I've had the opportunity over the past couple of years to work with a large customer of mine on a refresh of their entire infrastructure. Network management tools were one of the last pieces to be addressed as emphasis had been on legacy hardware first and the direction for management tools had not been established. This mini-series will highlight this company's journey and the problems solved, insights gained, as well as unresolved issues that still need addressing in the future. Hopefully this help other companies or individuals going through the process. Topics will include discovery around types of tools, how they are being used, who uses them and for what purpose, their fit within the organization, and lastly what more they leave to be desired.

Blog Series
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IT organizations who have followed this segregated path of each team purchasing the tools they need tend to have some areas that have sufficient monitoring as well as areas in which there no visibility exists. Predictably these gaps in visibility tend to reside between areas of responsibility or the "gray space" within an organization. Common examples of gray space could be the interaction between applications, clients and the transport between the two, the network and mobile devices, guest devices/users and their traffic patterns, help desk and network issues.

In a collaborative environment, the team is able to review the entirety of the tool set and discuss where gaps may exist. It is important that the right players have a seat at the table for these discussions - this will range from traditional network, application, security, and help desk teams to some of the newer teams like the mobile device teams. Spend some time exploring pain points within the existing work flows as these may stem from lack of knowledge that could be supplemented by one of the tools. There may be tools that aren't shared and that is quite alright, taking a phased approach to implementing tool sets on a wider basis will help ensure that these groups are getting tools that impact their ability to do their job.

With my customer we found the following to work:

Network Management
Consolidate network and wireless management tools to create "single pane of glass"
Troubleshooting tools helped the help desk resolve issues faster and provided them with access to info that could be more difficult to walk end users through providing.
Increase awareness of Netman and ensure contractors know how to use it

Point Solutions
Expand access to IPAM solution to include help desk and contractors as it helps with network address planning and troubleshooting
Increase awareness of available scripts and create internal portal so that others know where to find them and how to use them

Expand NAC Integration Through APIs
Integrate NAC via its APIs so that it shared data with Infoblox and Palo Alto improving network visibility for guests and improving Infoblox reporting
Integrate NAC with log aggregation tool so that it has more device data
Expand log aggregation tool access to all senior IT staff

Operations
Improve ticketing system notification to include facilities for outage window
Create documentation repository on Box.com so that all IT members can reach it

Issues to Address
Visibility into the Nexus data center infrastructures is lacking
Legacy cloud managed switches floating around that need to be dealt with. These have a great management platform in their own right, but they aren't integrated properly
Mobile device visibility and management at this point
Server visibility tools have not been shared with anyone outside of server team at this point as we are evaluating
Application performance management


The development of organizational tools should be an iterative process and each step should bring the company closer to its goals. The total value of a well integrated management system is greater than the sum of its parts as it can eliminate some of the holes in the processes. While many positive changes have been made, there are still many more to work through. This company has opted for a pace that enables them to make slow steady process on these tools while having to maintain day to day operations and plan for many future tools. Brand new tools will likely be integrated by VARs/System Integrators to ensure full deployment while minimizing impact on the IT staff.