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Network (In)Visibility Leads to IT Blame Game

Time for IT Managers to Take Back Control
Mike Heumann

Significant changes in the structure and use of IT, including such seismic trends as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), virtualization and cloud computing, have introduced new challenges to IT administrators and staff. Added layers of complexity require new skill sets and knowledge bases as well as tools to effectively run a modern enterprise network. This raises a few questions about how IT teams are coping with the changes.

Well, it appears that IT teams are struggling to gain visibility into what is causing IT problems, and are in many cases not implementing monitoring tools to help. In an Emulex survey of 547 US and European network and security operations (NetOps and SecOps) professionals conducted in the spring of 2014, 77% of respondents said that they had inaccurately reported the root cause of a network or security event to their executive team on at least one occasion. Additionally, 73% of surveyed IT staff said they currently have unresolved network events.

With more than half of US respondents (52%) confirming it costs their organization more than half a million dollars in revenue per hour when they have a network outage or performance degradation, you would assume that identifying unresolved network events would be a critical priority for IT organizations. This expectation is very much not the case – our survey revealed that 45% of organizations are still manually monitoring their networks.

With the flood of “unknown” devices resulting from BYOD (this can be hundreds or thousands of new devices daily), it would seem impossible for IT teams to derive the root cause of any network or security events if they do not have automated network surveillance tools. Startlingly, more than a quarter (26%) of European respondents said they have no plans to monitor the network for performance issues related to BYOD.

As a result of this lack of visibility, 79% of organizations have experienced network events that were attributed to the wrong IT group. This creates an “IT blame game” in which departments have to spend cycles proving their innocence, rather than getting to the root cause of network events and fixing them. If this trend continues, in tandem with increased virtualization and device proliferation, it will almost certainly lead to more outages and lost revenue.

It is also interesting to note that 83% of respondents said there has been an increase in the number of security events they have investigated in the past year. What will it take to make IT teams realize that without 100% visibility across their networks, the business is in jeopardy? The time is now for IT managers to take back control.

Mike Heumann is VP of Product Marketing and Alliances at Emulex.

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Network (In)Visibility Leads to IT Blame Game

Time for IT Managers to Take Back Control
Mike Heumann

Significant changes in the structure and use of IT, including such seismic trends as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), virtualization and cloud computing, have introduced new challenges to IT administrators and staff. Added layers of complexity require new skill sets and knowledge bases as well as tools to effectively run a modern enterprise network. This raises a few questions about how IT teams are coping with the changes.

Well, it appears that IT teams are struggling to gain visibility into what is causing IT problems, and are in many cases not implementing monitoring tools to help. In an Emulex survey of 547 US and European network and security operations (NetOps and SecOps) professionals conducted in the spring of 2014, 77% of respondents said that they had inaccurately reported the root cause of a network or security event to their executive team on at least one occasion. Additionally, 73% of surveyed IT staff said they currently have unresolved network events.

With more than half of US respondents (52%) confirming it costs their organization more than half a million dollars in revenue per hour when they have a network outage or performance degradation, you would assume that identifying unresolved network events would be a critical priority for IT organizations. This expectation is very much not the case – our survey revealed that 45% of organizations are still manually monitoring their networks.

With the flood of “unknown” devices resulting from BYOD (this can be hundreds or thousands of new devices daily), it would seem impossible for IT teams to derive the root cause of any network or security events if they do not have automated network surveillance tools. Startlingly, more than a quarter (26%) of European respondents said they have no plans to monitor the network for performance issues related to BYOD.

As a result of this lack of visibility, 79% of organizations have experienced network events that were attributed to the wrong IT group. This creates an “IT blame game” in which departments have to spend cycles proving their innocence, rather than getting to the root cause of network events and fixing them. If this trend continues, in tandem with increased virtualization and device proliferation, it will almost certainly lead to more outages and lost revenue.

It is also interesting to note that 83% of respondents said there has been an increase in the number of security events they have investigated in the past year. What will it take to make IT teams realize that without 100% visibility across their networks, the business is in jeopardy? The time is now for IT managers to take back control.

Mike Heumann is VP of Product Marketing and Alliances at Emulex.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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