Making changes to the network is an essential task of network engineers. The change can be anything from a major network upgrade to just fixing a network problem. Unfortunately, even small configuration changes such as adding a static route to a router can cause network outages. According to Sage Research, one-third of network problems are caused by human errors and at least one-third of these human errors are caused by configuration changes. Considering that the network outage costs $1400 per minute on average, it is critical to prevent the human errors in the network design change.
One key problem to implement network change is that it is difficult for the network engineer to find effects of his change on the network. Network changes are generally scheduled on weekends, usually providing enough of a time-window for fixing these problems so long as the network engineer has a tool that can analyze the network states before and after the network implementation and shows what has been changed. Before NetBrain met this challenge, many network engineers often felt that there was no effective way to confirm that new design modifications would validate prior designs. This sequence results in what we like to call the Monday Morning Syndrome, in which hours of weekday planning are not enough to cope with hundreds of potential effects an engineer has to consider during weekend network changes. As a result, when businesses resume their operations on Monday, network outages occur. |
