Breaking free

In a time of economic uncertainty, technology continues to advance and business challenges have only intensified. IT managers are being asked to do more with fewer resources and smaller IT budgets.

The days of excessive IT spending are now a thing of the past, as the impact of the global economic downturn causes businesses to examine their network infrastructure and ask for less expensive, more flexible solutions that can support business objectives.

As a result, businesses face three major challenges:

* Cost containment - How to reduce network acquisition costs as well as ongoing support and maintenance costs.
* Infrastructure scalability - How to ensure future support, unlock proprietary architectures and ensure best-in-class solutions.
* Network complexity - How to unify wired and wireless networks and simplify management.

To address these challenges and maintain or achieve leadership in these difficult economic times, there is an inherent need to drive a set of actions or strategic imperatives to reduce Capex and Opex while achieving operational agility in response to new business opportunities and competitive pressures.

A standards-based approach to networking addresses these challenges, allowing businesses to break free from proprietary networks to respond to competitive pressures and take advantage of new opportunities by:

* Improving cost management while deploying the latest generation networking capabilities.
* Providing choice and flexibility by leveraging industry-leading networking solutions.
* Reducing network complexity to dramatically simplify operations.

Proprietary network architecture limits network choice and flexibility.

Lorna Hardie is ProCurve Networking business unit manager at HP South Africa.

Managing costs:
The foundation of this necessity rests on certain companies' ability to provide businesses a choice with open standards. With intense budget pressures looming overhead, other networking vendors offer equipment that is more expensive to purchase in the short-term, and leave IT budgets burdened by high annual support costs for years to come. Efficient networking solutions are needed to help reduce operational costs (labour associated with network administration and troubleshooting) and mitigate risk.

Choice and flexibility:
Proprietary network architecture limits network choice and flexibility, stifling the opportunity to design unique and innovative network infrastructure customised to meet specific business needs. With an adoption of a standards-based approach, businesses can choose from best-in-class networking solutions with lower acquisition cost and investment protection for incremental growth.

Reduce complexity:
Networking is complex by nature and will likely become more complex due to the speed at which technology is evolving. As networks are increasingly relied on to do more, the number of applications and amount of hardware needed also increases. Combined with personnel costs to manage the increased functionality and space and power consideration, costs can rapidly rise. Increased functionality also gives way to heightened security risks. Business can also simplify networking with complete end-to-end network solutions that automate data centre operations (DCM), centralise network management (wired and wireless connectivity) and align with the need to make IT more productive.

Networking infrastructure is difficult to build and even more difficult to operate as the network grows in size and complexity. Yet the risk lies in the silo approach of innovation that proprietary vendors take and the inherent complexity it brings. Information-driven organisations need large, fast and flexible networks with intelligence at the edge to adapt to changing business needs, support application management, promote efficient maintenance and provide the ability to provision applications. With the high cost and complexity of many networking vendors, the question of proprietary versus standards-based networking should be addressed.

Traditional proprietary networking platforms are typically developed based on strategic pricing decisions for the products sold directly to the end-user, as well as complementary products offered by other vendors. Simply put, this longstanding business model contains intellectual property created by the vendor, which is shared through licensing to maintain a competitive advantage and drive revenue. Their perceived ease of adoption and ability of the vendor to provide professional services, make them an attractive option at first glance. However, this model also has a down side. Proprietary networks are inherently inflexible offerings that entail arduous and extremely high maintenance costs. They also lack the key components needed to achieve optimal centralised network management.

A recent shift towards networking infrastructure based on open standards is helping to redefine the economics of networking, offering an alternative to the inflexible, costly propriety solutions businesses have come to rely on. Open standards-based platforms, when used in conjunction with complementary applications provide customers with a choice of the best available solution now and into the future. This ability to leverage the right balance of applications and hardware can optimise business results and break free from the restrictions of proprietary technology that stifles innovative network infrastructure and better business outcomes.

The strategy of driving a standards-based approach to networking allows organisations to meet strategic imperatives and achieve operational efficiency in response to new business opportunities and competitive pressures.