Network World’s IT Roadmap conference kicks off Monday in Boston, and the network management track appears to be the most popular one that attendees have pre-registered for. Jim Metzler of Ashton, Metzler & Assoc. will lead this track with a presentation about network management as a core competency.

Network World Senior Online News Editor Linda Leung spoke with Metzler recently about the points his presentation will touch on, and the important role network management plays in the enterprise.

The track is called "Network Management: The New Core Competency." What is meant by the "new core competency"? Hasn't network management always been a crucial part of a network manager's role?

Yes it has. However, network management has always been regarded more as a necessary evil than as something that contributes directly to the business.

One of the themes of the tour is to show how network management enables business agility.

What were the three top concerns of network managers last year, and how were these addressed?

Security has been a top concern for the last few years. In general, IT organizations are addressing security by adding security functionality into more and more components of the infrastructure. In particular, security is no longer just firewalls; it includes functionality such as virus scanning, intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems.

Application optimization has become a top issue. However, most IT organizations have dealt with it in a very tactical way - deploying the least amount of equipment, in the fewest places possible, and only in response to a problem.

Compliance has also become a top issue in the last year. One of the ways that IT organizations respond to this is to consolidate servers out of branch offices and into centralized data centers. It is much easier to guarantee the accuracy and security of data that is stored in one place vs. data that is stored in tens or even hundreds of branch offices.

What will be the top three concerns of net managers in 2006 and how should these be addressed?

I think that the same issues will be top of mind in 2006. In the case of both security and application optimization, it is important for IT organizations to develop an architecture for how all of the various components of security and application optimization come together. That architecture should also recognize that while it has been common to think of security and application optimization as separate disciplines, that key vendors in both spaces are looking to converge those disciplines.