Last Comments from Interop

I always love coming to Interop in Vegas. This year’s show is over and it definitely was a success. Ok, it was not the Interop of ten years ago. The show did, however, perform a critical task. For three days it brought together thousands of IT professionals and provided them with a platform by which they could learn about technology, ask questions and in general expand their understanding of technology and its myriad uses.  

One of my panels today explored the need for IT organizations to rethink their LAN strategy. The four panelists were Manfred Arndt of HP, Jeff Prince of Consentry, Barry Cioe of Enterasys and Kumar Srikantan of Cisco.  These are four leaders in our industry and I was very pleased to have them on the panel.

It should not come as a surprise to any of you that all four panelists were of the opinion that IT organizations need to deploy LAN switching functionality that is different from what was deployed just a few years ago. For example, Prince stated his belief that LAN access switches need to be able to natively understand context and use that for myriad purposes, including providing more flexible security. Cioe suggested that the movement to SaaS and cloud computing drives the need for visibility and control beyond Layer 4 in order to understand transactions and prevent the leak of intellectual property or confidential content. Arndt discussed how the growing movement to implement unified communications drives the need for technology such as Power over Ethernet (POE), POE Plus with intelligent power management and multi-user network access protection (NAP) based on 802.1X. Srikantan talked about how the next generation of LAN switching is characterized by base hardware (i.e., Gig Access w/ POE Plus), base services (i.e., L2 and routed access), enhanced services (i.e., MPLS and IP SLA), service modules (i.e., server balancing and firewalls) and investment protection; i.e., 7 to 10 year lifecycle and incremental upgrades.

I buy off on one of Srikantan’s key points – that being that the LAN switches that IT organizations deploy need to have a 7 to 10 year lifecycle and be able to also support incremental upgrades. I also believe that access switches need to be intelligent enough to support applications such as unified communications and also support the evolving security requirements. One last point that I buy off on is that the data center LAN needs to evolve in order to support the highly consolidated, highly virtualized data centers that many large companies are on the road to implementing. At this point in time, however, I don’t have a good handle on what I think the new data center LAN needs to look like.   That is still a work in progress.

While moderating eleven panels at Interop was fun, I am not all that sad that the show is over with. As much as I love coming to Interop in Vegas, I really love going home to Sanibel.

Jim Metzler

A Comparison of Application Performance Management (APM) Vendors

Management used to be focused primarily on the availability of network devices such as switches and routers. However, in the last few years the focus of management has evolved to where it now typically includes the performance of both networks and applications. While the shift has been relatively recent, the industry is flooded with vendors who claim to offer application performance management (APM) products. Viewed from a hundred thousand foot level, the majority of APM tool vendors all make very similar promises. Most if not all APM tool vendors promise that their products can help to identify when the performance of an application is degrading and can help to identify the component of IT that is causing the degradation; i.e., is it the WAN or the servers that is causing the degradation. Some APM tool vendors claim that their tools also enable an IT organization to identify the particular sub-element (e.g., the particular WAN link or server) that is causing the degradation.

The first panel that I will be moderating at Interop is entitled “Application Performance Management”. The primary goal of this panel is to help IT organizations get better at APM. A secondary goal is to help IT organizations understand some of the primary similarities and differences amongst APM vendors. To achieve those goals I have invited three APM vendors to the panel. Those vendors are Fluke Networks, NetQoS and CA. I have asked each of the panelists to spend about 15 minutes discussing what it takes for IT organizations to be successful with APM. At the conclusion of the formal presentations we will have a Q&A. I will start the Q&A by asking each of the panelists to discuss how their company is differentiated in the marketplace. After that, I will turn it over to the audience for further questions.

The panel will be held Tuesday, May the 19th from 10:15 to 11:15 in Breakers E. If you are going to be at Interop, I invite you to attend.

Jim Metzler