Keep network management 
costs under control

Network uptime and performance is becoming increasingly critical to bottom-line business performance. That means effective network management is more important than ever to organizations of all sizes. But corporate networks are getting bigger and more complicated. And it’s getting tougher to recruit and retain qualified network technicians.

To make matters worse, networking budgets aren’t being raised proportionally to the new management challenges that technical organizations are facing. Money is going to other areas—including Web development, bigger Net pipes and systems/storage hardware.

That’s why I thought it would be a good idea to share a few tips I’ve gleaned from top network managers about how to keep network management costs under control. These practices can save you a lot of money, while ensuring that you can still do the best possible job of keeping your critical e-business infrastructure up and running.

DISCOVERY COUNTS

Research consistently demonstrates that network managers spend 20 times as much effort trying to find out the root cause of a network problem than they do actually fixing it. The primary reason for this is a failure to effectively map out their network’s topology. If you don’t know what’s connected to what, then it’s very difficult to filter out the alarms and events that are simply the consequence of some primary device failure or malfunction. A good discovery system—one that can automatically update itself whenever there is a change in your infrastructure—can be worth its weight in gold.

ELIMATE “TOOL CREEP”

Network management teams are often tempted to buy additional software tools as they become available to handle some particular aspect of network management. Be careful about this. More tools mean more software costs, more training and more complexity. It’s better to get more functionality out of a small number of tools than to keep adding to the toolkit. If you do need a new tool, make sure you can retire one or two other tools that may have become obsolete anyway.

FOLLOW THE SUN

Many companies have globalized over the past decade, often through acquisition or some type of partnership. This has added to the cost of networking, since overseas circuits are often much more expensive than domestic ones. However, having offices—and technical staff—in widely dispersed time zones can also offer a big advantage. Many such companies are now monitoring their networks on a 24x7 basis by shifting responsibility for the network to European and/or Asian offices at different times of the day. This eliminates the need to put on a second or third shift in the U.S. American technicians still need to be on call overnight, but they don’t have to get beeped just because some trivial event pops up on a network console.

WORK THE WEB

This idea is related to the one above. The best way to give any qualified technician access to any set of tools at any time is to leverage the Web. Web-based tools allow a smaller number of staffers to do more work, since they can perform tasks even when they are away from their desks. These tools also make it easier to expose network management and monitoring data to outside contractors as appropriate. Which brings us to . . .

USE “OUT-TASKERS” WISELY

The all-or-nothing days of network outsourcing are gone. Today, there are a variety of contractors that can be used to cost-effectively perform very specific network management tasks. These include fixed-term engagements for performance baselining and management tool integration, as well as ongoing MSP (management service providers) that can relieve your staff of routine—but essential—chores. Some network managers feel threatened by such services. Don’t. The main threat to your job is a failure to maintain it effectively with the limited resources you’ve been given. Besides, if your company does let you go, you can always make more money by going to work for the MSP that replaced you!

Of course, it’s also a good idea to build manageability in the network itself. This kind of long-term view is often hard to maintain when you’re under pressure to deliver a buildout by next quarter. There are also some specific technologies—including policy-based networking and change management tools—that can help reduce the overall cost of network ownership.

The main point is that cost containment is as important to the overall success of any company’s e-business strategy as a new feature or function. As network managers, it’s your responsibility to make sure you can maintain network performance even if you’re being badly underfunded. Believe me, you’re not alone. And if you have your own money-saving tips for network management, send them along to me. With your permission, I’ll share them with Communications News readers in a future column.