Aug 28th, 2008: The Problem with Today’s Network Management Products

Few products can address all network management needs so most IT infrastructures are managed by dozens of disparate point products. What this means for IT departments is a patched-together network that has too many parts to manage, little-to-no integration and support calls to different help desks. And while every network management vendor says its solution is “easy-to-use”, I think we all agree with eWeek’s networking editor Paula Musich when she says, “Vendor solutions are getting too long in the tooth.” In addition to the above, today’s products lack good network visibility, are expensive, and often have steep learning curves.

The Solution

Today’s IT departments need a straightforward, simplistic and comprehensive network monitoring and diagnostic solution that does what it says it does. Following is a list of recommended features and functions when evaluating a network management solution.

Time to Productivity – Takes less than 15 minutes to implement. Quick implementation usually means the network management system should have network discovery feature, as well as switch port mapper, and fast configuration capabilities.

Good visibility – A solution that includes a monitoring dashboard with charts or graphs that display the health of your network at-a-glance. Your solution should also include the ability to easily change your perspective from your network to a remote office network for troubleshooting and remediation purposes.

Integrated – The most efficient and effective way to manage your network is to implement a solution that provides monitoring, diagnostic, troubleshooting, and remediation capabilities. In other words, your solution should enable you to monitor your network, alert you to a problem, diagnose it, and then drill-down further. For example, a solution that has a traffic-flow tool that allows you to find the traffic issue and then integrates other tools that allow you to shut down a port if unauthorized traffic is sucking up resources.

Setting Baselines – IT managers are riddled with “false positive” alerts that take up time and effort. A solution that allows you to set baselines customized to your network is an important way to eliminate the “false positive” issue.

Historical Reporting and Alerts – IT managers constantly need to battle for every dime of their budget so a network management system that includes database features that enable historical reporting allows users to present actual data about the issues relating to the network.

Organizations must look beyond the conventional approaches and toward network management systems that incorporate the best in component technologies. To do less will probably assure being an early casualty of the tremendous changes coming to the network. The best of the most comprehensive offerings are by HP, IBM and CA, but they are also the most expensive and complicated to maintain. AdventNet and PacketTrap provide good alternatives that focus on usability, affordability and incorporation of only the most critical and necessary features.

Steve