While cloud computing garnered a lot of headlines in 2010, only around one in eight Ipswitch Network Management Division customers identified the need to monitor cloud-based applications as a challenge for 2011; hinting that the proliferation of cloud solutions is not as widespread as some industry commentators have claimed.
The complete results to the question “What is the biggest challenge to managing networks in 2011?” were:
Maintaining network uptime 24.8%
Managing bandwidth utilisation 23.9%
Identifying the entire IT estate 15.4%
Managing infrastructure changes 14.6%
Monitor cloud-based applications and virtualisation projects 13.3%
No new challenges in 2011 8.0%
In network and data center infrastructure environments, the leading indicator of impending failure is the marked degradation of resource performance over time. Increasing network traffic and application usage can drive interface utilisation rates upwards to unsustainable levels. Ipswitch’s WhatsUp Gold can monitor and record the changes of workload, utilisation, and user experience over time and notify administrators when these exceed specified threshold levels. With historical insight into how performance has trended over time, network and system administrators can take pre-emptive steps to reallocate workloads, augment capacity and maintain utilisation rates within acceptable levels.
“As the use of video and other bandwidth-intensive applications increases in business, so does the danger that bandwidth utilisation will exceed maximum levels. This, in turn, amplifies the need to effectively monitor the corporate network. Our survey results show that both utilisation and network monitoring remain key concerns for network administrators in 2011,” said Ennio Carboni, president of Ipswitch Inc.’s Network Management Division. “WhatsUp Gold provides network administrators peace of mind by offering powerful performance monitoring and management capabilities that provide a comprehensive view of IT infrastructure and application health.”