Dennis Drogseth
How to fail in business
After returning from a very nice, long holiday season, it occurred to me that I had more office cleaning to do, which inevitably means revisiting files that haven’t been accessed recently (electronic and otherwise). Among these were...
What’s bubbling in network management for 2007?
Continuing our look back at 2006, let’s look at some of the things that caught my personal attention in 2006 (the emphasis should be placed on the words “some” and “personal”), and how they will play out in 2007.
Network/systems management in 2006: Platform vendors acquire and reorganize
Writing columns this time of year is both easy and hard. The obvious choice is to make some general comments about the year that has passed and the year ahead, which is what I’ll do. The challenge though is that capturing trends is...
How well will IBM modularize its vast management portfolio?
IBM’s analyst conference in late November was an eye-opener, partly because I rarely have a chance to get as far a field from my more mainstream network and systems management areas as I did there. I got a chance to give almost equal...
One more time: Why the CMDB is not a ‘thing’
Having written in more than one column that a CMDB is not a tree but a landscape and that a CMDB is not a “thing” – I feel compelled to revisit this discussion. No, I don’t intend to change my mind or recant, or attack any skeptics or...
Overlooked areas in IT asset management
As I hope some of you remember, EMA has developed a new “market” category that we call “Next Generation Asset Management” - or NGAM. What makes it “next generation?” A couple of things.
QoE in context with diagnostics: Some News from the trenches
One of my personal ongoing preoccupations – hopefully related to valid industry preoccupations – is Quality of Experience or QoE. This is at least in part logical. If the Configuration Management Database is the industry’s single most...
Integrated systems, network and applications management: Are we there yet?
In a recent newsletter, I described how systems management platform vendors could compete in the network management space. I mentioned that there are a number of things to look for in assessing your system management vendor’s...
What was important to network managers back in ancient IT history
Some issues of this newsletter are inspired by major breaking news - an acquisition, an important product launch, or occasionally a conference. Most are built around a focused set of ideas generally inspired by some weekly dialog with...
Network management changing the course for 'framework' vendors
In planning for next year's research, it occurred to me once again that network management isn't what it used to be. That isn't to say that network management is less than what it was - but that it's different and that the differences...
Three successful network management acquisitions
It used to be that when an enterprise management vendor made an acquisition the talk would be how it would go wrong, which more often than not, would be the case. The acquiring company thought it would get a product, a market and a...
Readdressing the need to measure the quality of your end user's experience
Recently, one of my favorite topics for these columns has been ITIL's Configuration Management Database (CMDB) but several years ago a topic that was nearly as active in these columns was quality of experience. There was a good reason...
How are changes in the IT industry affecting your IT group?
One reads all the time about changing technologies and changing requirements for IT organizations, but outside of the fairly binary question - are you shrinking or growing? - very little is said about qualitative changes occurring...
It's early days for vendors focusing on analytics in IT mgmt.
If CMDB adoption is in the first full blush of morning light, then analytics remains still in the dim, shadowy world of pre-dawn light. Yes, there's light on the horizon, or just below it, and yes it's better than the "Hour of the...
IBM, Next Generation Asset Management, and the CMDB
While I am intending this to be just a regular column, trying to give today's topic an adequate headline was tricky given modern tastes for brevity. I do remember, however, that titles were allowed to be more robust in the 17th...
Does HP's acquisition of Mercury really change the net mgmt. game?
When HP announced plans to acquire Mercury Interactive on July 25, HP suggested that it would be a "game changing" event. The most obvious thought is that Mercury will bring HP huge advantages in application management, particularly...
Is apps mgmt. about empowering the organization or the individual?
EMA is about to embark on research targeting technology choices, organizational dimensions, satisfaction levels and issues involving managing application performance over the network. Once again - as with CMDB adoption - I am entering...
CMDB adoption: How best to get the job done
In getting ready for a Webinar entitled "CMDB Adoption in the Real World - Just How Real is it?" - it occurred to me that several of the most significant results could be summarized in what I might call "three pairs." Now for those of...
Next-Generation Asset Management turns out to be on the rise faster than expected
I have to admit that doing research in many of its various forms is probably what I enjoy most about my current job. Since I'm an industry analyst, that's, I suppose, a good thing. And more specifically what I enjoy about research...