Know what's coming – and plan accordinglyWhat will your network look like in ten years' time? 100 Gig to the desktop, with a 10 Terabyte backbone? Hi-def video apps for every user?
If that sounds like a pipe dream, it's worth noting that right now the clever money says that over the next few years, 90% – yes, ninety percent – of Internet traffic will be accounted for by video. That's a huge figure and can only mean one thing: a huge upsurge in overall traffic volumes.
Hi-def the way forwardI'm a big movie and sports fan, and I already frequently check out the TV guide to see if the big game or blockbuster is being shown in HD. I take the view that good movies and great games are to be savoured, and the only way to watch them is in HD. I'll even avoid watching a classic in standard definition – I'd rather wait until it's broadcast in HD, so I can enjoy it to the full. That probably gives you some idea of how I view HD. I think it's brilliant and I'm convinced it's the only way to watch. I'm absolutely certain it's where all broadcasting and video, online and offline, is headed.
I'm far from the only one who takes that view. There's a growing army of people who love HD, and those people will drive explosive growth in Internet and LAN traffic. It's not a question of if, but of when.
Exciting times aheadClearly, traffic growth of this magnitude must be planned for: failure to plan here will very much be a matter of planning to fail. The traffic will be there. The question is whether your network infrastructure will be up the task of handling it. I can't see anything else, with the possible exception of cloud-enabled technologies, coming close to HD in terms of its impact on network traffic.
SD video has of course already had an impact on traffic. A colleague working in the IP carrier sector told me that September 2008 saw an exponential growth in Internet traffic – growth that he put down to explosive growth in the use of video sites. Requiring around ten times the connection speed that most home users currently enjoy, HD's effect on network traffic will make the impact of SD video seem like a minor blip. It's going to mean major re-engineering of Internet and LAN infrastructures across the globe. Exciting times are ahead for anyone working in the networking field.
Protect your core network
How should all this crystal ball gazing affect network managers right now, though? Firstly, it's important to be clear, especially in the current highly cost-conscious environment, where cost cutting should and should not take place. For almost all businesses, network infrastructure is an absolute essential and should as far as possible be considered sacrosanct. A robust and highly-performing network infrastructure is vital today, and with the increasing adoption of technologies such as HD video, will become all the more so in the future. Your baseline position should therefore be always to protect your core network.
Modern businesses are so reliant on their IT networks that it's probably fair to say that many, maybe even most of those businesses who fail to invest sufficiently and appropriately in their network infrastructure will fall by the wayside as HD video makes its presence felt. It will be companies who have cutting-edge communications technologies like HD video in mind right now, and who plan effectively for their take-up in the immediate future, which will prosper and succeed.
Keep the future in viewYou may not be able to afford to upgrade your network to support HD today, or next year or even the year after that, but you do need to recognise that over the next five to ten years you will need to do so. You need to be looking not just a year or two ahead, but a generation ahead: any decisions you make today could have significant implications for your network and finances in the coming years. Whatever you specify for your network, you should have in mind not only its immediate use but also the ways in which it could be redeployed in the future.
In line with my earlier tip on the general reuse of network equipment, the approach to take is to start moving towards a video-friendly infrastructure now, so that when the heavy HD traffic starts to hit in a few years' time, you'll be able to migrate the devices you specify today out to the periphery of your network, replacing them with current products in the core and giving you a bang up-to-date HD-capable network.
It may not be state-of-the-art in the sense that cash-rich corporate giants' networks are state-of-the-art, but it won't be far behind, and you will have achieved it at far lower cost. It will put you in a great position to take advantage of all the benefits that HD video will offer, giving you competitive advantage in the market, and, ultimately, boosting your business' bottom line.
All because you planned ahead.
Sunday, 23 January 2011
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Use a dealer that's less than 4 hours away
It's not that small a worldI'm a big fan of ebay. My wife isn't so enthusiastic, though. Despite the fact that I've used the site to buy loads of great things and only had any problems on two occasions, it's those occasions she's quick to remind me about whenever I mention it. I know the value of a quiet life, and both of the less-than-straightforward transactions happened to be with overseas suppliers, so I now make a point, whenever possible, of only dealing with UK ebayers.
If you're a regular reader of these tips, it probably won't surprise you to learn that there's a parallel here with network infrastructure purchasing. Let me make one thing clear right away, though. I'm certainly not making a blanket statement ruling out all overseas or long distance purchasing. Indeed, right here at Go Communications we have a large number of very happy Cisco maintenance spares customers right around the globe.
If it's mission critical, keep it localWhat I do want to say, and say loud and clear, is this: for mission critical network support, your key suppliers should be local. The world may be smaller today than it was a decade or two ago, but shipping parts still takes time: generally it just isn't feasible to get network components from a supplier in one country to a customer in another in less than a day or so – and that's when everything goes smoothly.
Almost all networks have one or more mission critical segments, demanding four hour or perhaps eight hour coverage, whether that be from phone call to fix or to initial response. Whichever of the various permutations apply, your maintenance supplier will have made arrangements with a local courier depot, broadly speaking centrally located between you and their other customers in the area, so that it can meet the demands of its SLAs with all those customers.
Local engineering and warehousing That sounds good – and it is good. But it's not enough. You need a supplier, for those mission critical parts of your network, which is actually based near to you. More specifically, you need them to have local engineering and warehousing facilities, not just admin and sales offices.
It's all very well having spares couriered from a local depot, but when the spare itself proves faulty or incorrectly configured for your needs (and, yes, it does happen) the backup unit or engineering resource being at the other end of the country can spell serious downtime for that mission critical network segment. Unless you feel like stumping up for helicopter deliveries.
Build your defencesOf course, selecting a supplier with local warehousing and engineering facilities doesn't guarantee that they'll have a second spare in stock when you need it. It does at least make it possible, though. It's a tick in a safety box, and when it comes to mission critical network segments, you want as many ticks in safety boxes as possible. Each one increases your defences against network failure and downtime.
As well as reducing the chances of serious network outages, using maintenance suppliers who are local to you may well get you a better deal financially, because of their lower shipping costs. And it will all go to help make for a quiet life and reduce the danger of your being smacked over the head, verbally or otherwise, for going with the wrong supplier. In my book, that's got to be a good thing.
If you're a regular reader of these tips, it probably won't surprise you to learn that there's a parallel here with network infrastructure purchasing. Let me make one thing clear right away, though. I'm certainly not making a blanket statement ruling out all overseas or long distance purchasing. Indeed, right here at Go Communications we have a large number of very happy Cisco maintenance spares customers right around the globe.
If it's mission critical, keep it localWhat I do want to say, and say loud and clear, is this: for mission critical network support, your key suppliers should be local. The world may be smaller today than it was a decade or two ago, but shipping parts still takes time: generally it just isn't feasible to get network components from a supplier in one country to a customer in another in less than a day or so – and that's when everything goes smoothly.
Almost all networks have one or more mission critical segments, demanding four hour or perhaps eight hour coverage, whether that be from phone call to fix or to initial response. Whichever of the various permutations apply, your maintenance supplier will have made arrangements with a local courier depot, broadly speaking centrally located between you and their other customers in the area, so that it can meet the demands of its SLAs with all those customers.
Local engineering and warehousing That sounds good – and it is good. But it's not enough. You need a supplier, for those mission critical parts of your network, which is actually based near to you. More specifically, you need them to have local engineering and warehousing facilities, not just admin and sales offices.
It's all very well having spares couriered from a local depot, but when the spare itself proves faulty or incorrectly configured for your needs (and, yes, it does happen) the backup unit or engineering resource being at the other end of the country can spell serious downtime for that mission critical network segment. Unless you feel like stumping up for helicopter deliveries.
Build your defencesOf course, selecting a supplier with local warehousing and engineering facilities doesn't guarantee that they'll have a second spare in stock when you need it. It does at least make it possible, though. It's a tick in a safety box, and when it comes to mission critical network segments, you want as many ticks in safety boxes as possible. Each one increases your defences against network failure and downtime.
As well as reducing the chances of serious network outages, using maintenance suppliers who are local to you may well get you a better deal financially, because of their lower shipping costs. And it will all go to help make for a quiet life and reduce the danger of your being smacked over the head, verbally or otherwise, for going with the wrong supplier. In my book, that's got to be a good thing.
Monday, 29 November 2010
Reduce purchasing new equipment
Canny purchasing in difficult timesThe economic downturn resulting from the global debt crisis of 2008 has made itself felt in all corners of the market, and its impact is on-going. For network managers it has meant slashed budgets as businesses and other organisations seek to make significant financial savings. For some, the cuts have already hit. For others they are still filtering down through the financial system. For almost all, though, it's just a matter of time: few businesses are likely to escape unaffected.
Such cuts put network and IT managers in an unenviable position. They must, of course, operate within the finances available, but they, better than almost anyone else, know how dependent modern businesses are on their networks. Every network manager must defend their network (and especially their core network) not least because, if it is compromised, they will be first in the dock when the stewards' enquiry begins. There is a substantial financial circle to be squared.
Buy less?Let's take a good hard look at the situation you could be facing. Cuts in your network budget are either with you now, or on the way. If you are one of those looking at substantial cuts, you could be forgiven for thinking that your options are strictly limited to a drastic reduction in what you will buy, across the board. That's not necessarily the case, though. Instead, consider reducing the amount of new equipment that you buy.
You may normally buy all or most of your network equipment brand new. When budgets are generous, such a strategy can be ideal, for various excellent reasons. Adopting a policy of buying refurbished equipment can save you thousands, though. And these savings can be taken further. To maximise them, canny network managers don't simply specify product X refurbished instead of product X brand new. They pay very close attention to exactly what device is specified for each network requirement.
Supply and demandWith a well-rounded understanding of the market, careful device selection can pay significant further dividends. For example, many large networks are currently decommissioning 10/100 speed kit in favour of gigabit and ten gigabit devices. As a result, the market is awash with 10/100 product, and the immutable law of supply and demand is making prices rather attractive. Predictably, 10/100/1000 is following suit. By specifying refurbished 10/100 devices for network segments that will run happily at these speeds, you can retain as much of your reduced budget as possible for your core network while minimising degradation of your peripheral network performance.
That brings us to the heart of the matter. In harsh times, all these money-saving tactics should have one goal: the protection of your core network. Virtually all businesses today are utterly reliant on a robust core network. Cuts to that core network will almost inevitably impact bottom line business performance – possibly seriously, or even disastrously. Protect it at almost any cost. Buy refurbished devices in preference to new, specify lower performance where you can get away with it, and even cut peripheral network services if necessary, but use the savings, which can be substantial indeed, to maintain your core network.
Then, when easier times come, you'll have a solid, up to date and robust foundation on which to build up additional network services and performance.
Such cuts put network and IT managers in an unenviable position. They must, of course, operate within the finances available, but they, better than almost anyone else, know how dependent modern businesses are on their networks. Every network manager must defend their network (and especially their core network) not least because, if it is compromised, they will be first in the dock when the stewards' enquiry begins. There is a substantial financial circle to be squared.
Buy less?Let's take a good hard look at the situation you could be facing. Cuts in your network budget are either with you now, or on the way. If you are one of those looking at substantial cuts, you could be forgiven for thinking that your options are strictly limited to a drastic reduction in what you will buy, across the board. That's not necessarily the case, though. Instead, consider reducing the amount of new equipment that you buy.
You may normally buy all or most of your network equipment brand new. When budgets are generous, such a strategy can be ideal, for various excellent reasons. Adopting a policy of buying refurbished equipment can save you thousands, though. And these savings can be taken further. To maximise them, canny network managers don't simply specify product X refurbished instead of product X brand new. They pay very close attention to exactly what device is specified for each network requirement.
Supply and demandWith a well-rounded understanding of the market, careful device selection can pay significant further dividends. For example, many large networks are currently decommissioning 10/100 speed kit in favour of gigabit and ten gigabit devices. As a result, the market is awash with 10/100 product, and the immutable law of supply and demand is making prices rather attractive. Predictably, 10/100/1000 is following suit. By specifying refurbished 10/100 devices for network segments that will run happily at these speeds, you can retain as much of your reduced budget as possible for your core network while minimising degradation of your peripheral network performance.
That brings us to the heart of the matter. In harsh times, all these money-saving tactics should have one goal: the protection of your core network. Virtually all businesses today are utterly reliant on a robust core network. Cuts to that core network will almost inevitably impact bottom line business performance – possibly seriously, or even disastrously. Protect it at almost any cost. Buy refurbished devices in preference to new, specify lower performance where you can get away with it, and even cut peripheral network services if necessary, but use the savings, which can be substantial indeed, to maintain your core network.
Then, when easier times come, you'll have a solid, up to date and robust foundation on which to build up additional network services and performance.
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
Buy refurbished kit from the manufacturer
Beware end-of-lifeWhen a network device is declared end-of-life its value on the used market typically plunges, drastically reducing the price it can command at resale. As a result, buying devices brand new shortly before they go end of life is a risky business that can cost you dear. The savvy network manager knows his product lifespans and wherever possible opts for refurbished alternatives in preference to brand-new near end-of-life products, saving thousands.
If you are a regular follower of these money-saving tips then my interest in cars, and sports cars in particular, probably won't have escaped your notice. For the last three years, though, my focus has been on building Go Communications into the respected supplier of refurbished Cisco Systems kit that it is today, and during this time I've been without a sports car. This year, with Go Communications established with a solid base of happy customers and strong sales figures, it was time to take a closer look at the sports car market, with a view to spending some money.
Actually, when I say "look at the market" I'm not being one hundred percent honest. I've known for a long time what car I'd be buying – in my book there's nothing to beat a Porsche 911. On checking the market out, though, I discovered that the Stuttgart boys have a new 911 waiting in the wings, due out next year, which of course means the current model is near end-of-life, and its resale value will very likely suffer when the new car is released in 2011.
Network managers often face the same situation. New kit is required for this project or that, and some of the devices on the shopping list are about to go end-of-life. Heavy depreciation and therefore higher over-all costs beckon, unless some canny buying tactics are deployed. There are three approaches that can be used to get the best long-term value in such situations.
New infrastructure, refurbished sparesMy personal preference would be to buy all my core network infrastructure brand new, direct from the manufacturer, and all my spares refurbished. This allows me to specify the best core infrastructure available. After all, there's little point in specifying brand new spares if it means you have to cut corners on the kit that your network will actually be running on. By adopting this approach and holding refurbished spares yourself instead of committing to an expensive maintenance contract with the manufacturer you can build a premier quality network and stay within your budget.
Refurbished throughoutBuying all your kit refurbished – core infrastructure and spares – can offer advantages, since the hardware is all 'tried and tested'. Over the last 14 years in network infrastructure sales it's been abundantly clear to me that there's not much to choose between the failure rates of tested used devices and brand new. The old IT adage generally holds true: if a device is going to fail, it will normally do so in its first couple of weeks. And, of course, there are significant financial savings to be made, assuming that an absolutely state-of-the-art network is not your objective.
Refurbished from a dealerThis is essentially a refinement of either of the above approaches. Instead of buying refurbished equipment directly from the manufacturer – the ultra-safe approach – savings can be made by sourcing your refurbished kit from a dealer. In 99 cases out of 100, this will be less expensive than sourcing the same devices from the manufacturer.
The downside is that in the event of a failure, the spare itself may not be supported by the manufacturer. In practice, this simply means that you need to approach the dealer for support, not the manufacturer, so choose your dealer with care.
The best bet is to choose a supplier which not only has a reputation for quality, but has gone out of its way to support that reputation with an internationally-recognised quality standard such as ISO 9000.
ISO 9000 quality controls are typically stricter than those enforced by manufacturers on their dealers: if your choice is between an authorised dealer without a quality standard, and a non-authorised one with a quality standard, the latter is typically going to be the safer – and often less expensive – bet. More expensive does not always mean better.
So: buy cheap, but be wily. Don't sacrifice quality in favour of brand names. Do your homework and identify the best time to buy, the best product to buy, and the best source to buy it from. Play your cards right and you could make significant savings at the same time as improving the quality of the parts and service you're working with.
If you are a regular follower of these money-saving tips then my interest in cars, and sports cars in particular, probably won't have escaped your notice. For the last three years, though, my focus has been on building Go Communications into the respected supplier of refurbished Cisco Systems kit that it is today, and during this time I've been without a sports car. This year, with Go Communications established with a solid base of happy customers and strong sales figures, it was time to take a closer look at the sports car market, with a view to spending some money.
Actually, when I say "look at the market" I'm not being one hundred percent honest. I've known for a long time what car I'd be buying – in my book there's nothing to beat a Porsche 911. On checking the market out, though, I discovered that the Stuttgart boys have a new 911 waiting in the wings, due out next year, which of course means the current model is near end-of-life, and its resale value will very likely suffer when the new car is released in 2011.
Network managers often face the same situation. New kit is required for this project or that, and some of the devices on the shopping list are about to go end-of-life. Heavy depreciation and therefore higher over-all costs beckon, unless some canny buying tactics are deployed. There are three approaches that can be used to get the best long-term value in such situations.
New infrastructure, refurbished sparesMy personal preference would be to buy all my core network infrastructure brand new, direct from the manufacturer, and all my spares refurbished. This allows me to specify the best core infrastructure available. After all, there's little point in specifying brand new spares if it means you have to cut corners on the kit that your network will actually be running on. By adopting this approach and holding refurbished spares yourself instead of committing to an expensive maintenance contract with the manufacturer you can build a premier quality network and stay within your budget.
Refurbished throughoutBuying all your kit refurbished – core infrastructure and spares – can offer advantages, since the hardware is all 'tried and tested'. Over the last 14 years in network infrastructure sales it's been abundantly clear to me that there's not much to choose between the failure rates of tested used devices and brand new. The old IT adage generally holds true: if a device is going to fail, it will normally do so in its first couple of weeks. And, of course, there are significant financial savings to be made, assuming that an absolutely state-of-the-art network is not your objective.
Refurbished from a dealerThis is essentially a refinement of either of the above approaches. Instead of buying refurbished equipment directly from the manufacturer – the ultra-safe approach – savings can be made by sourcing your refurbished kit from a dealer. In 99 cases out of 100, this will be less expensive than sourcing the same devices from the manufacturer.
The downside is that in the event of a failure, the spare itself may not be supported by the manufacturer. In practice, this simply means that you need to approach the dealer for support, not the manufacturer, so choose your dealer with care.
The best bet is to choose a supplier which not only has a reputation for quality, but has gone out of its way to support that reputation with an internationally-recognised quality standard such as ISO 9000.
ISO 9000 quality controls are typically stricter than those enforced by manufacturers on their dealers: if your choice is between an authorised dealer without a quality standard, and a non-authorised one with a quality standard, the latter is typically going to be the safer – and often less expensive – bet. More expensive does not always mean better.
So: buy cheap, but be wily. Don't sacrifice quality in favour of brand names. Do your homework and identify the best time to buy, the best product to buy, and the best source to buy it from. Play your cards right and you could make significant savings at the same time as improving the quality of the parts and service you're working with.
Monday, 13 September 2010
Sell redundant network hardware on consignment
One of the near-universal facts of network management life is that every network generates a constant stream of retired devices that must be disposed of. As with so many issues in life, this is both a challenge and an opportunity. It's a challenge because it's yet another task that needs to be addressed, consuming time and manpower. It's an opportunity because it can be something of a money-spinner.
There's no real rocket science here. Retired network devices can bring funds in by the rather simple expedient of selling them. You could have told me that. My kids could have told me that. So, what's the big scoop? It's this: there is a right way and a wrong way (several wrong ways, in fact) to go about selling retired network kit.
Selling your carLet's consider a parallel from the world of motoring. Imagine it's time to replace your car, so you need to sell it on. The right approach to take will depend on whether you need to shift the car quickly, or get the best price for it. Generally, you can have one or the other, but not both.
If you want the best possible price for your car, you'll wash and polish it, clean and tidy the interior, and have a professional agent sell it for you. Of course, if you need a quick sale, you'll skip all that and stick it in a second-hand car rag at a cut price.
The same principle applies to disposing of retired network kit. If you have have time to allow an experienced dealer to sell it for you, you can always secure a better price.
Niche complicationsThings are further complicated if your product only appeals to a niche market. To go back to our motoring example, let's assume your car isn't just any old car, but a Porsche. A bright pink Porsche. If you try to sell it to your local dealer, you're not going to get a good price for it. The dealer's chances of reselling it will be severely reduced, because bright pink just isn't to everyone's taste. There are people who like pink cars: I know a couple myself (one a public figure and the other in the Go Communications Harlow offices) but they are a select bunch.
The laws of economics dictate that if you are looking to resell something that isn't particularly popular, you should play it safe and slow. However, this doesn't mean you need to resign yourself to months of tedious negotiations – months which would be much better spent on more fruitful matters, such as the day-to-day running of your network. There is, you may not be surprised to hear, a better way.
Selling on consignmentIf the reseller of the product is not its owner, the pressure to sell it as quickly as possible – pressure which always tends to drive down the achievable price – is much reduced. The owner is likely to achieve a good selling price and the reseller a better profit on the deal. In the network world this approach, essentially using the reseller as a selling agent, is known as selling "on consignment".
Selling on consignment isn't the approach to take when a speedy sale is required, but it does markedly improve the chances of a good sale price. The reseller acting as sales agent must allocate monies to the cost of storing the device to be sold, but they can weigh that against their cut of the sale price and they have the direct sales advantage and reputation boost that comes as a result of being able to advertise the device as 'in stock'.
Increased demandThis almost always results in additional enquiries for the device, from sources which otherwise would not have known about it – consignment brings the reseller's network of contacts into the game. And that increased demand will deliver the premium selling price that the customer is looking for.
So there you have it: this month's money-saving tip. Sell your redundant network hardware on consignment, especially if it's a little out of the ordinary.
I wouldn't recommend opting for bright pink routers when specifying kit, though. I think even the most effective reseller might struggle to shift them at a good price.
There's no real rocket science here. Retired network devices can bring funds in by the rather simple expedient of selling them. You could have told me that. My kids could have told me that. So, what's the big scoop? It's this: there is a right way and a wrong way (several wrong ways, in fact) to go about selling retired network kit.
Selling your carLet's consider a parallel from the world of motoring. Imagine it's time to replace your car, so you need to sell it on. The right approach to take will depend on whether you need to shift the car quickly, or get the best price for it. Generally, you can have one or the other, but not both.
If you want the best possible price for your car, you'll wash and polish it, clean and tidy the interior, and have a professional agent sell it for you. Of course, if you need a quick sale, you'll skip all that and stick it in a second-hand car rag at a cut price.
The same principle applies to disposing of retired network kit. If you have have time to allow an experienced dealer to sell it for you, you can always secure a better price.
Niche complicationsThings are further complicated if your product only appeals to a niche market. To go back to our motoring example, let's assume your car isn't just any old car, but a Porsche. A bright pink Porsche. If you try to sell it to your local dealer, you're not going to get a good price for it. The dealer's chances of reselling it will be severely reduced, because bright pink just isn't to everyone's taste. There are people who like pink cars: I know a couple myself (one a public figure and the other in the Go Communications Harlow offices) but they are a select bunch.
The laws of economics dictate that if you are looking to resell something that isn't particularly popular, you should play it safe and slow. However, this doesn't mean you need to resign yourself to months of tedious negotiations – months which would be much better spent on more fruitful matters, such as the day-to-day running of your network. There is, you may not be surprised to hear, a better way.
Selling on consignmentIf the reseller of the product is not its owner, the pressure to sell it as quickly as possible – pressure which always tends to drive down the achievable price – is much reduced. The owner is likely to achieve a good selling price and the reseller a better profit on the deal. In the network world this approach, essentially using the reseller as a selling agent, is known as selling "on consignment".
Selling on consignment isn't the approach to take when a speedy sale is required, but it does markedly improve the chances of a good sale price. The reseller acting as sales agent must allocate monies to the cost of storing the device to be sold, but they can weigh that against their cut of the sale price and they have the direct sales advantage and reputation boost that comes as a result of being able to advertise the device as 'in stock'.
Increased demandThis almost always results in additional enquiries for the device, from sources which otherwise would not have known about it – consignment brings the reseller's network of contacts into the game. And that increased demand will deliver the premium selling price that the customer is looking for.
So there you have it: this month's money-saving tip. Sell your redundant network hardware on consignment, especially if it's a little out of the ordinary.
I wouldn't recommend opting for bright pink routers when specifying kit, though. I think even the most effective reseller might struggle to shift them at a good price.
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Don’t outsource
Don’t outsource everything. My better half won't like it!
I love my wife. I wouldn’t dream of letting anyone else take her out for a romantic dinner, for example. There are some things that you just do yourself. I'd imagine most people would feel the same.
OK. I admit it’s a thin analogy, but bear with me. I do those things for my wife, rather than having someone else do them, because she's important to me. Beyond your home life, your business ranks pretty high on the scale of relative importance – so why would you outsource all your IT and network management? In today's world, without your network and IT, you have no business. It really is that clear cut. You need to be absolutely sure your network is in the right hands: yours.
Outsourcing became something of a business mantra in the nineties and noughties. According to the accepted wisdom of the day, huge savings and dramatic improvements in productivity could be realised if 'non-core activities' were outsourced. Times have changed, though. Rapidly and brutally.
The cold light of day
Much of the last two decades has been characterised by ongoing economic boom, fuelled by plentiful and easily accessible finance. That boom came to a sudden end with the Credit Crunch and the resulting economic downturn. What we have now is the cold light of day, and that light has exposed some uncomfortable truths about IT outsourcing.
The principal reasons for outsourcing an IT network are to make financial savings and to bring in expertise that the network owner does not currently have. In today's climate, a re-think is needed on how much exactly should be outsourced, if outsourcing is the favoured option.
If you don't have the necessary skills in your business to manage your own network, you should bring those skills on board as quickly as possible. Any organisation that fails to learn new technologies and understand today's and tomorrow's Internet is storing up serious trouble for the near future. Web 2.0 and other emerging social networking technologies are here today and here to stay, and new security risks and other threats are arising on a daily basis.
On top of that, successful management of your network demands not only technical expertise, but a deep and continually updated understanding of what your business is all about and what it needs from its network, today and tomorrow. It's likely that any outsourced provider's understanding on this front is going to be weaker in various areas than that of your own people.
This gap in understanding, however small, makes almost any outsourcing of 'all and sundry' an enormous gamble. The Internet is awash with disaster stories testifying in gory detail to the results of such gambles, but what those stories don't always clearly show is that some of them could have worked, if only they hadn’t outsourced absolutely everything in the IT department.
Agility and responsiveness
The current economic challenges, which are impacting all businesses, do seem to be prompting a return to sanity on the outsourcing of company IT networks. This is excellent news, because if there was ever a field in which the age-old maxim "If you want a job doing properly, then do it yourself" applies, it's IT networking.
Key in today's commercial environment is the ability to make the right decisions swiftly. It's that ability that will enable businesses to get ahead and stay ahead. Bureaucracy, indecision and labyrinthine purchasing processes all belong to the last century, along with anything else that hinders a business' ability to act and react with speed and precision.
The need for agility and responsiveness alone rules out wholesale outsourcing of IT networks.
Decision making is inevitably slowed and made less effective, which in turn increases real costs for the organisation, as well as impairing its ability to respond to changing opportunities and threats. Additionally, outsourcing your entire network could mean dealing with your provider's administration team rather than a long in the tooth, hardened purchasing individual. With fixed discounts and pre-set ordering systems, little negotiation can occur and adaptability in the face of changing circumstances and requirements can be severely limited. Surely the days of blind agreement to long-term price structures are long gone?
Partial outsourcing
In many cases, organisations have outsourced their entire IT facility, only to find that, part of the way through the contract, there are such serious problems that the only solution is to bring the arrangement to an end, returning to in-house IT management. The costs and disruption resulting from such a catastrophe are enormous, with the wasted time alone typically running into thousands of man-hours.
I'm not saying that outsourcing is necessarily a complete no-go, although I would certainly recommend exceedingly careful assessment of all of the costs, risks, limitations and potential pitfalls of any contract before committing to it. What I am saying is that complete outsourcing should be a no-go. In almost all the cases in which an outsourcing contract has gone badly wrong, the damage would have been much less comprehensive, and staved off for a longer period of time, if only part of the IT function been outsourced.
Had more time and thought been spent identifying what really needed outsourcing and what didn't, the resulting arrangement could have been far more beneficial to the end user, and significantly longer-lasting. That would have pleased the provider, too, since outsourcing companies calculate risk and costs on the basis of contracts running their full term. And of course the chances of a valuable renewed outsourcing contract would have been increased.
Ten long years
One of our customers is half way through a ten year outsourcing contract, which covers everything from a state-of-the-art 10 gig switch router all the way through to desktop support. Ridiculously (but inevitably) the customer knows far more about the desktops than the outsourced provider does. With the recession biting hard, the customer's income has dropped, but of course the full standing charge must still be paid to the outsourced provider. With internally managed IT, the customer could have cut back or restructured their network, reducing costs and reconfiguring for a leaner operation, but with the outsourced contract, they can't even do that.
That's an extreme case, but it illustrates the issues. The message is clear: don't outsource unless you must, and then only outsource what you must. Never outsource your entire IT function. To enjoy real savings and maintain flexibility and agility, bring the skills you need into your business and manage your own network.
Think of your network as you think of anything else (or anyone else!) highly precious to you. Keep it close and take care of it yourself. Your business depends on it.
I love my wife. I wouldn’t dream of letting anyone else take her out for a romantic dinner, for example. There are some things that you just do yourself. I'd imagine most people would feel the same.
OK. I admit it’s a thin analogy, but bear with me. I do those things for my wife, rather than having someone else do them, because she's important to me. Beyond your home life, your business ranks pretty high on the scale of relative importance – so why would you outsource all your IT and network management? In today's world, without your network and IT, you have no business. It really is that clear cut. You need to be absolutely sure your network is in the right hands: yours.
Outsourcing became something of a business mantra in the nineties and noughties. According to the accepted wisdom of the day, huge savings and dramatic improvements in productivity could be realised if 'non-core activities' were outsourced. Times have changed, though. Rapidly and brutally.
The cold light of day
Much of the last two decades has been characterised by ongoing economic boom, fuelled by plentiful and easily accessible finance. That boom came to a sudden end with the Credit Crunch and the resulting economic downturn. What we have now is the cold light of day, and that light has exposed some uncomfortable truths about IT outsourcing.
The principal reasons for outsourcing an IT network are to make financial savings and to bring in expertise that the network owner does not currently have. In today's climate, a re-think is needed on how much exactly should be outsourced, if outsourcing is the favoured option.
If you don't have the necessary skills in your business to manage your own network, you should bring those skills on board as quickly as possible. Any organisation that fails to learn new technologies and understand today's and tomorrow's Internet is storing up serious trouble for the near future. Web 2.0 and other emerging social networking technologies are here today and here to stay, and new security risks and other threats are arising on a daily basis.
On top of that, successful management of your network demands not only technical expertise, but a deep and continually updated understanding of what your business is all about and what it needs from its network, today and tomorrow. It's likely that any outsourced provider's understanding on this front is going to be weaker in various areas than that of your own people.
This gap in understanding, however small, makes almost any outsourcing of 'all and sundry' an enormous gamble. The Internet is awash with disaster stories testifying in gory detail to the results of such gambles, but what those stories don't always clearly show is that some of them could have worked, if only they hadn’t outsourced absolutely everything in the IT department.
Agility and responsiveness
The current economic challenges, which are impacting all businesses, do seem to be prompting a return to sanity on the outsourcing of company IT networks. This is excellent news, because if there was ever a field in which the age-old maxim "If you want a job doing properly, then do it yourself" applies, it's IT networking.
Key in today's commercial environment is the ability to make the right decisions swiftly. It's that ability that will enable businesses to get ahead and stay ahead. Bureaucracy, indecision and labyrinthine purchasing processes all belong to the last century, along with anything else that hinders a business' ability to act and react with speed and precision.
The need for agility and responsiveness alone rules out wholesale outsourcing of IT networks.
Decision making is inevitably slowed and made less effective, which in turn increases real costs for the organisation, as well as impairing its ability to respond to changing opportunities and threats. Additionally, outsourcing your entire network could mean dealing with your provider's administration team rather than a long in the tooth, hardened purchasing individual. With fixed discounts and pre-set ordering systems, little negotiation can occur and adaptability in the face of changing circumstances and requirements can be severely limited. Surely the days of blind agreement to long-term price structures are long gone?
Partial outsourcing
In many cases, organisations have outsourced their entire IT facility, only to find that, part of the way through the contract, there are such serious problems that the only solution is to bring the arrangement to an end, returning to in-house IT management. The costs and disruption resulting from such a catastrophe are enormous, with the wasted time alone typically running into thousands of man-hours.
I'm not saying that outsourcing is necessarily a complete no-go, although I would certainly recommend exceedingly careful assessment of all of the costs, risks, limitations and potential pitfalls of any contract before committing to it. What I am saying is that complete outsourcing should be a no-go. In almost all the cases in which an outsourcing contract has gone badly wrong, the damage would have been much less comprehensive, and staved off for a longer period of time, if only part of the IT function been outsourced.
Had more time and thought been spent identifying what really needed outsourcing and what didn't, the resulting arrangement could have been far more beneficial to the end user, and significantly longer-lasting. That would have pleased the provider, too, since outsourcing companies calculate risk and costs on the basis of contracts running their full term. And of course the chances of a valuable renewed outsourcing contract would have been increased.
Ten long years
One of our customers is half way through a ten year outsourcing contract, which covers everything from a state-of-the-art 10 gig switch router all the way through to desktop support. Ridiculously (but inevitably) the customer knows far more about the desktops than the outsourced provider does. With the recession biting hard, the customer's income has dropped, but of course the full standing charge must still be paid to the outsourced provider. With internally managed IT, the customer could have cut back or restructured their network, reducing costs and reconfiguring for a leaner operation, but with the outsourced contract, they can't even do that.
That's an extreme case, but it illustrates the issues. The message is clear: don't outsource unless you must, and then only outsource what you must. Never outsource your entire IT function. To enjoy real savings and maintain flexibility and agility, bring the skills you need into your business and manage your own network.
Think of your network as you think of anything else (or anyone else!) highly precious to you. Keep it close and take care of it yourself. Your business depends on it.
Friday, 9 July 2010
Recycle existing network parts
Recycle, recycle, recycle!It's OK. You can relax. This isn't yet another article telling you to be green, to sort and recycle rather than throw away. At least, not just that – and I promise that's the last mention of the 'G' word. I'm going a step further in this month's money-saving tip: before you dispose of decommissioned equipment you pull from your network, consider the possibility of re-using it.
A life lesson from shoesWith three children under six years of age it has become painfully clear to me just how expensive their shoes are. I reckon they must be far and away the most costly items of children's clothing. Of course, no one tells you this before you have children – it's one of those 'life lessons'. And it's a lesson that life takes great delight in ramming home forcefully!
To enhance the lesson, my wife tends towards the view that only the best will do. Now, I don't disagree on this, but the difference in the price tags on apparently very similar shoes from the local supermarket and the high fashion stores can be eye-watering to say the least. Like any father, I want my children to have the best. Higher quality shoes are going to be better for their feet and are likely to last longer. But I'm also keen to make the most of any way to save a bit of cash where I can do so without sacrificing that quality.
I have two daughters. Fortunately they both like pink, and they both take after me in that they have slightly larger and wider than average feet. While they may not be so enthusiastic about the latter, both factors are good news for me. They mean that we can pass shoes from the older daughter to the younger, saving money without upsetting anyone – including my daughters and my wife!
Your network: redeploy, don't throw awayNow – and this, odd though it may seem, is the important bit – your network is like my daughters' feet: 'hand-me-down' strategies work a treat. When you upgrade this or thatsection of your network, do you ever have the nagging feeling that the device you're pulling out could be put to use elsewhere in your infrastructure? Nine times out of ten, it almost certainly could, even if that means using it to upgrade another part of your network before it strictly needs to be upgraded.
Why should you upgrade a section of network that doesn't need to be upgraded yet? After all, the old adage "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" is based on some pretty sound common sense. The reason is that even if that part of your network isn't stretched at the moment, the day will surely come – and probably sooner than you think or hope – when it will be under pressure. Use the parts released by one upgrade to build capacity, capability and reliability in other areas – use your existing investment to secure your network's future.
By doing this, you'll not only please your users but also your finance department, by strengthening the return you get on the original investment in the reused network devices.
Your network infrastructure represents a significant investment – both in terms of hardware and software costs, and also in terms of time and effort. Get the best possible return on that investment and deliver the best possible network service to your users by, wherever possible, carefully redeploying retired equipment rather than disposing of it. After all, when it's gone, it's gone
A life lesson from shoesWith three children under six years of age it has become painfully clear to me just how expensive their shoes are. I reckon they must be far and away the most costly items of children's clothing. Of course, no one tells you this before you have children – it's one of those 'life lessons'. And it's a lesson that life takes great delight in ramming home forcefully!
To enhance the lesson, my wife tends towards the view that only the best will do. Now, I don't disagree on this, but the difference in the price tags on apparently very similar shoes from the local supermarket and the high fashion stores can be eye-watering to say the least. Like any father, I want my children to have the best. Higher quality shoes are going to be better for their feet and are likely to last longer. But I'm also keen to make the most of any way to save a bit of cash where I can do so without sacrificing that quality.
I have two daughters. Fortunately they both like pink, and they both take after me in that they have slightly larger and wider than average feet. While they may not be so enthusiastic about the latter, both factors are good news for me. They mean that we can pass shoes from the older daughter to the younger, saving money without upsetting anyone – including my daughters and my wife!
Your network: redeploy, don't throw awayNow – and this, odd though it may seem, is the important bit – your network is like my daughters' feet: 'hand-me-down' strategies work a treat. When you upgrade this or thatsection of your network, do you ever have the nagging feeling that the device you're pulling out could be put to use elsewhere in your infrastructure? Nine times out of ten, it almost certainly could, even if that means using it to upgrade another part of your network before it strictly needs to be upgraded.
Why should you upgrade a section of network that doesn't need to be upgraded yet? After all, the old adage "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" is based on some pretty sound common sense. The reason is that even if that part of your network isn't stretched at the moment, the day will surely come – and probably sooner than you think or hope – when it will be under pressure. Use the parts released by one upgrade to build capacity, capability and reliability in other areas – use your existing investment to secure your network's future.
By doing this, you'll not only please your users but also your finance department, by strengthening the return you get on the original investment in the reused network devices.
Your network infrastructure represents a significant investment – both in terms of hardware and software costs, and also in terms of time and effort. Get the best possible return on that investment and deliver the best possible network service to your users by, wherever possible, carefully redeploying retired equipment rather than disposing of it. After all, when it's gone, it's gone
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