This paper describes the network management system basing its case study on the Nidec Company. Nidec Company is specializes in providing innovative power control and system solutions to all their customers distributed across the globe. The company is based and established in North America where it controls all its operation using a distributed network. It is known for its industrial automation, electric motor and drives system, and quality power solution like renewable energy. The network implemented has taken care of the control system and enabled exceptional user experience two central aspects in running their operations as they get instant support from their service provider. This report aims at analyzing the network management system of the companies that are all connected to Nidec Company to be offered with support, the challenges that they occur, and propose the solution to the challenges. Recommendations are based on frequency bandwidth, forward architecture, security, and management.
Introduction
Network in the recent technology has shifted from just connecting a few numbers of appliances to connecting multiple appliances which can be in different geographical locations using a wide area network (WAN). Allowing employees to share files, databases, application servers and communicate using emails. Thus, making the network a vital asset of the organization’s operation since it involves all the communication within and outside the company (Basole, et al., 2018). The overall network management is concerned with the monitoring of the network, the collection of information about the status of the network, consolidation, interpretation of the information, and acting on results.
The module in which this activity relates is realized and synchronized in the functions of the network management system. The network management system is based on seven layers of open system interconnect OSI model which provides the backbone of the wide-area network. The overall objective of this report is to investigate the challenges or the shortcoming on efficiency and security of the distributed network used by Nidec Company and the possible improvement that could be implemented.
Problem Statement
Nidec Company provides real-time control of the client system by the expertise based in the company depends on a very complex and modern technology that is capable to integrate the companies system and that of the client. Standard off-the-shelf hardware and software integrated into the client system which provides a clone of the system to the Nidec company personnel where they can view the process as they run in real-time it is very expensive. Technology in networking is growing very rapidly therefore, aspects like scalability, configuration, security, and monitoring are paramount to every company network. In a company like Nidec which is fast growing scalability is key to allowing any company to integrate their network with that of the company. The vital part of any network is security as information is a precious asset to the company and should be protected from malicious threats and prevent sensitive data from leaking.
Related Work
Improvement Proposal for NetEnt Company Wireless Network
The Stockholm-based company NetEnt has only just moved into a new office in a different geographical location and enhancements on its new wireless network are to be implemented. The opinion is that such improvements could lead to increased delivery quality for NetEnt services to their client. Although, a lot of challenges are brought together with wireless implementations, and knowing the best usage of one’s equipment can result in increased quality of experience, higher security, and enhanced manageability of the company operations (Samanta et al., 2017). The study presented that some advocated proposals were previously met while some were planned to be implemented soon. The piloted analysis comprises the remainder of best practices and is viewed as a proposal of improvements, to help NetEnt’s information technology department to increase the general performance of the network.
The similarity between Nidec Company and NetEnt company networks
Both companies use a distributed network architecture as they integrate different networks in various geographical locations. Similarly, they both implement the use of the wireless network as a medium of conveying the required information to the destination for effective communication. In the case studies of the two companies, they both experience the same challenges that are configuration problems, security, as well as scalability as more hosts, tend to be connected in the network.
Differences between Nidec Company and NetEnt Company Network
The configuration and the subnet masking differ a lot among the two networks’ architectural models. Nidec network is not costumed only for passing information from one server to the other but the Nidec server acts as the parent server while the servers of the other company act like the child or the clients to the parent server. The network topology of the NetEnt Company uses the peer-to-peer architectural model. That is the nodes connected in the network all communicate freely and no node has a higher mandate than the rest.
Design Requirement
Business Goal
Network management systems tend to have a great business value to the company and facilitate the company’s operation as it aspires to ensure continuous production by providing a continuous flow of information. Since Nidec Company offers technical support to other companies network the monitoring tool will provide the right level of management reports needed to keep track of the client network health. Reduced cost and the impact of downtime effect is reduced as the system is always on the lookout monitoring the system performance and diagnose the problem instantly to restore the normal functioning (Huang, W. 2019). Availability of static algorithms and ready team to handle failures ensure that the disruption is reduced as the network is diagnosed periodically.
Technical Goal
To ensure continuous productivity a controlled-based access point is embedded in the network management system. This is effective in controlling the communication using a tunneling protocol by use of Control and provision wireless Access Point (CAPWAP). Thus several access points are connected to a backbone wired network serving as a bridge in case the wireless network faces some fault to ensure continuous production. Extensible authentication protocol (EAP) is implemented to the network to ensure that service is delivered to the right user. This provides a protocol that every user that tries to access the services in the network have to be authenticated by verifying the credentials like usernames and password.
Although the initial cost of designing and setting up a network is expensive there are some mature that can be put into place to ensure the running and the maintenance cost is reduced. Installation of Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) can help to succumb the operation cost as it chooses the channels for the access point to avoid interference. It also adjusts the transmission power to mitigate the area coverage thus reducing the number of routers or switches required. To reduce the disruption of the network from a rogue access point to attack the network functionality a wireless intrusion prevention system (WIMP) is installed. It is capable of identifying the source of the attack and manually eliminating it using the designed countermeasure protocol.
Logical Designs
A network management protocol is the most advanced network management logical design as it is capable of managing more than just the internet. This protocol has the capability to transfer messages to and from the agent and the network manager. The network management system contains a collection of monitoring agents that equates and retrieves data from the management information base (MIB) as shown in the figure below. Which contain the abstract syntax that clarifies how data are arranged, what meaning they contain, and the expected data type (Soumiya et al., 2020). AirWave management could also be used in the monitoring of the network infrastructure as it alerts the manager about any end-user failures such as the response time and the address resolution failure which leads to the wrong destination.
Physical Design
Nidec Company may implement two architectural designs for laying out the network it would have several divisions of the agents each with a local area network (LAN) connectivity and at different locations using a wide area network (WAN). The company could at some point configure its network with internet-based servers to support its agents at remote locations (Aliev et al., 2021). The topology design shown below in figure1 comprises wireless communications, satellite, dial-up remote, and virtual private networks (VPSs).
Network Management Problem
The major problem in the network of Nidec Company is security. Which ranges from attack from the intruders, the working personnel of the company sometimes may go rogue and try to sell out a piece of company information to its competitors. There are also hackers whose aim is to crack into the network or listen to the network channel as the communication is going on between two parties (Abu-Mahfouz et al., 2018). An insecure network is much dangerous and a threat to the company operations as a person may join the network anonymously and enjoy the company resources and assets without making any value-adding activity to the company.
Recommendation
Since most privacy intrusion attacks happen on the wireless network, to protect from such attacks such as rogue access points a wireless intrusion prevention system (WIMP). It provides three access point modes that are Access point mode which detects a rogue access attempt as it performs off-channel scanning periodically maybe after 20 seconds. Secondly, the Air monitor mode scans for rogue access on all regulatory channels, and finally, Spectrum monitor is always useful when troubleshooting the network and helps to find the cause of disturbance in the network.
Conclusions
From the above report analysis, it was discovered that several improvements could be made to the Nidec management network. To increase the data speed to ensure proper response time the channel width could be increased and higher frequency ranges could be used. To save on the resources of the company unnecessary traffic could be filtered off and the guest users limited on the number of resources that they can access. Implement the latest protocol of network security to prevent the unauthorized agent from accessing the company’s resources. This proposed recommendation will enhance the company service delivery and keep a higher throughput.
References
Park, H., Bellamy, M. A., & Basole, R. C. (2018). Visual analytics for supply network management: System design and evaluation. Decision Support Systems, 91, 89-102.
Samanta, A., & Misra, S. (2017). Energy-efficient and distributed network management cost minimization in opportunistic wireless body area networks. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 17(2), 376-389.
Huang, W. (2019). Huawei’s Business Goal. In-Built on Value (pp. 3-30). Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.
Nishijima, T., Takita, Y., Hayano, M., Hikichi, K., & Soumiya, T. (2020). A Study of Automatic Network Designs and Configurations based on User’s Intents–Intent-based Logical Network Designs. IEICE Technical Report; IEICE Tech. Rep., 119(460), 277-282.
Ghiasi, M., Dehghani, M., Niknam, T., Baghaee, H. R., Padmanaban, S., Gharehpetian, G. B., & Aliev, H. (2021). Resiliency/cost-based optimal design of distribution network to maintain power system stability against physical attacks: A practical study case. IEEE Access, 9, 43862-43875.
Modieginyane, K. M., Letswamotse, B. B., Malekian, R., & Abu-Mahfouz, A. M. (2018). Software-defined wireless sensor networks application opportunities for efficient network management: A survey. Computers & Electrical Engineering, 66, 274-287.