According to Neal Weinberg at Network World magazine, Gartner analysts Mark Fabbi and Bob Hafner argued that IT and network engineering departments will “waste an estimated $100 billion over the next three years by overspending on network products and services.”
He [Fabbi] expanded on that premise this week to argue that network execs should only buy what they know they will need for the next two years, rather than buying more than necessary, just in case network requirements grow. More often than not, “just in case never comes,” Fabbi said.
A few high points were presented, however, with featured speakers advising at least two ways IT professionals could save big:
While Fabbi advised that companies should use WAN optimization tools to reduce network traffic, rather than purchase more bandwidth. Cisco CEO John Chambers talked about how video-collaboration over his company’s WAN saved his company money in airfare.
Users in the Network World forums add their own commentary to the story. There, user “Sskelley” writes:
“As an IT admin for several years and among several companies I have seen problems from both sides – too much where it is not needed, and not enough where it is. I’ve seen companies run expensive T-1 lines where a broadband level connection is just as good and companies struggling trying to use an extensive VOIP system over consumer-level broadband and not understanding why the connection is so horrible.”
And user “AllanT” writes: “The goal for corporates should be focused towards leveraging and extending the capabilities of the resources they have, without increasing their budget.”
All good points, but a little bit of caution and preparation can help network and IT professionals mitigate waste and improve network and application performance. The degree to which IT organizations under- or over-spend on network infrastructure is in large part determined by the sophistication of the processes and tools they use to monitor network utilization, traffic composition, and application performance. Adding bandwidth can be the right thing to do to avoid network performance problems, but not always. A bit of visibility can help you determine the right course of action and save thousands. Mr. Chambers’ own IT organization authored a white paper on Cisco’s internal network capacity planning experiences which highlights the importance of knowing what’s on your network and how critical applications are impacted by less critical or rogue traffic.
Video-collaboration undoubtedly saves air travel but its impact on other business-critical applications must be understood and mitigated. WAN optimization and application acceleration technologies may be very helpful as well, but can also be problematic if implemented in isolation and without analyzing network and application performance metrics before, during and after deployment. Recent research suggests that only one in five enterprises perform ROI analysis to justify expenditures on WAN optimization and application acceleration devices. The result is that IT organizations may spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars without knowing if these expenditures pay off. Once again, there are a number of tools that can help enterprises plan for, mitigate the risk of, and validate the impact of change when it comes to deploying WAN optimization solutions.
These same issues and network performance management solutions for addressing them will be discussed at the Nov 14th-16th Gartner Enterprise Networking Summit at which NetQoS is a Platinum sponsor. Check back in at our Network Performance Daily blog for a blow-by-blow of that conference.
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