IT Baseline Protection Manual - The Information Warfare Site

Safeguard Catalogue - Organisation Remarks
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S 2.171 Selection of a suitable system management
product
Initiation responsibility: Head of IT Section
Implementation responsibility: Administrators
After the current system situation has been surveyed (see S 2.168) and the
management strategy determined (see S 2.169), a suitable system management
system must be selected. Depending on the size of the system to be managed,
different implementations may be appropriate here:
- For small systems, system management can be handled „manually“ by the
system administration team.
- For small and medium-sized systems, system management can also be
performed by a collection of individual tools.
- A system management system should be used for large systems.
Today’s network-capable operating systems normally already incorporate
functions which allow the central administration of users and user groups, for
example. In the Unix world, NIS or NIS+ could be named in this connection,
for example, while in the Windows world the Windows NT domain concept
allows central user administration via the domain controller. Novell also offers
similar opportunities with Intranetware. Generally there are also possibilities
of running a network-wide policy management system.
In relatively small or medium-sized networks, on the other hand, software
management, management of computer configurations and the monitoring of
system components are the most pressing problem areas. In this case
additional software tools can then be used which can take over the individual
tasks. Consideration can be given to using a network management tool,
especially in areas that are also covered by the disciplines of network
management (configuration management, monitoring).
Various tools could be mentioned for the Windows environment, such as the
Novell Zero Administration Kit, which supports administrators in the
installation of new computers, the Microsoft Management Console, which
provides a uniform centralised view of all administration tools, and the
Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS). The SMS product, for
example, offers administrators the following possibilities:
- Drawing up inventories of hardware and software components
- Installation and distribution of data and applications on network computers
- Checking the execution of network applications
- Support for the administration of computers via the network
- Monitoring of network traffic
SMS is not designed for a heterogeneous environment, however. Moreover,
remote maintenance is only semi-automatic and requires an administrator to
be available on site, which means that its use is only appropriate for relatively
small and geographically compact networks.
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IT-Baseline Protection Manual: Oktober 2000