What are the 5 Different Types of Network Management?

types of network management

Network management is a broad term that encompasses many different processes and techniques. When you think of network management, you might picture an IT administrator sitting at a computer, making changes to your corporate network. However, there are five distinct types of network management and they each serve different purposes.

1. Proactive network management

Proactive network management is the most effective network management. It can be done with a network monitoring tool, such as Nagios or Zabbix. This type of monitoring involves checking for issues in your infrastructure before they occur and taking action to fix them before they become an issue.

In addition to being proactive, this type of management also requires regular updating and maintenance because it relies on keeping an eye on things constantly—and that means making sure that you are using up-to-date tools that keep your systems safe from attack or failure (or even just running slowly).

2. Reactive network management

Reactive network management is the process of monitoring issues and problems in your network. It can be used to monitor various aspects of the network, from performance to security, compliance, and capacity.

The main goal of reactive monitoring is to identify problems early on so that they can be resolved before they become problematic. This allows you to avoid costly outages and maintain an optimal level of service for your users.

3. Automated network management

Automated network management is the process of managing a network in a way that is completely automated, with no human intervention. This means that any changes made to the network will be automatically applied as soon as they are made and there is no need for you or anyone else on your team to manually apply them.

Automated network management can be used for both small and large networks because it allows you to manage all aspects of your network without having to worry about manual processes like updating software or making changes by hand.

4. Integrated network management

Integrated network management is a combination of proactive and reactive network management. It uses both automated and manual methods to manage networks and can be used in any environment where you need to monitor your entire infrastructure.

Integrated network management is more complex than other types of network management because it combines multiple technologies such as virtualization, cloud computing, automation tools and even artificial intelligence (AI). The result is an end-to-end solution that monitors all aspects of your IT environment across physical locations or cloud services – whether it be onsite or remote–and provides real-time visualizations so you know what is happening at any given moment.

5. Distributed network management

The fifth and final type of network management is distributed network management. Distributed network management is a type of network management that uses multiple tools to monitor and control multiple devices. As such, it’s used in large networks with many devices communicating with each other over long distances.

Distributed Network Management Tools:

  • Multi-Site Monitoring (MSM) – MSM is an application that allows you to monitor more than one site at once by combining data from all sites into one central location. This can be useful for ensuring that all your sites are operating properly or if there is an issue with one site but no issues elsewhere on your network. It also provides visibility into how each individual site performs compared with others in its class or category as well as overall trends over time, so you know what needs attention most urgently based on past performance data collected over longer periods of time

Knowing the different types of network management can help you manage your network better.

Proactive management is about preventing problems, while reactive and automated approaches are focused on responding to them.

Conclusion

We hope you have learned something new about the diverse types of network management. If you want to learn more about this topic, please reach out! We are always happy to help our clients and answer any questions they might have.