- Is the Cisco MARS mission going to abort?
- First iPhone worm spreads Rick Astley wallpaper
- 10 stunning 3D buildings made with Google SketchUp
- Open source software ready for big business
- Four reasons to buy (and one reason to avoid) the Droid
Associate News Editor Ann Bednarz covers the latest news on application acceleration, content delivery and more.
I hear time and time again that the primary reason enterprises invest in WAN optimization technology is to resolve a pressing business requirement.
I wrote about the topic recently, and how industry gurus say the need to solve a particular application performance issue is what drives many customer engagements.
Exinda Networks’ CEO Con Nikolouzakis summed it up well: “We’re still finding a lot of people want to solve one problem. They might be having problems with VoIP, or they're trying to do Lotus Notes replications, or something like that. The market is still at the stage where companies are trying to fix specific problems.”
In response to that newsletter, a reader wrote in with some interesting observations about how to reconcile tactical and strategic requirements.
Some managers -- perhaps unintentionally -- pit strategic needs against tactical needs, says Dr. Neill Harris, a networking consultant and university faculty member. But a better approach is to consider the two together, not as competing for resources but as different animals, he suggests.
“It seems to me that managers must have resources allocated to both and not steal from strategic resources to bolster tactical resources,” Harris writes.
In Harris’ organization, there are two distinct “pots” of resources, and each is clearly labeled. “The strategic pot is there to help us address significant, tactical problems, like the one we are faced with at the moment, in the future more effectively. If you steal strategic resources, you will make the tactical problem much larger in the future.”
“The strategic pot has resources to discover what we need in the future, whereas the tactical pot has resources to recover what we are losing at the moment. So the resources in each pot actually have, or should have, different approaches and skills.”
Stealing resources from one pool or another can not only jeopardize the solution to the short-term tactical problem but also prejudice the solution to the strategic problem of the future, Harris says.
For the most part, IT staff members have bought into the concept, according to Harris. “I have found that a simple explanation of strategic hits home and frequently silences the tactical opposition. Silences them, that is, in terms of their demands for resources, which they see as existing in a big, immediately accessible pot.”
Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.
Partner Content
Blue Stripe Software
www.bluestripe.com/
Improving Application Performance Troubleshooting
Diagnosing why an application is slow is hard, at times taking days or weeks to isolate and resolve. This paper explains the challenges involved using current management tools, provides a 'wish list' for application management and analysis, and explains the need for an application system-wide approach that monitors entire applications, not components.
Download Whitepaper
Virtual Vigilance: Managing Application Performance in Virtual Environments
This paper highlights the impact of virtualization on application performance. "Managing Application Performance in Virtual Environments" states: "Best-in-Class organizations are predominately taking actions around improving visibility across both physical and virtual systems, assessing the business impact of application performance and understanding interdependencies of applications in virtualized environments."
Download Whitepaper
Application Service Requests: The Missing Link for Pragmatic ITSM
Forrester Research analyst Glenn O'Donnell and BlueStripe co-founder Vic Nyman discuss a breakthrough approach to application problem management. Learn the new approach for ITSM problem management, which provides: Rapid isolation of application slow-downs to specific components for quick problem resolution, 24/7 monitoring for proactive notification of potential issues before end users are impacted and much more.
Register for Webcast
Comment