Cost-effective Network Management: Features And Characteristics

Information Technology could be called the precursor to business automation. The automation extended outwards and included other linked sphere of operations related to the central business venture. Synchronisation of these disparate operations in order to be able to achieve one singular end result gave rise to networks. Managing these networks was a costly affair. In order to ensure profit margins Cost-effective network management systems became an object in demand.

A complete network is made up of two components. They are the hardware component and the software component. One has to only see it to believe it so far as the number of individual components that comprise a complete network.

When any one of these components faces a bug that retards or stops its working the Network Manager is the individual who is called upon to provide a solution. A complete view of the network and its operations from wherever the network manager is located becomes a necessity for providing the solution. Given the ever changing scenario of any business house which goes with the current volatile market factors, the individual networks that run the business house proceedings are equally altering. A pencil drawn map of the network one day would never match the same drawn on a subsequent day.

A tool which is capable of providing a continuously updated view of the network and its functioning is the need of the day. This software should also have the capability to permit the network manager remotely manage the various components that make up the network..

Managed Services Provider is one such class of software which gives an integrated view of the complete network and the various programs that is running upon it. The software could be one that needs no user intervention, then there are others which need to be executed by a network manager and there are those which are a mix of both. Depending on availability and competence of the network manager the type of MSP software is to be selected. Cost saving factor of such software requires no amplification. Rather than having individual network manager at each individual physical location trying to talk with each other, one network manager sitting remotely is able to monitor and provide solutions to the individual network system.

The power and ability of MSP software is judged mainly by the reporting capability of the software and by the view spectrum of the entire network that this MSP software is able to project. Makers of the software would however attach various other features to their product to add selling value to it. Ease with which the MSP software itself could be deployed across the network or how demanding is the software on system resources are such additional features that the makers claim while marketing their products. The prime factor on which would depend the success story of a business house today is how cost-effective a network the house is able to sustain. Managed Service Provider helps is lowering the cost incurred by the business house towards its e-business venture and therefore it can be termed as the most Cost-effective Network Management tool.