Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) released its latest research report entitled Managing Networks in the Age of Cloud, SDN, and Big Data: Network Management Megatrends 2014.
Based on research criteria defined by EMA Vice President of Research, Network Management, Jim Frey, and EMA Principal Research Analyst, Tracy Corbo, this new research study looks at the current state of networks and network management, and examines five major areas of change and evolution affecting network management. These areas are cloud and virtualization, Software Defined Networking (SDN), big data, the rise of log data and APIs as management data sources, and the ongoing convergence of network operations teams and tools.
The study also examines the context and influence that broader IT and organizational priorities and projects are having on network management priorities, as well as resulting requirements for network management products and solutions. The findings reveal the experiences and objectives that a broad range of organizations have had regarding network management, and thus should serve as a source of requirements and input for strategic network engineering and operations planning.
Some of the key findings in this study include:
- 80% of network engineers and managers are finding it necessary to learn new programming/scripting skills to keep up with increasing numbers of device and system APIs
- 80% of organizations are willing to consider consuming network management in a SaaS model
- 60%+ of organizations rely on log data analysis to support network monitoring, planning, and troubleshooting – more than any other data source.
- While the average organization uses 4-5 tools for network monitoring and troubleshooting, 1/3 of large organizations are using 11 or more tools, and some are using more than 25!
“The world of networks and network management are being rocked by disruptive trends such as cloud, SDN, and big data,” said Frey. “While network management is considered by many to be a mature discipline, our results indicate there is a lot of work remaining to accommodate these new initiatives and bring the network management into the cloud and big data era.”
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