The advantages of Network Management is for the pure reason that you can monitor your network - routers, firewalls and switches etc. You can set it up, so that should a device go down, you will be able to see a)which device it is and be aware of the problem before it escalates and b)see what the potential knock on affect will be i.e. What switches/routers are attached, where these devices are located and who they support, so you will be, once again, aware in advance where the issue will potentially be. It does not tell you what the problem is. I use network Management and it works with SNMP, which means it only polls objects, so when it stops polling, you become aware that there is potentially a problem. Green icons are healthy, Yellow - possibly a problem, and red - it's gone!! You also need to maintain the management, so if you install a new device you need to monitor, you will need to add it to the tool, as it will not find it for you. I have found more advantages using this than not as working on a large site helps to monitor all our switches etc. You can even set up the management to monitor devices off site, as it is all down to polling, any IP address on your network can be used. I hope this helps - good luck with your assignment! :-)
