Managing Performance in Converged Networks: Not Your Father's NMS

Network Management Systems (NMS) were last decade's answer to the ever-increasing demands of networks. They offered a best-effort solution that promised to make sense of the morass of data extracted from multitudes of devices. However, the assumptions behind their design and implementation rarely apply any more. The old client-server approach provided a relatively controlled environment, where well-defined processes took place. The goal of IT was to increase the productivity of specific business processes and the budgets were relatively flexible.