2008 State Of Technology: Networking - Network Management
Jeff Wolach, vice president and CTO of Sinnott Wolach Technology Group Inc., a Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based solution provider, said he's seen great success with network management solutions, especially as the market ushers in a second wave of products that not only offer the high-level management view, but drill deeper to offer features like analysis and monitoring.
"We're seeing 60 percent to 70 percent of our business coming from this space and we continue to see that growth happening," Wolach said. "We're seeing requests every day now."
Sinnott Wolach has been representing Network Instruments LLC, Minnetonka, Minn., a network management vendor that Wolach said is "like a TiVo for your network." The solutions enable users and VARs to go back in time and see what transpired on the network to cause certain problems, to provide better insight on how to resolve those issues by leveraging the mined data.
According to the survey results, when it comes to network management vendors, Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., wears the crown, with more than 35 percent of VARs ranking it No. 1 for delivering technologies and services that best meet customer needs. HP OpenView, IPswitch, IBM Tivoli and EMC round out the top five selections.
Over the next six to 12 months, VARs said their network management business will be driven mostly by the customers' needs to lower costs and increase network efficiency. That driver was closely followed by customers' expanding their infrastructures and business; the increasing threat landscape; regulatory compliance needs; and loss prevention.
Wolach said the key drivers he's seen for network management solutions also include the ability to analyze and monitor traffic, as more companies go to VoIP and unified communications.
Despite the strong drivers, more than 25 percent of VARs noted that network management technologies will be hit hardest in the networking market slowdown predicted for the next 12 to 18 months. Conversely, nearly 35 percent of VARs said network management tools will be key to the market's growth over the same time period. Even with fast growth predicted, respondents said networking management only makes up just more than 8 percent of their revenue.
Still, less than 8 percent of respondents said they plan to start selling network management tools in the next 18 months and only about 11 percent will begin offering network management as a service. The survey showed that about 45 percent of VARs already offer network management tools and 51 percent offer network management services.