As networks, security threats, and other requirements increase in complexity, monitoring of enterprise infrastructures has become a difficult yet crucial exercise. Monitoring Optimization, a new solution for making sense of the chaos, has emerged as an ideal solution for maximizing network coverage and maintaining optimal utilization of hardware monitoring tools. However, there is a third variable at play - the productivity of the staff responsible for managing monitoring, a staff that is shrinking in the wake of layoffs. This brief reviews how important the third variable is, and how Monitoring Optimization is the only solution to manage all three variables.
Industry Trends Brief
How to Simplify Tool Management and Increase
Efficiency for Network and Security Monitoring
You simply cannot ignore the "people" part of the equation
July 2009
Industry Trends Brief How to Simplify Tool Management and Increase Efficiency for Network and Security Monitoring ABSTRACT As networks, security threats, and other requirements increase in complexity, monitoring of enterprise infrastructures has become a difficult yet crucial exercise. Monitoring Optimization, a new solution for making sense of the chaos, has emerged as an ideal solution for maximizing network coverage and maintaining optimal utilization of hardware monitoring tools. However, there is a third variable at play - the productivity of the staff responsible for managing monitoring, a staff that is shrinking in the wake of layoffs. This brief reviews how important the third variable is, and how Monitoring Optimization is the only solution to manage all three variables.
THE 2009 QUANDARY 2009 has brought with it a variety of unique challenges, particularly economically. And this is not a rare problem, as all of us have felt the squeeze. Half of data centers are cutting costs, innumerable operations and security teams are delaying projects, and everyone is being asked to do even more with precious few resources. At the same time, monitoring of an increasingly complex technical infrastructure has continued to increase in importance. Security threats such as hacks, DoS attacks, bots, and self-propagating viruses have become rampant. New technologies such as 10GbE, virtualization, cloud computing, and WAN optimization have thrown new challenges at operations and security teams alike. Tight budgets have led to a decrease in overall business travel, resulting in increased use of audio and video conferencing technologies such as VoIP and IPTV.
KNOWN COSTS: NETWORK COVERAGE AND TOOL UTILIZATION As network operations and security professionals, we are already clear about the costs associated with lack of network visibility and under or over utilized tools. Without full coverage of the network, you cannot achieve full visibility; however, monitoring tools are very expensive, particularly for 10G tools. To further complicate the issue, only a limited number of SPANs and Taps are available to attach tools. Since the purpose of monitoring is to avoid problems associated with security, application performance, downtime, etc., we are often forced to make tradeoffs to prioritize where the most risk is, compromising coverage on portions of the network. In reality, there is simply not enough budget dollars available to buy tools to cover every part of the network that needs to be monitored.
Anue Systems, 9111 Jollyville Rd, Austin, TX 78759 P: 512-527-0453, F: 512-692-2634 Page 2 www.anuesystems.com Industry Trends Brief How to Simplify Tool Management and Increase Efficiency for Network and Security Monitoring
THE HIDDEN COST: PRODUCTIVITY New technologies lead to new problems to resolve, and shrinking support staffs have been tasked with taking on an ever larger workload than they ever have in the past. Never before have security threats been so rampant, application performance SLAs been so complex, and compliance requirements been so stringent. This increase in complexity has significantly increased the types and number of tools that are required. The old "scope triangle" remains true, as reductions in budget coupled with increases in scope can only be corrected in one way: with additional manhours. Clearly, this is not just a technology-related problem, but a people problem. But not all manhours are created equal, to adopt an old adage. With fewer people to do more work, everyone must be more of a generalist. Technical staffs must now be trained in a wider array of technologies, rather than specializing in a particular area where they can take a deep dive into the details and nuances of those technologies. On another hand, the remaining staff comes with a mix of experience levels from very junior to senior. With such productivity issues at ... [download for more]
