Opinion: vendor relationships – the more the merrier

Some IT leaders believe the best infrastructure is one supplied entirely by a single vendor. However, a report by Gartner, Debunking the Myth of the Single-Vendor Network, questions the widely held belief that a single-vendor network is best – a myth driven predominantly by infrastructure suppliers with proprietary solutions.

The research states: “Network architects and CIOs who don’t re-evaluate long-held incumbent vendor decisions on a periodic basis are not living up to fiduciary responsibilities to their organisation.”

Capital cost savings from moving to a multi-vendor infrastructure range from 30 to 50 per cent, and maintenance cost savings from 40 to 95 per cent, depending on the contract. These are significant savings, and it doesn’t end there: complexity and manageability can also be improved by moving to a multi-vendor environment.

Gartner’s figures on cost savings, and the clear efficiency and performance benefits of selecting best-of-breed solutions, create a compelling proposition for unlocking the enterprise from the grip of a single vendor.

What’s more, as organisations have to support the rapid consumerisation of IT across the enterprise, networks that are tied into one vendor are missing real opportunities for business and cost improvement because procurement, integration and training are pre-determined.

While there are some specific measures that organisations can take to move away from a single-vendor environment to minimise the painful “rip-and-replace”, there is one over-arching consideration – and that is openness.

Proprietary systems not only lock you into specific hardware deployments, they also limit the software and applications you can deploy, meaning you are unable to take advantage of the new devices and applications flooding the market.

Whether it is in implementing a new core that needs to have a unified OS throughout every switching layer, or whether it’s in implementing a web app that needs to run vXML, or a media addition such as video, openness should pervade everything within the infrastructure. 

In future, everything will have openness evaluated alongside other ROI factors.
If it won’t integrate with other elements within the infrastructure easily – legacy or future – then it does not possess long-term value.

 Manish Sablok is head of marketing at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise