3 critical considerations for your network management strategy

For three decades -- or as long as enterprise IP networks have been broadly deployed -- network administrators have argued about needing one or more network management tools. The consensus always turned out the same: One would be ideal, but practicality forces enterprises to have more. In this case, practicality in a network management strategy translates to ease of use, cost or function.

Ease of use is a critical consideration in the current IT environment, as the team's time and attention are at higher premiums than ever before. Network administrators and engineers want the ability to quickly set up or modify monitoring. They also want to easily get the information they need and have a tool that proactively alerts them about interesting changes in the environment.

If one network management tool is too hard to work with for important use cases, teams will run something that better meets their operational needs. Increasingly, those needs include the ability to use an API for managing the tool. For example, teams could use an API to configure the tool to appropriately monitor a new virtual machine or containerized application.

Cost is always a consideration in network management strategies, especially when debating the use of one management tool or multiple. Many deployments that use one tool for everything fail because a sudden surplus of new monitoring entities runs afoul of licensing cost structures. Tools that previously were great for monitoring physical workstations, servers and switches can sometimes become too expensive, due to virtualization, the profusion of end-user devices or the rise of containers. Open source tools are generally the bulwark against cost issues.

Functionality is also a recurring issue. Major monitoring platforms tend to evolve slower than monitoring needs. New commercial and open source tools pop up constantly, and IT teams deploy them. But even if a preferred tool evolves to meet the need in question, that target need could shift again, and something else could become an issue.