WAN optimization, VoIP and MPLS top IT managers' plans

LAS VEGAS – WAN optimization, VoIP and MPLS are among the technologies most of interest to IT executives attending Interop this week, according to a survey conducted on the show floor.

Amid the din of neighboring booth hijinks, a pair of network and application performance management vendors polled 101 attendees, asking them what IT technologies they had in place and what their plans were going forward. In the joint survey, NetQoS and Network Instruments found that half of the respondents already have or plan to implement WAN optimization technology in the next 12 months. Close to 70% are in the same position with VoIP and another 40% have already upgraded to MPLS or plan to move over to an MPLS network in the next year.

"We've spoken to many network managers today who are implementing MPLS and VoIP on their networks," says Charles Thompson, manager of sales engineering at Network Instruments.

The vendors, both of which provide network performance analysis tools, also inquired about attendees' plans around monitoring the advanced technologies. About 30% of respondents said they were interested in monitoring LANs. Another 23% said they want to keep an eye on WANs and 20% indicated they'd like tools to monitor Gigabit networks. Some 17% said wireless monitoring would interest them and 6% said they were interested in monitoring Fibre Channel networks.

Specifically, 58% reported that application and network latency "is the most relevant information to them when reporting on WAN optimization improvements," and more than one-third expressed concern over monitoring traffic utilization on the WAN.

“VoIP, MPLS and WAN optimization present unique challenges for network professionals, but all require an understanding of network and application performance before and after deployment to determine the impact,” says Steve Harriman, NetQoS vice president of marketing.