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Web-based monitoring builds trust; relinquishing control of an IT investment to a service provider is no longer totally unthinkable - Testing and Diagnostics

Communications News, June, 2002 by Brian Burba

Being the CTO at an enterprise is not easy these days. When the CTO recognizes the multitude of expensive hardware and software in his data center that is nearly maxed out, and when the CEO directs him to deploy a customer relationship management (CRM) system to compete more effectively in the market, the CTO may not have the financial or manpower resources to buy the new servers and software, or the time to babysit the system while managing the rest of the infrastructure.

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What does he do? The unthinkable. He offloads routine IT functions, such as e-mail, to a service provider who will host the system, while he focuses his team on deploying and running the CRM system. The fear that dissuaded enterprises from hiring service providers to manage infrastructures a few years ago is still prevalent. Today surrendering control of the company's IT investment to a service provider that offers Web-enabled, real-time access to infrastructure performance information, lets the CTO see exactly the same data as his service provider.

Web access is more affordable and easier to use, understand and manage than a wide area network link via a client to an HP Open View application, for example. Using the Web to access this information from anywhere, at anytime, lets the CTO make informed decisions about tasks like capacity planning.

Service providers have traditionally hosted a variety of connectivity services--such as voice lines or a T-1 line for data--but they typically only provided up-down status reports on those services. Now that enterprises are asking them to host and manage tasks like e-mail, Web servers, e-commerce applications or even online catalog data, service providers need to provide more than just the monthly service-level agreement (SLA) update that shows the T-1 delivering 99.99% availability. They need to show performance trends, operating capacity and other vital details so that their enterprise clients can make sound business decisions about their IT investments.

An SLA report, for example, might indicate that a client's virtual private network (VPN) is operating at 70% capacity, with a high level of availability. That information, however, does not answer many important questions that could affect performance in the near future. Does the VPN normally operate at 70% capacity? Or is this a sign of an impending problem that could lead to performance brownouts?

Enterprise IT managers need that detail to proactively address problems before users or customers notice service problems. Without detailed information about their infrastructure's performance, IT managers relying on an outsourcing provider might find themselves blindsided by a raft of user complaints when an unforeseen performance trend affects quality of service.

Even worse, IT managers without real insight into performance could make the wrong conclusion and purchase new VPN capacity, for example, to address a temporary spike in activity. Armed with good information, the IT manager can make the right decision about whether to add new capacity before it becomes a costly emergency, or leave the VPN alone.

Corporate IT managers need to find the delicate balance between ensuring maximum IT infrastructure availability, and deploying the new initiatives that will make their companies compete more effectively.

The enterprise CTO can more accurately determine when to buy new capacity, and justify that expenditure to his CEO and other corporate executives.

For more information from Concord Communications: www.rsleads.com/206cn-255

Burba is vice president of global telco and service provider product marketing at Concord Communications, Marlboro, MA.

Technology Industry

Web-based monitoring builds trust; relinquishing control of an IT investment to a service provider is no longer totally unthinkable - Testing and Diagnostics

Communications News, June, 2002 by Brian Burba

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