Getting Cloudy

Network management services are maturing from specifics such as
network/servers/databases to service level management. This is primarily because
of the business trend that CTOs/CIOs proactively focus upon-managing customer
experience. In the recent past, network management services were based on
service oriented architecture (SOA) that effectively integrated traditional
disparate network management tools and various heterogeneous networks.

Network management, which is particularly defined as the remote or onsite
proposition to monitor and manage enterprise's networks, will cease to exist as
a standalone proposition. Also, the value proposition of narrowly defined
network management services has drastically reduced due to security, voice, and
application acceleration technologies becoming commonplace.

Tech Trends

The major technology drift that industry stakeholders are watching very
closely is the spread of cloud concept taking over. Whether it is private or
public cloud based networks, the network management challenges emerging from
these developments are enormous. These new-age networks have placed the burden
on management vendors to use cutting-edge tools and deploy management experts to
enable the virtual infrastructure to be managed flexibly.

Infrastructure performance management and leveraging deep packet monitoring,
inspection, and analysis techniques-to arrive at the root cause analysis and
stream-to-disk-are the two new key issues coming up in a big way in the network
management segment.

Some of the other technological trends in the network management space are
migration of network connectivity from hub and spoke topology to MPLS; business
opportunity coming from e-governance initiatives of states & central government
and public sector undertakings; network management outsourcing to service
provider's remote infrastructure management centers; etc.

Network behavioral analysis technologies from HCL Comnet combines visibility
of network usage patterns, profiling end users network usage, security
operations and visibility of network security data and adds in the ability to
detect anomalous behavior for any application traffic that deviates from a
defined operational baseline.

Fluke Networks is currently bringing out advanced solutions in areas of wired
and wireless network and protocol analysis, proactive performance management
solutions, wireless intrusion detection and wireless intrusion prevention
solution, deep packet monitoring, analysis, and inspection techniques.

Wipro Infotech is also planning to introduce technologies like in-house tools
to automate first level troubleshooting and alarm validation and deskilling
activities in network management and automation of mundane activities to improve
productivity.

Tips for CIOs

One of the key elements that CIOs need to remember is to focus on end user
experience of the IT infrastructure through frameworks and roadmaps for
instrumenting management solutions. This is the best way to ensure that CIOs can
meet their internal/external customer needs of IT infrastructure performance as
well as costs.

CIOs should ensure that they engage a mature system integrator with deep
telecom domain understanding and one who has delivered large scale solution
across OSS/BSS and networks. In view of the forecast technology changes and
resulting complexities of networks and aggressive service expectations from
customers, CIOs should take a long term view while deciding on network
management services with respect to the technology roadmap, system integrators
who present capabilities and future technology adoption and support.

CIOs should focus on strategic maintenance of the network in the same way as
they expect their IT managers to focus on tactical maintenance of network
equipments.

Besides, CIOs should outsource network management to partners who have the
following capabilities:

• Certified engineers availability to support customers
• Proven and demonstrated skills and experience in implementation and
  sustenance
• Better infrastructure and proven processes in the sustenance support for
  customers
• Trained teams on new technologies and best practices before the public
  roll-out itself
• Access to solution architecture and system integration help for technology
  migration
• In-house tools to handle commercial tool limitation and task automation

Enterprise Concerns

Enterprises are focused on achieving cost reduction, efficiency, adoption of
rapid technology change, regulatory compliance, control and security, agility
and responsiveness. Three areas that stand out as major concerns are improving
security and availability; controlling maintenance and resource cost; and
increasing agility.

The other major concern raised by enterprises are the increasing complexity
and management costs of IT infrastructure, and the lack of skill in-house or in
outsourced agencies that take a comprehensive approach to managing the various
facets of infrastructure. This problem is becoming more acute as more
applications like data, VoIP, and videoconferencing are being increasingly
deployed and the infrastructure itself is becoming more business critical.

Some of the other concerns raised by enterprises are:

• Cost of hiring and retaining skilled networking resources in-house
• Driving service providers to meet SLAs
• Cost of tools and technology related limitations like ISDN monitoring,
  Ethernet link monitoring, etc
• Asset management
• Overall network management investment if it is in-house

Apart from cost optimization and performance enhancement issues, there are a
few other relevant concerns raised by enterprises as they seek an infrastructure
management solution. The flexibility and scalability provided by virtualization
and cloud computing, leads to difficulty in managing the virtual infrastructure.
Organizations are concerned about acquiring the right bouquet of complementary
management solutions to help manage these sophisticated networks.

A Green Shift

When the entire telecom industry is talking about going green and
eco-friendliness, network management space is no exception. All players are very
active on the going green front. HCL Comnet has recently up-designed and
implemented its infrastructure management service platform to make use of the
most energy efficient, lean computing technologies that run minimally fussy
management tools. The company's data centers are built and maintained on green
practices. For customers with onsite network management facilities, HCL provides
process consulting to achieve infrastructure consolidation and optimization to
reduce both cost and carbon footprint. On the other side, Tech Mahindra often
aligns and help its global customers to build a predefined carbon reduction
strategy at the initial phase of the solution design.

Growth Prospects

The space is witnessing the rush of enterprises across verticals standing up
and demanding optimization of their network infrastructure with a view to reduce
bandwidth costs and the risk of application availability degradation. There is
an immense potential for growth over the next three to five years, focusing on
building strong skill-sets in network management tool sets and packaging
services as an integral part of either enterprise cost optimization bouquet or
the composite infrastructure management.

Arpita Prem

arpitap@cybermedia.co.in