New Lifecycle Management Capabilities, but Continued Reluctance to Outsource Network Management

Management company, AlterPoint, Inc., recently displayed new lifecycle management functionality. In other news, WatchGuard Technologies, Inc. reported selling over 500,000 management appliances, while a recent survey found that only four percent of the study participants completely outsource the management of their networks.

Focal Points:

• Officials from AlterPoint recently announced the latest version of NetworkAuthority Lifecycle 6.5. Officials claim this version of its software will help to reduce spending on hardware replacement as well as hardware maintenance contracts. Officials cited a customer that recently saved $1.6 million on maintenance and hardware replacement costs. The AlterPoint software helps by providing a complete view of all network assets. The additional granularity in NetworkAuthority Lifecycle allows for automated site standardization and device criticality classification. Company officials claim this reduces spending by properly prioritizing end of life replacement of systems, which can reduce overspending on maintenance contracts.
• Officials from WatchGuard recently stated that they had sold over 500,000 unified threat management (UTM) appliances. Officials said the increase in growth of UTM has been driven by customers demand for better multi-layered security. Officials also acknowledged a strong growth in its channel business. WatchGuard expects to increase this number by focusing its sales on the rapidly growing market in India. Much of the increase of growth in UTM in the last year has been a result of small and medium businesses realizing that they need to increase their security protection as much as larger companies.
• A recent study found that 63 percent of companies plan on using some type of managed servers, which is an increase of almost 20 percent from 2007. Reasons cited for this increase include the need to augment staff operations for routine management functions such as network monitoring, training, and troubleshooting. While per unit costs were not always cheaper, factors such as staff quality of life, plus the ability to focus on strategic activities increased the value of outsourcing. The most frequently cited outsourced function was router management, followed by management of IP telephony. While the numbers have been increasing for specific (usually routine) functions, only four percent of survey respondents outsource every aspect of network management.

Experton Group believes network management will continue to grow in importance for companies, especially as they move to embrace service-oriented architectures (SOAs) for business applications. While much of networking has become standardized and commoditized, the value of high performing networks will increase significantly, as high-density content (e.g., video) battles with IP telephony and business applications for network priority. IT executives should build network management design and quality of service (QoS) into next-generation SOAs.