
and
authorisation,
request/command/response
can
be
exchanged
in
real
time.
Further
Suggestions:
You
can
use
FCAPS
model,
especially
fault
management,
configuration
management,
and
performance
management,
to
explore
the
issues.
Some
research
needs
to
be
done
on
the
topic
like
network
planning,
traffic
shaping,
differentiated
service,
bandwidth
management,
and
so
on.
ISIT302/MTS9302 – Corporate Network Management
Group Project Marking Sheet
Group members:
Name (student id)
Criterion Marks Comments
Introduction clearly introduced
background of the project including a
n
overview of the network of the
sponsor (Dell) (3 marks)
Problem statement clearly defines the
problem to be addressed in this report.
(2 marks)
Analysis of the current status
including why the problems exist, the
impact of these problems to the
business.
(3 marks)
Proposed solution which can be
strategies, management framework,
automation system, or a combination
of them)
(10 marks)
Conclusions (2 marks)
References and presentation (both
written and verbal)
Word limit: 4000
(5 marks)
Overall comments