Remote relationship

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Foundry believes that RIM is going to keep growing. - Franchesca Walker, marketing director for enterprise solutions, Foundry Networks.

Say when

A key issue that must be considered is the point at which an enterprise needs to invest in RIM. Most vendors are of the opinion that it is never too early to make the move.

"In my opinion, any enterprise with some sort of a network needs to have a minimal network management system implemented. I do not think you can exclude any enterprise from implementing an element management system or a network management system and having a cohesive strategy that meshes the two together in the network," says Dabbousi.

Foundry's Walker agrees in part with this assessment. "We think they should start at the beginning. There are a number of reasons for this. With RIM you get security capabilities and management of the security because once you identify a threat you want to remediate it immediately. So you will require your network and your remote access management to address and rectify that."

Richard Addey, sales director MEA at NEC sees it a little differently as he believes that the issue is not whether an enterprise needs RIM but when the individual organisation is ready to implement it.

"There is no question about it, remote infrastructure management is critical from the smallest company through to the largest multinational. The real issue is when are you ready to go this way because obviously there is a financial investment but also a mental leap that must be made," says Addey.

What's stopping them?

The question of cost crops up in any discussions regarding RIM as the initial investment can prove quite expensive, though the eventual payoff might be larger.

"The first challenge is obviously getting the buy in from management when justifying the cost of the product and getting them to instead focus on future returns and benefits," says Addey.

However, according to the vendors, this is only one of the obstacles encountered amongst many others, including control and education.

"The big issue we see is the perceived loss of control from the client's perspective, especially customers with a strong infrastructure. There is always the fear they are giving up control over significant parts of their operation.

We try and address this by bringing the same passion they feel for their enterprise to the table during all our discussions, because they need to feel that the instructions they have given you receives the same sort of emotional attention and not just the technical attention that they would have for it," says Bartosch.

"When it comes to a lot of new technologies, you must always address the possible security challenges you may face. We also find that there are challenges surrounding the adoption of new work habits and new processes in the remote offices, where certain departments inside the enterprise may need to change the work processes and behaviour to be able to adapt to the new functionalities that you then introduce into the system," says Dabbousi.

Dabousi continues to point out the difficulties in replicating performance across such large areas and remote sites as well as issues with network resilience.

"I think the biggest challenge is human communication. When a new project goes in to production the process can sometimes be not that seamless, and not all the components included in the monitoring. We have matured and try to have our processes more streamlined so that there is a clear handover between the projects team and the operations team, and the network operations centre," points out Guha.

Let's talk value

While challenges and issues associated with RIM remain, especially when enterprises take on the load themselves, end- users and vendors agree that there is a host of benefits to be reaped from outsourcing the management of services.

"We have seen a measurable return on our investment. This is measured in terms of quick turn around times for problem resolutions and operational tasks," elaborates Al Mulla.

"The benefits of RIM is not a question of dirhams or dollars in my opinion. Instead, there is definitely a tangible benefit in that we are constantly achieving uptime numbers of 99.8%, and have even hit numbers of 99.9% over some months," says Guha.

"Over the last two and a half years we have been averaging this on an overall scale, and with key network components and key server components we are seeing results close to 99.9%. Considering the type of availability and criticality that RTA has to ensure, I think we have received great return on investment," Guha continues.

From the viewpoint of Nokia Siemens' Bartosch, RIM can bring a number of benefits to the enterprise, including reduced costs and higher availability of the infrastructure. "At the end of the day it brings reduced operational costs, higher quality of the services they are delivering by using their own infrastructure, as well as less painful growth because we can help them improve the asset utilisation of the infrastructure in terms of bottom line impact," explains Bartosch.

"The cost savings for an enterprise are substantial as the enterprise does not need to make a big investment but can reap the benefits from expert support and infrastructure," says Fortinet's Simonelli.

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