History Lesson

Ok, so the last entry talked about what Network Agility is, and what it’s supposed to achieve.

Here, we talk a little about the where Network Agility fits in terms of the technologies it leverages, and those it replaces.

Network Agility is quite a different discipline from the Network Management days of the mid-90’s and the current embryonic world of Software-as-a-Service and Utility Computing.

Without doubt, Network Agility makes great use of the on-line Software Service models, and provides dynamic network ‘load-balancing’ and metering promised by the hardware Utility Computing behemoths. The core motivation of Network Agility is how it solves IT business problems, and, moreover, creates dynamic solutions using existing hardware and software in an automated way that can change and adapt over time as requirements dictate.

In the old days of the last century, large static network management infrastructures were the favourite (only) technique to manage large, and even not-so-large networks and devices. These infrastructures created very large positive cash-flows for the vendors that put them together. So much so, in fact, that there has been little incentive to change them – hence they are still being sold today by a plethora of legacy vendors (albeit at ever-declining rates).

But beware, the landscape is changing, and this change is gathering pace and significant momentum. As the network landscape changes, with the availability of highly nimble, automated, and agile technologies and methodologies, the legacy vendors, alas, have no answer – their infrastructures were simply not built for dynamic change, lightweight operation, adaptable configuration – it was never in their remit.

Most legacy vendors haven’t worried about it too much of late, as the current ‘new wave’ of on-line management services is hardly a threat to their precious cash-cows. I’m talking about on-line Software-as-a-Service vendors who have ‘jumped on the – SaaS bandwagon’ to offer IT network management services using a similar (well, identical) model to other SaaS application vendors – e.g. SalesForce.com’s CRM, Taleo’s ERP, and on-line web conferencing/collaboration subscription services etc.

The trouble is, managing a business’s internal network assets is a very different kettle of fish from on-line billing/invoicing, collaboration applications and HR subscription services.

So, yes, of course, Network Agility comes to the rescue, and also isn’t too concerned about SaaS management subscription providers either, since it really is only relevant to public domain data – e.g. schools and libraries, and not suitable for internal business data.