Trends to take us into the New Year

With the end of the year, and with the question of the millennium's beginning firmly behind us (no need to debate - was it 2001 or 2000?), it's still worth taking a look backwards at what's gone before and, by implication, what might be coming.

Even though most of us are glad to see 2002 moving into the past tense, the year was far from stagnant in network, systems and application management.

Let's start with the obvious trend: market consolidation. The year has witnessed some serious implosions, Peregrine being the most noteworthy - although 2003 may still hold out hope for a phoenix-like rising from the ashes. As a part of this consolidation, mergers and acquisitions have become the most active games in town, with Hewlett-Packard's merger with Compaq, Micromuse's acquisition of RiverSoft and BMC's acquisition of Remedy among the more noteworthy.

One way of looking at this trend is that the opportunities for acquiring innovative and compelling technologies have never been better. And while I hope that the implosions taper off in 2003 (no guarantee there), I would encourage more mergers and acquisitions - with the important caveat that doing appropriate technical, cultural and market diligence must be done first.

Another trend is a move to explore new territories. OSS vendors, such as Ai Metrix, are tapping into enterprise markets.

There are also a lot of products for small businesses emerging from vendors such as Fidelia, Network Harmoni, Regenative and SilverBack. Enterprise Management Associates has observed that while many products have been developed to scale upwards, scaling downwards is arguably harder - with the more extreme requirements for ease of everything (deployment, administration and use).

Another area of growth is in multivendor network configuration management, with vendors that include Alterpoint, Goldwire, Intelliden and PowerUp. I should also add Aprisma, which has quietly been shipping automated device configuration for years. Configuration directly affects performance, availability and security, and is a frequently a place where human error can occur. It's important to have the operational efficiency of common tools and processes to configure devices from multiple vendors. There is also a broader move across the full infrastructure toward more automated processes for "provisioning," a term that can be taken here to mean optimizing around a specific service or set of services. This is definitely an area to look for accelerating growth in 2003.

Another cluster of product innovation and market growth is around dynamic rerouting and/or Layer 3 troubleshooting. Vendors here include Ipsum, RouteScience and Proficient. Enhanced Layer 3 visibility can in itself prove valuable for optimizing traffic flow and diagnosing problems. Once again, watch for growth here, and more market confusion as IT managers, analysts and vendors wrestle with assembling the still burgeoning pieces of this puzzle.

There are other trends that bear mentioning, all trends around integration of storage, voice over IP, wireless and security. EMA has so far seen the integration of storage take precedence over VoIP and wireless for budget dollars, but we believe VoIP and wireless are poised for significant growth, possibly in late 2003. Issues around security won't go away, either - and this is largely a good thing. But security, a multiheaded beast (with encryption, intrusion detection, vulnerability assessments, firewalls, virus control, access control, etc.), has to be integrated with mainstream products to become more of an effective "enabler" than a penalty akin to income tax. Vendors working on this problem include Lumeta, Micromuse, NetScout, Open, Silent Runner and Solvent.

Next week's column will pick up where this column leaves off, and address other areas of growth, such as appliance packaging, automated management (in various terms), and the retooling of the frameworks. Finally, we'll consider one word of advice from a Yale professor - something like "plastics" in "The Graduate" - only in this case, hopefully, a lot more meaningful.

The Power Issue
Network World, 12/23/02

Dennis Drogseth is a director with Enterprise Management Associates, a leading analyst and market research firm based in Boulder, Colorado, focusing exclusively on all aspects of enterprise management. Dennis has extensive experience in network management platforms and products and is researching trends in management software and changing IT roles internationally. His 18-plus years of experience in high-tech includes positions at IBM and Cabletron. He has been quoted in the press and is a speaker at industry events. He can be reached via e-mail.

Audrey Rasmussen is a research director with Enterprise Management Associates in Boulder, Colorado, a leading analyst and market research firm focusing exclusively on all aspects of enterprise management. Audrey has more than 20 years of experience working with distributed systems, applications and networks. Her current focus at EMA is e-business, SMB/SME and MSPs. She can be reached via e-mail.

Enterprise Management Associates in Boulder, Colorado, is a leading analyst and market research firm focusing exclusively on all aspects of enterprise management software and services.