* A look at the uptick in mixing application and network management
There is so much going on in the industry directed at instrumenting, monitoring and managing networks to maximize application delivery that I thought I’d use this column to clear the air and try to frame what’s really happening as I see it.
This mixing of application and network management technologies is not new. Enterprise Management Associates has been actively researching this phenomenon since 2000, and even then it was well underway within the broader industry. What is new today is an upswing in attention, pace, options and complexity. This last is the rub – what’s needed in the end is simplicity. But progress, in this market at least, tends to evolve through disruptive complexities that lead to a new “status quo” with a more recognizable shape, before the wind blows all over again and the ship sails for another port.
So here is my list of things to look out for. I of course welcome your input. What would you add? What would you delete?
* Are network device vendors finally becoming strategic management providers? The answer to this question is a qualified yes, given recent actions taken by Juniper and Cisco, in particular. The question really seems to be not “will network device vendors establish a more strategic systems presence through investments in the management of application service delivery?” It is “How will they do this, what shape will it take, and when?” One way or the other, it is likely to change the management marketplace in ways that have never occurred in the past.
* As applications become more distributed, and as service-oriented architecture and Web services become increasingly pervasive, will this affect network management? The short answer is yes. A slightly longer answer: Yes, profoundly, but over time. To what degree network management and network infrastructure becomes an intelligent purveyor of application- and even transaction-specific services (as per Web services) is clearly something to watch in the coming months and years.
* Are new areas of innovation opening up to address these challenges? Once again the answer is yes. Application flow management is one of the most important. This “bloodstream” vs. “device-centric” approach can span potentially all seven layers and then some. Application flow in its most eclectic form – including protocol and packet analysis, as well as NetFlow, sFlow and other options – is becoming a sprawling arena of innovation across a whole host of disciplines, from performance, to QoS and application throughput, to security and chargeback.
* Do the trends towards building a configuration management database (CMDB) and managing application performance over the network converge, or are they two parallel paths? Well, even though I’m not running for political office, here I’d have to say the answer is “both.” CMDB trends will affect how vendors share and instrument data collection, how they’ll model information and how information will be exchanged across management applications and brands in this market and others.
* Where is the innovation coming from – application vendors looking at the network or network vendors looking at the app? Once again the answer is “both.” And I can say this in all honesty. But right now the weight of the innovation in my humble opinion is coming from network management vendors moving up the stack.
* What about VPNs? VPNs are becoming more relevant to provisioning applications, but are still thorny for implementation. Clearly, though, VPN implementations in all the standard and non-standard varieties need to be included in this jigsaw puzzle.
* Will application management and delivery services take off as a result of all this complexity? You bet. But the services that are most likely to succeed the most will not simply be body-centric, but also IP-centric in both definitions of the term (Internet Protocol and “intellectual property”).
* What about VoIP? Well, what about it? Clearly it’s a component in this broader matrix of “things to watch,” in spite of the fact that it’s an application service that many people haven’t figured out is really an application yet. Look for the impact of VoIP on two fronts – challenging network performance and application service quality across the full portfolio, and challenging IT and communications operations to actually work together.
