Increase efficiency and lower costs

Do you know who and what is connected to your network?

The results of a recent survey commissioned by porttracker highlight the monumental task faced by IT and Network managers as they try to manage their port estate.

1 day in every 4 wasted

The survey confirmed that over 25% of a network management team’s time is spent on port estate activity - with over 65% of respondents taking up to 30 minutes to trace and then activate or de-activate a port in their network.

No wonder then that 85% of those surveyed agreed that network managers spend too much time on planning and fire-fighting rather than attending to more strategic issues. Perhaps more telling, 1 in 5 respondents said that they never review their port estate to identify redundant and unused switches and ports … while 1 in 10 said they were adding new ports on a daily basis. porttracker’s survey also confirmed that over 40% of IT and Network managers buy new switch and port hardware on a quarterly basis as a means of increasing the size of their estate.  With each port costing an average of £150 pa to run, it’s hardly the most cost-efficient way of increasing network capacity.

 

Shocking reading…

If it doesn’t surprise you that over 50% of survey respondents said that they did not know what or who was connected to their network or that 26% said that their largest area of expenditure was on general troubleshooting then you probably also identify with the sentiment expressed by over 90% of those surveyed that they had insufficient budget to manage their network connections effectively.

 

Cost inefficiency

The trouble is, throwing new ports or money at the problem of network capacity is an attractive alternative to crawling through ceiling panes and under floor boards … and tugging on wires to identify the right port connections.

The other trouble is – with the current downturn– additional budget is unlikely to be available.  In fact, budget cuts are a more likely scenario … with all accompanying politics and arguments.

 

There’s an incredibly effective solution… porttracker

Over 90% of the respondents in our survey said that a more automated process for network management would be beneficial for their business.

They’re right, porttracker replaces time consuming and unreliable manual procedures by tracking where devices are connected to your network.  porttracker gives a clear picture of what is connected and where by inspecting every port and reporting its operational status and the last time it was used. porttracker can also provide, at any time, a snapshot of all ‘currently active’,  previously active’ and ‘never been active’ ports on the network.

And there’s a choice … IT and Network managers can enjoy the plug-and-play functionality, inbuilt security, 64-bit architecture and 1U rack compatibility of a physical appliance … or opt for the space saving, reduced power and cooling requirements and reduced system recovery time of our downloadable VMware porttracker solution.

Whichever option selected, porttracker can be used standalone or with a sync module which gives the additional benefit of being able to be accessed in a familiar environment by operational staff and synchronising with VitalQIP.

Invest in porttracker and spare network capacity will become clear in seconds.  There’ll be no more reduced downtime while your team troubleshoots ‘what-is-connected-where problems or ‘at-risk’ ports when network security threats arise.

 

So at a time when efficiency and cost reduction are king …

… your investment in porttracker can be reducing operational overheads and port wastage. A company with over 1000 ports needs to identify only 10 redundant ones to cover the cost of investment in porttracker. No one can argue with that!

Contact us now on 01256 303700, or download porttracker v2.0 now for a 30 day free trial.