InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
September 13, 1999
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New software for managing networks meets the unique needs of small, midsize companies
Cash- and time-strapped emerging enterprises can't always afford dedicated network managers to monitor availability and performance. These companies say enterprise-level network-management software has proven untenable in their environments, requiring granular customization and months-long rollout schedules. Small and midsize companies say they want in-house packages and outsourced offerings that map their network out of the box, then dive deeper into collecting finer data on critical devices, setting threshold specifications to head off problems and taking automatic actions, such as E-mailing or paging an IT manager when a device falls out of spec.
Network-management software vendors are starting to get the picture. Suppliers such as Computer Associates, Hewlett-Packard, Novell, and Tivoli Systems are challenging the perception that their products are costly and take months to deploy. New offerings promise more modularity, fewer levels of customization, predictable pricing, and more proactive controls that can be a boon to IT administrators handling network-management jobs in-house. For smaller customers, outsourcing management functions can ensure acceptable levels of performance and uptime without large up-front expenditures.
Perception Changes
Data Network Solutions, on target for 70% sales growth and weighing regional expansion, didn't want to rob billable hours from its 65 field engineers to monitor the company's E-mail system or watch disk space, says Geoff Green, director of technology. "Our network takes some serious abuse," Green says. "Since our staff is completely mobile, we need hands-off network management." In addition to predicting failures, the software provides trend data on the performance of the company's T1 line to the Internet.
The NetworkIT Pro license, hardware, and CA's service charges cost Data Network Solutions about $23,000. A five-week, $2,000 training course from CA helped rein in implementation costs, says Green, who installed the product with a CA rep to ensure that he activated the features he wanted. Implementation took three days.
"We got it over and done with this one capital expenditure," Green says. "NetworkIT Pro really gives CA an entry to small and midsize businesses. CA's technology is powerful, but its Global Professional Services can be prohibitively expensive to a midrange company, especially when you talk about weeks of implementation, which is what you're traditionally talking about with [CA's] Unicenter TNG. But if you go to NetworkIT Pro and go to training, you can bring that cost down."
Green expects to see a return on investment within six months, and to realize more gains in recovered downtime. "It gives us a leg up on the competition, who either has to plant somebody behind a desk, or doesn't and then has a half-baked network," he says. "If we reduce downtime with this tool, the return is almost infinite." Green says Data Network Solutions may resell the product.
Imran Anwar, product marketing manager at CA, says the vendor created its modular "IT" line of products to provide emerging companies the pieces of network management they need right away. "In the past, the network was important to someone with 20 offices, or who had 500 people in one building. Now, the network exists to serve the needs of every business as a lifeline for messages, orders, and communications. You're relying on it so much." NetworkIT Pro runs on Windows NT; a Unix version is due this year.
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he pain of an unruly network can afflict emerging enterprises most acutely. Expansion, mobility, and electronic information flow can slowly swell networks, leaving IT managers searching for affordable tools to rein in a ballooning array of servers, switches, routers, and hubs. The fate of the business rests in large part on those tools' ability to ensure that devices, applications, and databases don't slow customer access to a Web site, or fail entirely; to keep glitches from plaguing groupware installations serving as central repositories for projects; and to maintain quick access by mobile workers and branch offices to network data through a variety of Internet and dial-up connections.
Data Network Solutions, a $7 million systems integrator in Cincinnati, deployed CA's NetworkIT Pro last month to manage its internal mix of Windows NT and Novell NetWare servers, and says CA is changing perceptions about its capability to serve small businesses.
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