Don t forget the network

(1)

[email protected]

Rob Bamforth Quocirca Ltd Tel: +44 7802 175796 Email:

Don’t forget the network

How to manage your organisation’s constantly evolving IT network requirements

October 2011

The overall IT networking requirements of a given organisation are not

provided as a single utility. Instead they comprise a constantly evolving

patchwork of technology and services, some maintained in-house and

some provided by third parties, the availability and performance of which

are often taken for granted until something goes wrong.

Over time this ‘network’ has become embedded in nearly every business

process; when the network fails the processes fail too. To prevent this

happening, businesses need their networks to be managed with the same

diligence that would be applied to any fundamental asset. Only when this

is the case can they be sure that availability, performance and security

levels will be maintained as the demands on the network increase. This

requires proactive monitoring and maintenance; a network can only be

effectively managed if its performance is first measured.

This report looks at the range of factors that can lead to an organisation’s

network failing to serve as well as it should and what organisations with

limited resources can do to ensure that it does so in the future.

(2)

Don’t forget the network

How to manage your organisation’s constantly evolving IT network requirements

The network services that an organisation relies on should be managed with the same diligence that would be applied to any fundamental business asset. This is a challenge because the total networking requirements for a given

organisation are not provided as a single utility, but are a complex mix of constantly evolving technologies and services. This requires constant monitoring and management to maintain availability, performance and security levels and to ensure future requirements can be met. Many organisations lack the time and/or in-house skills to do this and their overall business may be suffering as a result.

A given IT network

comprises a complex

mix of constantly

changing technology

and services

The total IT networking requirements of any given organisation comprise a complex mix of in-house infrastructure and third party services. Taken as a whole, all this comes together to form an organisation’s IT network, a key asset that nearly all its business processes rely on to some extent. The network is rarely planned from scratch, but has evolved over time to keep up with the ever-increasing technology and business demands placed on it.

Network availability,

performance and

security need to be

assured

The network cannot be taken for granted. The availably of most network services has improved over time, but this does not mean a guarantee of constant performance levels. Indeed, as capacity requirements increase, service levels will often degrade if demand is not monitored and managed; standing still will, in effect, mean going backwards. An organisation will also be vulnerable if it does not keep on top of the security issues that threaten all IT networks.

Business applications

and user apps are the

drivers for network

traffic volume

increases

Businesses themselves are putting more pressure on networks through the introduction of bandwidth-hungry applications, for example those using video. However, users and lines-of-business are now often able to introduce their own pay-as-you-go or free apps; this is often done from mobile devices, increasing the data volumes transmitted over mobile network services. IT departments no longer have full control over which applications consume network resources.

The virtualisation of

data centres and use

of cloud-based

services add further

network demands

Data centre virtualisation means more workloads running on individual physical servers. The increased network input/output and bandwidth requirements this imposes are often poorly considered; networks need to evolve to support this. Furthermore, some applications are moving to the cloud whilst others rely on internet feeds. This has broken down the once-clear interface between internal and public network services. Traffic moving between the two needs monitoring to ensure end-to-end security and performance and that the given organisation is truly cloud-ready.

Many networks are

not effectively

monitored and

managed – action

should be taken now

Those without the appropriate in-house resources, tools and/or skills should consider using a managed service to ensure network performance, availability, security and the maximum use of available resources. This involves an upfront network-discovery process because existing infrastructure is often poorly documented and flexibility is needed to adapt as new network components are introduced. The service levels and cost controls expected from outsourcing network management should be clearly laid out from the start.

Conclusions

No organisation can afford to neglect its IT network, those that do will fall behind at all sorts of levels. A

functional network is imperative for a 21

st

century business. A well-managed availability,

high-performance and secure network can be a distinct competitive advantage, a poorly managed one a

fundamental business risk.

(3)

Don’t forget the network

The networking Holy Grail;

high-availability, high-performance and security

“The network is the system”, averred the Digital Equipment Company (DEC) as far back as 19871. If it was becoming true then, it is certainly true now. The IT network system that underpins the use of information technology (IT) in any organisation is an asset that is fundamental to nearly all daily operations. The overall networking requirements of a given organisation are not provided as a single utility service. Instead, they comprise a constantly evolving patchwork of technology and services, some maintained in-house and some provided by third parties, the availability, performance and security of which are taken for granted until something goes wrong. Overall these comprise a given organisation’s IT network.

The network DEC was speaking of was proprietary and mainly deployed within the premises of a given organisation, those with multiple premises connected the main ones with leased lines, smaller premises were often not deemed worthy of being on the network.

Today the internally deployed network infrastructure is usually based on the IP (internet protocol) standard but is comprised of equipment from a range of suppliers. Within an organisation, any facility, indeed any individual, can be permitted to connect to the internal network with ease, using widely available public internet and mobile network services. Network access is now pervasive and the predicted on-going growth of traffic volumes on both public and private networks (managed IP) speaks for itself (Figure 1).

In the early days of such widespread access, which can be dated back to the mid-1990s, the principle concern, when it came to gauging the user experience, was availability. Network communications failure may be rarer than it used to be but it is still the most common reason that applications fail to deliver (Figure 2). However, there are two other issues which have sometimes been paid less attention; network performance and security. As we enter the age of 100 gigabit/second Ethernet and 100

megabit/second broadband, why are users still wasting time staring at devices waiting for a response? They find this even more galling given that many will be used to seamless high speed network services being delivered to their own homes; individuals are often better served as consumers than they are as employees. Furthermore, the number of incidents of network security breaches being reported has been increasing rapidly.

The reason user experience degrades is not necessarily because businesses have under-invested in their networks in the first place, but because the demands on them have been growing so fast that performance degrades over time simply

(4)

Don’t forget the network

through standing still. This is further impacted by ad hoc additions to networks, for example wireless routers; if unplanned these not only extend network access in an uncontrolled way, but increase the security risk.

To maximise the user experience, constant network monitoring is needed to ensure that all network ports are used to the full and that every last drop of available bandwidth is consumed before more capacity is purchased. Furthermore, when network traffic increases, and the reasons for this are understood (and accepted), upgrades can be planned rather than implemented in a hurry whilst fire-fighting. The network needs to be managed as a business-critical asset and its potential as a corporate business continuity and security risk understood and controlled. Meanwhile, users should be able to take the network for granted, like they do utilities such as water and electricity – despite the complex infrastructure that ensures their delivery. Only when this is the case can an IT department consider itself to be effectively supporting its users. Many organisations struggle to achieve this Holy Grail because they lack the time, resources, tools and/or skills to do so.

The rise and rise of the app(lication)

There are two forces that generate the growing demands on the network; the business itself and its employees. The business is relying on the network more and more to underpin business processes and is deploying bandwidth-hungry applications that make use of video and other network-intensive services. Furthermore, the availably of cloud-based services means lines-of-business can invoke and pay for IT services and applications directly, without reference to the IT department.

This is exacerbated by the employees themselves, who use network services in ever more imaginative ways to do their jobs and, it must be said, to bring their personal lives to work. This will often include peer-to-peer applications that also make use of voice and video. They may be doing this from mobile devices, sometimes owned by the business, but increasingly they are using their own (Figure 3). There is a quid quo pro here; many employers want their employees to take their working lives home with them too – further increasing demand on network services.

When considering overall access needs, businesses are now dealing with requirements that must mix public and private network services seamlessly and

securely. Gone are the days of reasonably predictable client-server data flows and bandwidth demands.

Even though the imposition of many of these high-bandwidth multimedia applications, on top of the more traditional IT requirements, is often beyond the control of the IT department, the network is still expected to cope. At the same time, the IT department is expected to guarantee the performance of services such as IP-telephony, web/video conferencing, unified communications packages (UC), customer and partner web portals, document/image management systems etc. There is also the increasing use of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), which is very network-reliant as the actual processing of user activity is carried out in data centres remote from a user’s access device (some see VDI as the best way to support the use of employee-owned devices).

IT departments are also loading the network beyond its planned operating capabilities with their efforts to improve the use of data centre resources through virtualisation. This allows them to rapidly increase the number of virtual servers running on individual physical devices, often without taking into consideration the extra burden this places on the network through increasing the network input/output and bandwidth required for each physical server. Furthermore, in many areas businesses are forsaking the data centre altogether and turning to cloud-based services

(5)

Don’t forget the network

(Figure 4), either for the complete delivery of a given application or to enrich ones still running in-house. When accessing such services, all users are, in effect, remote, and the reliability of external network access is paramount. Cloud-readiness should be a part of any medium term network requirements planning and the network services to enable this need to ensure that the interoperation between public and private networks is transparent and secure. The network is central to delivering other business

goals too. These include meeting environmental targets (for instance improving supply chain efficiency and reducing employee travel) and quantum business changes such as mergers and acquisitions.

In the past, diligent IT departments have been able to rely on pre-deployment testing of new business

applications to gauge their likely impact on the

network. However, today, with the user-driven deployment of apps and/or lines-of-business invoking cloud services, this is harder to achieve with available in-house skills. The network just has to cope, ideally absorbing the new requirements without impacting existing use. The truth is that many organisations have no idea what is running on their networks and how the day-to-day experience of their users is changing over time.

Gauging performance

The real danger with declining network performance is that it often happens slowly and users become inured to it. The efficiency of business processes declines over time, productivity drops and no one is quite sure why. As Quocirca points out in its 2010 report, User Experience Monitoring5, with respect to IT there are two main reasons for this; a problem with a given application itself or a problem with the network.

The way to overcome the network contribution to this is to take a pro-active approach to network monitoring and management. There are plenty of tools around to help with this, but they are often vendor-specific or pre-date the widespread use of virtualisation and low latency applications such as voice. Furthermore, many are expensive to licence being primarily aimed at enterprises. Even if the best tools were affordable to smaller businesses, many would lack the time and/or skills to use them effectively.

Mid-sized businesses and smaller organisations that want to ensure they reap the benefits of a reliable scalable network can consider outsourcing the task to third party service providers, who can scale the use of enterprise class tools and services across multiple customers. Such providers should be measured against well-defined service level agreements (SLA) to ensure the expected performance, availability and security is being consistently delivered. To gauge the impact the change in performance of the network is having on an organisation over time requires constant monitoring, which must be set against a measured benchmark. This should identify changing usage patterns, but also proactively identify faults, the under-utilisation of equipment and/or services and security vulnerabilities. That network equipment is underused often goes unnoticed; whilst many businesses have diligently focussed on improving server use in data centres, they may be failing to get the most out of their network equipment, as a 2011 port assessment survey6 shows. Initially, network performance may be improved with no investment in new internally-deployed infrastructure.

Network monitoring services will almost always be put in place retrospectively. Networks are seldom built from scratch but evolve over time. The information about them is usually poorly documented and carried in the heads of

(6)

Don’t forget the network

a succession of IT network managers, who may have had only a short term or partial involvement in network set-up. By the time the need to upgrade the network is recognised, the underlying tangle of equipment and services is already complex. This complexity changes through time as hardware components are changed and/or services are introduced, upgraded or replaced; both monitoring and management need to be flexible enough to respond to this. The first requirement is to discover and map the network and set the benchmark for gauging future performance. This has to be repeated periodically as it is not just the initial topology that needs to be understood, but also how it, and the demands being placed on it, is changing through time. Only with an assessment of the existing network and its workload - and some appreciation of likely future requirements, in so far as that is possible - can a network transformation plan be enacted.

To this end, part of the discovery process should be to identify the end points that are attached to the network. These will include not only assets owned by the organisation in question; PCs, printers, wireless routers, branch servers etc., but also user owned devices; smartphones, tablets etc. Whether or not a given organisation approves of this trend towards the consumerisation of IT, it is a reality - as has already been pointed out (Figure 3). Only when the range of end points attaching to the network over time is fully recorded can the full burden on the network be understood. This is also the basis for putting in place effective network access control (NAC) and data security measures.

A network transformation may not involve expensive upgrades but better use of existing resources, such as changes to usage patterns or the changing of network service suppliers (e.g. from an expensive leased line to a cheaper SDSL line or VPN service). The effectiveness of any such service should be measured on how well it improves network performance, availability and user experience whilst controlling costs and minimising new investments.

Conclusion: a value proposition for network services

Whatever steps are taken to ensure the on-going performance, availability and security of a network, the cost of doing so must be justified by three factors. First, it must be possible to reduce running costs, or at least ensure better on-going performance, without excessive short to medium term investments in new equipment and/or services. Second, the business risks posed by the network and problems with its performance and security must be mitigated and minimum service levels guaranteed. Third, a stable network that performs well and has excess capacity should be able to be relied upon to provide new business value as and when required. These expectations are summarised below.

Reduced/stabilised running costs

 Ensuring existing physical assets (routers, switches etc.) are being used fully and effectively. This should, at least, delay the need to replace or upgrade existing equipment, which is often the approach taken in fire-fighting mode.

 Third party network services can be reviewed and, where more cost effective ones are available, replaced (e.g. replacing leased lines).

 The setting of a minimum agreed service level that the business can rely on for future requirements, which provides a benchmark against which on-going improvements can be measured.

 Better ability for the network to support data centre efforts to improve server use levels etc., through ensuring the network resources are available for the growing number of virtual machines per physical server.

 Ability to support virtual desktops and use cheaper access devices (e.g. thin clients in call centres). Some also see this as a way to help support the consumerisation of end user devices.

 Virtualisation in the data centre and at the desktop directly reduces energy usage, providing further cost savings and a feed for environmental reporting.

(7)

Don’t forget the network

Mitigated business risk

 Recognising, at an early stage, patterns of increased network use and either accommodating or blocking them depending on the business need.

 Ensuring business continuity is not impacted by network availably and/or performance.

 A holistic view of the network allows effective security posture around users, devices and data.

 Effective network access control, which is essential to support the secure consumerisation of user access devices.

 The ability to understand network traffic at the application level and limit the use of certain apps and internet resources.

 Making sure the deployment of wireless routers is authorised and controlled and that they are not a security risk.

 Major new applications need pre-deployment testing to make sure they function as expected and do not impact other network services.

 Planned changes in the way existing applications are deployed and accessed should also be tested before implementation; for example if applications are to move off-site to a hosted data centre, or more mobile access to a given application is expected.

Increased business value

 Cloud readiness – the ability to use on-demand applications and services as and when they offer the best value for the business.

 The confidence to embrace consumerisation, through allowing controlled access to the network of users’ personal devices and apps.

 Better overall user experience/satisfaction.

 More reliable business processes.

 Readiness to cope with quantum business changes such as mergers and acquisitions.

 Freeing up of IT resources to focus on core business value.

 The network can be a platform for building a more sustainable business.

The majority of businesses will not have the in depth understanding of their networks to be sure of achieving many of these goals. Most will not even have had a recent network assessment. If they did, they may well be surprised at how poorly it is serving them and how much may be gained from addressing this. A functional network is imperative for a 21st century business. A well-managed high-availability, high-performance and secure network can be a distinct competitive advantage, a poorly managed one a fundamental business risk.

References

1 – Network World Sep 7th 1987, page 18 2 – Cisco Visual Networking Index, June 2011:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/netsol/ns827/networking_solutions_sub_solution.html 3 – The data sharing paradox, Quocirca Sept 2011 – unpublished

4 – Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research; A paradigm shift for IT: The Cloud – November 2009 5 – Quocirca, User Experience Monitoring, March 2010:

http://www.quocirca.com/reports/466/user-experience-monitoring

6 – Networks First port assessment blog: http://www.networksfirst.co.uk/blog/?p=71

(8)

About Networks First

Networks First – Do More Guaranteed

You need a network that can support your current business needs and adapt to embrace new challenges and new technologies. Everything we do is geared to ensuring you can meet your internal and external customers’ expectations. New technologies such as cloud, mobile working and multi-vendor environments, combined with reduced budgets and headcount restrictions, all take their toll on service delivery. We work with you to understand your businesses’ requirements and enable you to ensure your network evolves with your business.

As a proven specialist in secure converged network infrastructures we guarantee business critical communications by managing the life-cycle of your network. Whether it’s individual projects, transformational changes or on-going out-tasked support, Networks First have the right resources, skills and facilities to help support your network through steady state and changing environments.

Networks First’s commitment to Do More is achieved through our multi-vendor engineering skills in both voice and data, quality service delivery, guaranteed SLAs and the dedication of every single member of our team to go that extra mile.

Our Service Portfolio

Managed Services

 Network Management - Networks First pro-actively manage your network, LAN and WAN, to guaranteed service

performance and availability.

 Support Service - Networks First Support Service provides a restoration guarantee through our fixed SLAs, multi-vendor

engineering team, regional office spares and remote diagnostics.

 Managed Firewall – on-going and complete management to optimise use of existing hardware.

Professional Services

Networks First’s portfolio of professional services will help you manage your network throughout its lifecycle and includes:

 Pre-deployment services for voice, video and wireless implementations.

 Pre-deployment services for consolidation or expansion network programmes.

 Security services for firewalls and advanced LAN security.

 Health checks and audits on your existing estate.

 Project consultancy and delivery.

 Specialist expert services such as Network Maturity Assessments.

Our Service Commitment

Networks First guarantees to deliver peace of mind. We have a 99% record against our Service Level Agreements (SLA) in the last 12 months, with over 87% of network problems solved remotely. Our engineers and service desk have a score of 4.5 out of 5.0 for customer satisfaction.

Our secure networks operation centre (NOC) can monitor and administer your systems remotely 24/7, so that you don’t have to tie up staff and resources in-house. This means that we can resolve many issues before you’re even aware a problem exists, and we guarantee to fix 99% of the rest with our SLA. Covering 100% of the UK means we deliver a truly national service.

Our multi-vendor experience, and accreditations from all major manufacturers, gives us the knowhow, and our ISO 9001 certified internal processes and ITIL adoption ensure the quality of our work. Because we go beyond the break-fix model to a restoration of service principle, we can minimise downtime and maximise stability of service.

Networks First guarantees business communications through advanced network services. We understand technology and how important it is for your company, which is why Networks First’s innovative solutions Do More to meet the unique requirements of your business.

(9)

Don’t forget the network

About Quocirca

Quocirca is a primary research and analysis company specialising in the business impact of information technology and communications (ITC). With world-wide, native language reach, Quocirca provides in-depth insights into the views of buyers and influencers in large, mid-sized and small organisations. Its analyst team is made up of real-world practitioners with first-hand experience of ITC delivery who continuously research and track the industry and its real usage in the markets.

Through researching perceptions, Quocirca uncovers the real hurdles to technology adoption – the personal and political aspects of an organisation’s environment and the pressures of the need for demonstrable business value in any implementation. This capability to uncover and report back on the end-user perceptions in the market enables Quocirca to provide advice on the realities of technology adoption, not the promises.

Quocirca research is always pragmatic, business orientated and conducted in the context of the bigger picture. ITC has the ability to transform businesses and the processes that drive them, but often fails to do so. Quocirca’s mission is to help organisations improve their success rate in process enablement through better levels of understanding and the adoption of the correct technologies at the correct time.

Quocirca has a pro-active primary research programme, regularly surveying users, purchasers and resellers of ITC products and services on emerging, evolving and maturing technologies. Over time, Quocirca has built a picture of long term investment trends, providing invaluable information for the whole of the ITC community.

Quocirca works with global and local providers of ITC products and services to help them deliver on the promise that ITC holds for business. Quocirca’s clients include Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, O2, T-Mobile, HP, Xerox, EMC, Symantec and Cisco, along with other large and medium-sized vendors, service providers and more specialist firms.

Details of Quocirca’s work and the services it offers can be found at http://www.quocirca.com

REPORT NOTE:

This report has been written independently by Quocirca Ltd to provide an overview of the issues facing organisations seeking to maximise the effectiveness of their networks. The report draws on Quocirca’s knowledge of the technology and business arenas, and provides advice on the approach that organisations should take to create a more effective IT network to support future growth.