Trouble-Shooting and Maintenance Plan of XYZ Company - Assignment Example

Trouble-Shooting and Maintenance Plan of XYZ Company al Affiliation) Introduction According to Duggan, the main aim of developing a database maintenance plan, is to assist in the prevention of query performance drops, corrupt databases and the risk of servers running out of disk space. When the database maintenance plans are properly implemented, then the system can be able to give adequate protection or prevent a variety of problems that are database related. This can be achieved by developing a good maintenance plan which eliminates additional time spent in dealing with troubleshooting problems (Duggan, 2008). Routing and Switching Infrastructure XYZ Company has an enterprise network that is made up of a central backbone, corporate campus and two data centers. There are regional distribution centers coupled with a DMZ and an Internet Edge. The company has adopted a retail point of sale system, which has no direct access to the internet and at the corporate center (headquarter), there are seven departments –HR, Corporate Executive Office, Marketing, Sales, Operations, Finance and IT. The company has availed to its employees the appropriate equipment for computing and for remote access to the network. The network administrator for example, can be able to provide support to the network system even in off-hours. The routing and switching infrastructure employed by the company includes, the implementation of VLAN segments that are responsible for dividing servers, printers and work stations on distinct VLAN segments. The company has also instituted firewalls that are placed between the VLAN segments to secure the network switches and to protect the system against spoofing errors. A port security has also been implemented in order to protect the system against MAC layer attacks. Troubleshoot network issues for branches Distributed enterprises are reliant on branch offices for distribution, sales, retail, manufacturing and customer support. Additionally, remote sites are usually the points that are most susceptible to difficulties of network management in the overall enterprise network. Therefore, remote sites have to overcome limited control and visibility, frequent power outages, a lack of onsite technical staff to maintain optimal levels of efficient and failures associated with single points. The routine checks for maintenance, mandate on-site visits that lead to high downtime incidents and high costs for maintaining the network system. The amount of time required to isolate, identify and deal with a problem in a remote location, has in previous studies been indicated to be more than five times, the time required to perform the same task at the headquarters. This has been attributed to lack of tools, visibility and support staff at the remote sites. The use of classical management tools that are network dependent in remote locations or branch offices leaves the sites vulnerable to security lapses and gaps in regulatory compliance mostly during power outages. Troubleshooting methodology According to Donohue et., al, the most crucial component of trouble shooting, is to split the duties of the problem resolution according to an elimination process that is systematic. The process can be broken down into eight steps-defining the problem, gathering information in detail, trying to figure out the probable causes for the failure experienced, formulating a detailed plan to deal with the problem, implementing the plan, analyzing the results after implementation of the plan, re-doing the process in case the plan fails to resolve the issue and keeping a detailed record and documentation of the changes instituted in order to fix the problem (Donohue, 2010). The first step revolves around defining the problem and gathering facts. In many instances, network administrators are unable to actively and appropriately deal with the problem due to a lack of clear definition of what and where exactly the issue is being experienced. The network’s administrator is tasked with the responsibility of discovering what part of the system is problematic. The process of handling the problem, is aided further when there exists a good relationship between the network administrator and his auxiliary staff. The network administrator should be able to diagnose the problem and obtain additional information to help him/her fix the problem at a faster rate. By failing to gather the appropriate information, the network administrators result to basing their investigation on tools that include network monitoring, trace and ping. After identifying the problem, the next step involves considering all the viable causes. In many instances, issues relating to connection, are hard to diagnose, particularly when trying to diagnose an individual point of failure because, they are usually many possibilities which could have caused the network failure. Therefore, it is the duty of the network administrator to discover all these possible causes. Miller et.,al argues that, identification of the problem should then be followed by the development and implementation of the action plan. When a solution is being formulated, it is very important that the proposed idea(s) be evaluated by one’s professional colleagues in order to discuss possible shortcomings of the idea and the resultant side effects of instituting the planned measures. CISCO has developed some crucial guidelines that should be followed when a solution is being implemented (Miller, 2013). When implementing the solution, changes should be made sequentially and if there are many possible causes to the problem, the problems that should be tackled first, are those that have the minimal effect on the users of the system. Additionally, when implementing the changes, one should be careful to not develop security holes and a backup plan should always be instituted after implementation of any changes so that, the system can be amended in future when other problems appear. It is also equally important, that the network administrator and his team, observe the results and where applicable, adopt other solutions. Parkhurst argues that, some changes take longer periods of time to enact and in such situations, it is advisable that one reverts to the fact finding phase to develop a solution to the problem. In case the problem is still experienced, one should analyze his/her initial list of possible sources of failure and try to resolve the issue (Parkhurst, 1999). When the problem is resolved, there are still additional tasks that the network administrator must accomplish because, a big majority of network administrators are frequently forced to resolve the same issue multiple times, which is time consuming and generally wastefully. To prevent wastage of time and manpower, it is advisable that after an issue is fixed, the network administrator should establish a problem log which is updated frequently to reflect the instances where the network system experiences failure. Routine maintenance Routine maintenance is made up of tasks that are conducted on the system on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. By performing maintenance on a regular basis, it reduces costs because it heavily minimizes the probability of system failure, service interruptions and boosts the chances of survival of the system in the event of failure and data loss. A maintenance schedule is necessary so that, the times and periods requiring maintenance are clearly followed and diligently updated. Two duties are identified as being crucial to the process of routine system usage to enable the system to run smoothly. The duties include the development of backups. It is not a primary maintenance function but it should be included in the maintenance checklist and includes the use of off-site storage, backups and removable media. Malhotra implies that, backups are an important part of the organization’s general strategy in disaster recovery. The other task relates to software updates which includes new and revised codes for eliminating security holes and bugs to aid the system to run smoothly. If the company is using an antivirus, it is recommendable to set automatic updates for specific days and periods like when the system is not being used at night, to facilitate convenient and periodic maintenance of the system (Malhotra, 2005). There are many troubleshooting approaches adopted and they include top down approach where one works staring form the application layer model of Open Systems Interconnection and moves downwards to a physical layer. The other models include divide and conquer approach, where one begins in the middle of the network layer and through basing approach on the findings, one can move either down or up the stack of the OSI. Follow the path approach entails one following the path that the packets use in the network, from the source to the destination. Additional approaches include, the bottom up approach, the spot the difference approach and the move the problem approach that involves physically moving parts of the system and analyzing whether the problems experienced shift with the parts. Recommendation It is advisable to set aside time for developing network baselines coupled with monitoring the network system in periodic times. This is best method to prevent network failure but in the absence of such a plan, the eight steps highlighted above are very useful. In order to create and gather network base line the following data should be available:- a) Network traffic statistics using NetFlow, NBAR and RMON statistics. b) The statistics of basic performance which are obtained through running show commands. c) Network performance measurements and their characteristic through the IOS feature of IP SLA. Conclusion Controlling changes to the system is very crucial which can only be achieved by classifying the required authorization necessary, controlling changes made to the network system on a strict basis and defining the required actions to be undertaken as part of the network maintenance process. References Donohue, D., & Stewart, B. (2010). CCNP routing and switching quick reference. Indianapolis, Ind.: Cisco Press. Duggan, M. (2008). CCIE routing and switching practice labs. Indianapolis, Ind.: Cisco Press. Malhotra, R. (2005). PCTS: An Object-Oriented Diagnostic and Trouble-Shooting System for Maintenance of Personal Computers. Journal of Intelligent Systems, 357-382. Miller, D., Mellichamp, J., & Wang, J. (2013). An image enhanced, knowledge based expert system for maintenance trouble shooting. Computers in Industry, 187-202. Parkhurst, W. (1999). Cisco multicast routing and switching. New York: McGraw-Hill. Read More