By 2010, 60% of organisations willoutsourcemajor parts of their network management because of the
difficulties and risks involved with managing services internally,
Forrester Research has predicted.
The demands placed on internal networks by the business mean
that IT managers are burdened with managing network services across
silos such as servers, storage, security, databases and
applications, said Evelyn Hubbert, senior analyst at Forrester.
"Network management has become more than just pinging routers
and checking device availability. Today, it is more about getting a
handle on ensuring secure, reliable service delivery across
distributed networks," she said.
David Willis, vice-president at analyst firm Gartner, said key
areas where it made sense to have network services hosted by third
parties included remote monitoring and management, telecoms
management, IP telephony
and managed mobility.
"The advantage of a hosted platform is that the equipment
resides in a carrier-class environment, with high availability,
back-up power, network redundancy and physical security," he
said.
Many enterprises see a risk in buying IP telephony and mobility
equipment, as they could quickly become obsolete given the pace of
change, said Willis.
Research from Gartner indicates increased adoption of leased IP
telephony infrastructure within enterprise as a way of shifting the
cost of maintenance and upgrades to a third-party supplier.
Findings from the 2007 CMA market survey of 354 UK network
professionals identified voice over IP (59%), and
enterprise mobility (41%) as the main drivers for firms' future
network plans.
However, the survey also found that users were concerned with
the overall experience of the fixed and mobile services they had
deployed on their networks.
"The growing impact of IP on enterprise mobility makes it
critical that our members' companies get the quality of service
they need and that suppliers make significant efforts to better
themselves in this area," said CMA chairman Carolyn Kimber.