Applications management

Forget cutting to the bone. Can you cut through the bone, too?

Hey, have you heard that the economy is in bad shape? It’s bad out there. Just ask the newest Nobel Laureate for economics, Paul Krugman:

Seriously, we are in very deep trouble. Getting out of this will require a lot of creativity, and maybe some luck too.

Well you should know that analysts and vendors are lining up to give networking pros advice on how to save money in 2009.

Today I received an invitation from Enterprise Management Associates for a January webinar entitled How to Reduce Network Management Expenses in 2009. EMA vice president Dennis Drogseth will examine how automation and an integrated life cycle approach to network management can reduce costs.

Network Instruments sent us a list of the “Top five ways you can be network hero in 2009.

• Harness the information you have. Network devices have tons of metrics that can provide cheap visibility into your infrastructure. For instance, if you aren’t doing this already, start collecting NetFlow data and aggregate it into some kind of analyzer to get real time stats on you applications.

• Test, test, test. It’s easier to identify and budget for changes to applications before you launch them rather than after. Understand how your apps will run on the systems provided and the network provided before you allow the application team to launch them.

• Prioritizing critical traffic. Instead of spending money to boost bandwidth, set quality of service thresholds for critical apps and allow bandwidth-hogging apps that aren’t as critical wait a little longer.

• Stop throwing bandwidth. Slow application performance isn’t always a network issue. Bring some donuts over to the systems guys and ask them to check on how their servers are performing. Maybe they aren’t configured properly for the applications they are running.

• Anticipate rather than react. Network managers are often in reaction mode, using analysis tools after the network has a problem. Too often they’re waiting for the problem to recur. If you run your tools continuously you can spot network issues before the user experiences them. You’ll spend less time trying to diagnose and fix them. And you’ll have more time to get everything else done.

Info-Tech Research Group has also published a list of Eight Ways to Slash Network and Telecom Costs by Half. I won’t publish them in full since Info-Tech would rather that you spend $195 to get the list from them, but here are a few brief examples of things you can do:

• Buy used networking gear. This market has grown quite a bit over the last few years. Your vendors might not be happy with you for doing this, but they don’t need to know. I plan to write about this next month on SearchNetworking.com.
• Renegotiate telecom and mobile service contracts. If you are in a position to do it, now is a good time to get a better deal from your providers. They’ll be wiling to lower their charges in order to keep your business in these dark times.
• Get rid of T1 lines on your WAN. There are lots of cheaper alternatives out there. See if you can find something that meets your requirements at a lower price.

Perfect storm on its way for networking pros?

I flew back from Interop this morning, and my head is swimming from all there was to see and try to comprehend. One thing, however, is crystal clear: Today, networking is about a lot more than the network. When the hot topics at networking’s biggest conference are virtualization, application performance and green computing, it’s probably wise to start looking into new realms of technology, even if your current position doesn’t require it. Thing are bound to change quickly, and you may be in for more than you bargained for.

Dr. Jim Metzler warned attendees during the “Managing and Controlling Application Performance” session on Tuesday that in the next five years the combination of application acceleration, virtualization, and service oriented architecture will create a perfect storm. He said the resulting complexity of technologies may be something we are unable to manage. That’s quite an unsettling thought, especially coming from Jim, who may be the most influential expert in network and applications management today.

Taking a brighter view, other experts and vendors referred to the network and its new role as the “application delivery network” and emphasized the need for IT professionals that understand all aspects of delivering applications from end to end. These new application delivery specialists are most likely to come from a networking background, they agreed, because they have the knowledge of the complex infrastructure already in place.

So is the glass half empty or half full? Or maybe we just need to build an ark to weather the perfect storm. As Burton Group analyst Eric Siegel quipped to me at the end of the Metzler session, “You know what my plan is? In five years, I’m just going to retire!” If only we could all do that…

• Be sure to check out more Interop news and insight on our special coverage page
• Shout out to network management compadre Denise Dubie at Network World for her work with the aforementioned Eric Siegel on this useful guide to Assembling a ‘Network A-Team’