IT management "not up to scratch" on network management

Stuart Corner
Monday, 15 September 2008 06:42

IT Industry - Market

Atrash said that, in Australia, "we're about ten percent ahead of the curve because we deal with greater network performance challenges due to geographical distance and also bandwidth costs, which are typically higher in Australia than regions like the US. So we have a more positive outlook and savviness towards network performance optimisation, and we're more vigilant about monitoring and managing network ROI."

However, he says this should be no cause for complacency. "...an alarming 27.5 percent of IT decision-makers in Australia do not even calculate the return on investment (RoI) on network investment – nor, equally concerning, even attempt to measure the cost of poor network performance. IT departments are unaware of the opportunity to have their performance optimisation assessed, which may assist in increasing the RoI of their network investments and improve their overall network performance."

Much of the changing load and changing traffic patterns in corporate networks is likely to come from a large percentage of users using external Internet resources at work, for both personal and work use. "Simply put, the fact that IT users are at work, but not necessarily working, will cost the organisation in terms of that employee's productivity.

"Similarly, the organisation will incur the costs that such usage patterns' have on network performance and, consequently, on other employees' ability to work optimally," Dimension Data warns.

However, it claims that many of these applications may well have a viable place in the workplace, and do not necessarily always have a negative impact on productivity.

"In this consumer led technologic age, it is inevitable that more and more of these, previously perceived, personal applications can, and will, be incorporated in to the business environment. [IT management] although aware of these trends, could look at using these behaviour patterns to the benefit of the business, taking more of a control, rather than cut off, approach."

The study concludes that: "With the adoption of network intensive technologies only set to increase, and performance dependant trends such as VoIP and wireless becoming key business drivers, networks that are not invested in as a business continuum will, inevitably, continue to prevent an organisation's key assets and resources from performing optimally.