When researching the Unified Network Management Solution market space there are many sources of information available; vendor websites, market analysts, awarding bodies, community forums and magazine reviews. All this information can quite easily conflict and serve to confuse researchers.
To complicate matters further, vendors market their product functionality using the same or similar terms, but actually when looking a little deeper, the researcher often finds what a term means for one vendor, means something entirely different to another.
For example; the term Root Cause Analysis could mean that the management software automatically has an understanding of the topology of a network and is able to send alerts only on the failure of one device that is impacting many. Another product may only be able to achieve this by pre-configuring a series of manual rules which will require maintaining during the life of the tool.
As IT Professionals absorb all these information sources and the difference in perspectives, it can become very confusing and it’s easy to lose sight of what their business needs.
This document will identify areas that the author believes need to be considered when investigating the deployment of a new unified network management solution. In addition it provides a check list of key capabilities to use when comparing different vendors to be used within RFI’s and business cases.