Daily Network Monitor

I recently came across some great insights into the challenge of Application Management in the Network/Systems Management Newsletter by Julie Craig. Although the article is focused on hardware appliances for this task, several of her insights are general in nature.

“Application management appliances are often perceived as pricey alternatives designed to gain control of an infrastructure gone awry. Companies ante up the cash necessary to buy appliances that give them deep perspective to execution environments when their backs are against the wall. Drivers for such purchases range from recurring problems that defy diagnosis to composite transactions experiencing perennial performance issues.”

“Business applications are becoming so complex that even large enterprises are falling short in terms of their ability to manage them. If we use the ITIL definition of problems, which is “the unknown root cause of one or more incidents,” recent EMA research shows that the percentage of IT problems actually solved in many large companies is between zero and 10%. The traditional “war room” team approach to problem determination is becoming far too expensive to be viable. Instead, companies tend to add horsepower, develop workarounds for recurring problems or turn to the reboot as the management product of choice. ”

“Over time, application management appliances will become increasingly common in the data center, especially as autonomic computing gains a firmer footing in the marketplace. …Companies will look to automation to provide robust management capabilities with minimal manual intervention.”

This story appeared on Network World here

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 28th, 2006 at 7:18 am and is filed under Network Management, The Business Side. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.