This report is dedicated to providing network engineers and IT planners with essential advice on how to define and implement a solid network management environment - without sacrificing their budgets or the integrity of their networks.
S p e c i a l R e p o r t
Network Management
on a Budget -
Doing More with Less
by Dennis Drogseth Enterprise Management Associates
Sponsored Exclusively by:
Produced by:
CUSTOM MEDIA SOLUTIONSSpecial Report Network Management on a Budget - Doing More with Less
This piece provides valuable tips and guidelines on adopting the right net-work management solutions for mid-market environments. The network management issues faced by the mid-market are as multifaceted and intense as those in many Fortune 500 corporations, but the opex and capex resources to cope with these are much more severely limited. This report is Table of Contents dedicated to providing network engineers and IT planners in those environ-ments with essential advice on how to define and implement a solid network 2 Network Management on a Budget - management environment - without sacrificing their budgets or the integ-
Doing More with Less rity of their networks. The report will provide insights on market trends, technologies, process-related best practices, usability requirements and other areas that IT planners and network engineers should consider when 3 Primary Drivers managing their networks on a budget.
3 Technical Issues Network Management on a Budget
4 Product Requirements - Doing More with Less The evolving "utility computing" model, in which IT services become gradually more automated and responsive to shifting business demands, will require increasing alignment not only between IT and the business it supports, but between and among 4 Choosing a Product businesses that work together in can integrated ecosystem. This approach requires for the Small and close and efficient data exchanges among all the participants in the services delivery Midsize Environment process. In this model, small and midtier businesses can and often do play as vital a role as large businesses, and so midsize and small businesses must be prepared to move in step with the total business ecosystem if they expect to remain competitive. 5 Guidelines for As a result, the immediate consequences of inadequate IT operations can be Phased Adoption of significantly more detrimental to a midsize business than to a multinational cor-New Technologies poration with a critical mass sufficient to "set the stage" and "define the terms" for industry success. IT management deployments in midsize environments must be executed with no less finesse than in large corporations, with close attention to 6 Conclusion technological and process detail, and a willingness to invest in integrated solutions rather than an array of siloed point tools. For the purpose of this piece, we will focus our discussion around the mid-market, knowing very well that some of the concepts discussed are also applicable to the smallest and largest of organizations. The mid-market, in the context of this article, generally applies to enterprises that support networks of 500 to 5,000 nodes. Given this definition by network size, some large enterprises also may see relevance in the recommendations we make to serve subsets of their extended network environments. Special Report Network Management on a Budget - Doing More with Less
.Proliferation of point IT management tools: Primary Drivers While point tools still might serve a purpose, they tend The IT organizations within midsize enterprises are to be adopted in an ad hoc manner and stimulate under even greater pressure than the large enterprises siloed processes rather than the effective manage-because of three fundamental trends: ment of the infrastructure as a whole in support of .Expectation creep and service diversity are continu- service delivery.ally raising the bar on IT infrastructure performance. .Disparate user interfaces: Siloed tools manag-For example, not many years ago eight seconds to ing individual device types create another form of load a Web page was acceptable performance. Today, overhead, as each typically requires knowledge of a anything more than two seconds is considered detri- specific command lexicon.mental to business efficiency. From the perspective of diversity, managing VoIP and IP service convergence .Inadequate training: Most management prod... [download for more]
