Network management tools are software solutions that help data center professionals monitor, manage, document, and optimize network infrastructure. They encompass tools for performance monitoring, policy enforcement, automation, and infrastructure modeling, providing visibility into both physical and virtual networks.
These tools are essential for ensuring reliability, maintaining capacity, optimizing performance, and enabling integration with DCIM platforms like dcTrack.
Types of Network Management Tools
Network management tools can be grouped into three broad categories:
- Policy and automation platforms. These platforms automate network configuration, enforce policies, and provide application-aware insights. Cisco ACI is a leading example.
- Inventory and modeling tools. These tools maintain documentation for network devices, topology, cabling, and IP addresses. Examples include NetBox and similar IPAM/IRM solutions.
- Monitoring-focused tools. These tools track device performance, bandwidth, latency, packet loss, and overall network health in real time. Examples include SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, Paessler PRTG, and NetBrain.
Each type plays a unique role, but all contribute to the efficient, reliable, and secure operation of data center networks.
Key Benefits of Network Management Tools
Modern data centers depend on complex networks, and these tools help professionals:
- Maintain uptime. Network management tools detect and help operators respond to failures before they impact critical workloads.
- Optimize performance. These tools monitor traffic and bandwidth to prevent bottlenecks and ensure application reliability.
- Improve planning. They correlate network health with capacity and resource planning across the facility.
- Enhance security. Network management tools identify unusual traffic patterns, unauthorized devices, or misconfigurations.
- Support automation. They streamline repetitive tasks and enforce policies consistently.
Integrating Network Management Tools with DCIM Software
Data center professionals are increasingly integrating Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software with their network management tools to create a single pane of glass that reduces manual effort and enhances cross-functional collaboration.
For example, Sunbird DCIM’s out-of-the-box connectors and fully documented APIs enable the synchronization of network items and attributes with Cisco ACI, Netbox, and systems that contain information about assets, virtual machines, data/power ports, or circuits and exposes this information via RESTful API.
This integration enables data center professionals to get more complete information about the network items in the data center and other technical spaces. DCIM integration enables tracking of key network attributes, including:
- MAC address
- Up/down status
- IP address
- Switching status (enabled/disabled)
- Fabric, tenant, spine, and leaf information
- Port status, alias, and description
Want to learn more about how organizations are integrating network management and other tools with Sunbird DCIM to create a single pane of glass? Read our application note on this topic.