Cisco preparing management play

Cisco is looking to expand its proprietary network monitoring tools into enterprise-scale management products that can tackle multi-vendor networks, advanced IP applications and business services.

"We have been investing much more heavily in management technologies, through internal developments, OEM agreements and acquisitions," says Cliff Meltzer, senior vice president of Cisco's Network Management Technology Group. "We believe we should be providing a robust and broad set of tools that address the network, as well as systems, applications and other elements critical to customers' businesses. We are working on an open, standardized way to help customers see and ensure all those elements interact properly across the infrastructure."

The company has yet to detail specific product plans, and analysts speculate that management is more a long-term strategy. But Cisco confirms it is working to create a virtualized network layer from which network managers could view performance statistics, take action and manage business services. The premise is to develop an overarching technology that wouldn't eliminate current network, systems or application management products, but rather pull and integrate relevant information from them for analysis and problem diagnosis.

The software would be based on open standards to enable integration across vendor gear and network silos such as systems, storage and applications, Meltzer says, and could be configured to automate fixes on intelligent network equipment such as that detailed in Cisco's Intelligent Information Network. The approach is the opposite of that taken by HP and IBM, whose strategies focus on intelligent software automating management on a dumb network.

"The network is the platform for revenue growth and productivity for our customers," Meltzer says. "We believe you have to both have intelligence within the network and the management software to control it."

Some Cisco users say they'd consider management products from the vendor if Cisco could simplify management across various technologies.

Erik Durand, corporate network manager at Psomas, a civil engineering firm in Costa Mesa, Calif., recently expanded his Cisco investment to include voice gear. He says he'd purchase software to get a single interface into his network. Psomas has Cisco equipment but doesn't use CiscoWorks because Durand found it costly, and he says he'd like Cisco to consolidate management interfaces into one console.

"As our own network expands, having a single point of reference would be great, ideally a logical map of the network that integrates all levels of the network effectively and [gives me] access from anywhere via a Web interface," he says. "That would let me manage routing equipment, security appliances, switching, [network interface cards], every element of the network, and restrict access appropriately based on login."

HP and IBM may lead the management software market today, but industry watchers say Cisco could have a shot at winning customer dollars. George Hamilton, a senior analyst at The Yankee Group, says Cisco turns up on most users' lists of network management tools, especially when speaking of advanced technologies such as VoIP.