Team Members

Problem

We are tasked with designing an innovative display for a Network Operations Center. The display should inform staff of the network status. It should be intuitive and easy to read. The network consists of Thousands of computers, and multiple data centers, across the globe. The NOC is staffed around the clock.

Initial Approach

Early analysis of the problem yields two important aspects to monitor:
  1. Network Condition
    1. Normal Activity - everything is operating as expected (Green)
    2. Routine Issues - common problems for which the solutions are well understood (Yellow)
    3. Non-routine Issues - new or infrequent problems which may require a response, but the appropriate response is not established in advance (Orange)
    4. Crises - severe and/or multiple issues occuring simulatneously whose cause root is unclear (Red)
  2. Condition aspects
    • Health - Are all the computers behaving as expected with the necessary patches and updates to operate normally?
    • Security - Are there any attacks that might affect the Enterprise, such as an active virus, a denial of service, or theft of company secrets?
    • Performance - Are there data transfer issues such as routing problems or misconfigurations that are affecting network speed?
As you can see, we have colored the Condition codes, in a standard green to red fashion, to indicate the severity of the issue. One of our first considerations will be how to measure each of the condition aspects, and then how to categorize those measures.
We plan to look into the SNMP protocol, and other network management tools for inspiration.
Design of the visualization will need some consideration (below is a quick mockup), networks consist of two topologies, physical and logical. While the physical topology might make for an easy display, we are concerned that it might not be as informative as the actual logical topology. Initial thoughts shown below include: A "Status Border" colored to reflect the current Network Condition, this allows for quick and easy identification of normal activity or the existence of an issue. Along the bottom: a Data Center Ticker, inspired by the ESPN style sports ticker, to give incremental views into each major data center (concern for too much information, not frequent enough refresh?) To the right; An Triggered alarms, this pane will not display during Green(Normal activity) status, however if anything triggers another Condition, the triggering event(s) will be displayed in this pane, in severity/priority order (red, orange, yellow) when this pane is displayed the network display will resize accordingly to avoid any loss of visual data