Last week I talked about managing a dynamic network and the issues that it presents with homebrew or off the shelf management tools. It seems that the majority of the people don’t want to see homebrew apps which I understand. This week I want to take a look at it from another site: the data. Everyone seems to agree that visibility into the network is key, regardless of what type of tool you are using. But how often do you look at the data? Do we really need all of this data? At home I run a Meraki switch which allows me to have access to their cloud based management software. One of the features that I find interesting is a per interface bandwidth graph. On a small network such as my home network or a SMB deployment this really isn’t that much data and easy to manage/view. But what about an enterprise network? For example I have a project that I am deploying 153 Cisco 3750 48 port switches. Should we be setting up their monitoring software to record interface statistics for ALL ports and how often? It’s a fine line to walk between useful data and data overload. If I present you with too much data do you just decide that it isn’t worth the hassle to dig through it trying to find what you really want? I always at a minimum setup the uplink interfaces and all interfaces on core nodes, but what about those access layer interfaces?
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