Summer is over. Memories of sun-soaked beaches fade into the past, to be replaced by meetings and financial negotiations. For IT managers, getting back to business often means making difficult decisions about their network resources. Faced with a strict budget and an abundance of choices, all promising dramatic network performance im-provements, what is the best purchasing investment to make?

The choice often boils down to the latest gadgetry, or the more unpresumptuous network management tools. If money were no object, it would be tempting to recommend both. But in the real world, choices need to be made. And the fact is that the network infrastructure and its connectivity capabilities underpin all of the latest appliances and applications. Networks are vital to a company’s success and they do not have the luxury of taking a holiday while being upgraded.

A sure-fire way to help customers increase network performance is to deploy a strong network management suite. Being able to take stock of what is installed in every remote branch office from a busy headquarters environment relieves some of the pressure of managing the network and promotes monitoring for change. This means customers’ IT managers can spend more time being pro-active and less time fire-fighting.

For customers, the ability to scrutinise a network’s resources offers the capability to effectively support new IP-based services. What good is voice over IP if lag interrupts a phone call? The key to smooth service implementation is being able to react to network changes such as bandwidth bottlenecks and equipment failures. A robust network management suite is the answer. This provides the means to see the resources, how they are interconnected and their impact and contribution to business applications and services.

Networks today need to support a business’s strategic IT initiatives and business objectives. A network management suite delivers real-time and historical information to help evaluate a network’s performance in conjunction with business objectives such as improving productivity.

In addition, strategic business initiatives, such as establishing QoS configurations, are handled expertly by the network, and can be monitored for maximum efficiency. Justification of new capital expenditures can be determined with valuable historical data. All of this network visibility is achieved with a robust network management suite that effectively stores asset information, capacity data and connectivity parameters to successfully run a business’s network.

Return on investment is almost immediate once all devices are discovered and put under management scrutiny. IT managers can effectively see where they need to either add equipment or maximise existing resources to save time and money.

With network management tools, IT departments can align business objectives with IT initiatives, deploy IP-based services using up-to-date data, and maximise network capacity. What’s more, the broad view from the core to the edge of the network gives a clear picture for ensuring a network’s operation increases performance, profitability and success. Getting back to business has never been more productive.