New Survey Identifies Network Monitoring Concerns Among Security and Operations Professionals
81 Percent of Organizations Lack Sufficient Visibility Into Network Traffic, Putting Availability and Performance of Enterprise Applications and Services at Risk
AUSTIN, Texas — Januray 19, 2010 — According to a new research report by industry analyst and consulting firm Enterprise Management Associates, insufficient network monitoring coverage is a pervasive and growing problem among enterprises, combining network, tool and people challenges. Of those surveyed, only 19 percent of organizations currently believe they have adequate monitoring coverage, a problem exacerbated by increasing data center complexity and the migration to 10Gigabit Ethernet environments.
Each year, enterprises spend hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars on network monitoring tools such as intrusion detection systems, application monitors, VoIP analyzers, data recorders, and protocol analyzers, among others. With all of these investments, data center and security professionals find themselves with a growing arsenal of tools, few of which are deployed optimally. As a result, enterprises are forced to make tradeoffs between network coverage, tool connectivity, and staff availability to monitor more of the network.
Commissioned by Anue Systems, Inc., the study Monitoring Optimization 2010: Trends and Issues Surrounding Network and Security Monitoring reflects the opinions of network operations and security professionals who say the shortage of network access ports, lack of available monitoring tools, and understaffed data centers – where personnel are required to “wear many hats” – all contribute to a state of increased operational risk within IT environments.
“While companies have invested heavily in monitoring tools, our research shows there are still significant gaps between the demands of network and security monitoring, and the ability to fully optimize tool utilization,” said Jim Frey, research director at Enterprise Management Associates. “With ongoing pressures to do more with less, technologies that facilitate better sharing and leveraging of management data for multiple functional purposes should find favor, while delivering rapid improvement of key IT metrics for uptime, security, and performance.”
Key findings of the EMA research study include:
Lack of Network Visibility
Poor Tool Utilization
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72% of companies said their monitoring tools are deployed sub-optimally (47% are under-utilized and 25% drop packets because of over-subscription)
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65% of respondents face significant monitoring challenges when migrating to 10Gigabit Ethernet, including the inability to monitor 10G traffic with existing 1G tools
Staff Availability and Skill Gaps
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24% of companies reported a lack of support staff for monitoring
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80% of respondents find it difficult to manage tool optimization using filters due to reasons such as the frequency of updates required, lack of command line interface (CLI) skills, and overall staff skill shortages
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62% reported a trend toward generalist roles on network and security teams, reducing the availability of technical specialists like network architects
“This survey reinforces many of the trends we’ve seen with our customers, as enterprises struggle to extend existing monitoring tools to meet the needs of new network technologies,” said Hemi Thaker, CEO of Anue Systems, Inc. “We introduced our Monitoring Optimization solution to help organizations better manage access to network traffic, tool utilization, and staff productivity. This frees up network operations and security teams to spend more time and money on strategic business initiatives, and less on routine management issues.”
About Anue Systems
Anue Systems is the market and technology leader in network visibility solutions. The Austin, Texas based company was founded in 2002 and is a leading provider of Network Emulation and Monitoring Optimization solutions. The world’s leading network equipment vendors, enterprises, and service providers use the Anue Network Emulator to see and test the real impact of the wide area network on networked applications. Fortune 2000 companies use the Anue 5200 Series Net Tool Optimizer to optimize their network visibility, tool utilization, and staff productivity for network, security, and application monitoring activities. Anue Systems has over five hundred customers worldwide.
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