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Best Practices in Network Management
Contrary to popular belief, Best Practices are simple, easy to follow and offer significant benefits. In the context of networks, Best Practices play an invaluable role right from the network design stage till the implementation stage and most importantly in day-to-day network management, when the network moves into production. In this issue we shall delve on Change Control.
Change Control
Configuration changes in networks are administered by a handful of highly trained and skilled technicians. In most of the networks, these changes are carried out randomly without prior discussion or review and with casual regard to production timings. The consequences can be truly disastrous as one wrong change can lead to a cascading series of problems and result in prolonged network downtimes. The basic (and golden too!) rules of change control outline a simple seven-step process.
- Plan the change well in advance
- Document the change details
- Review the change for correctness with a qualified and pre-designated team
- Schedule the change during non-peak times
- Notify internal / external users, if the change involves a network downtime
- Monitor the network closely after the change is done
- Maintain trails of such network changes for review
Most of the network administrators resent this control as it takes away the freedom of doing ad hoc changes truly guided by their instincts! Their argument is related to rare network emergencies when such change controls cannot be properly exercised or followed. They should remember that such instances are exceptions and does not justify a total lack of Change Control!.
Remember, Change Control has a direct bearing on the network stability (and hence on network availability too).
- Badri Narayan
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