How optimizing the business network could help you optimize your career

Wide Area Networking This newsletter is sponsored by Akamai Technologies Improve app performance globally Find out how Nike made the decision to go with a managed Web application service provider to improve performance on one of its key retail applications. After deciding a distributed datacenter was too costly, Nike went with Akamai. Its once sluggish app is now chugging along. Network World's Wide Area Networking Newsletter, 07/31/07 How optimizing the business network could help you optimize your career By Steve Taylor and Jim Metzler As recently as a few years ago, it was difficult to find a network organization that was concerned with application delivery but now it is top of mind for the vast majority of businesses. Because of this, we’ve written extensively on the topic and have discussed application delivery from myriad perspectives, including trying to make sense of how the key vendors compare and sorting through the relevant issues on the minds of IT organizations. One perspective we’ve not previously discussed is the impact of application delivery on our careers. We believe the impact is a classic good news/bad news situation. To put the good news into perspective, we believe that it is often difficult for the networking organization to be seen as providing direct business benefit. OK, there is no doubt that the company could not function without the WAN, but it also could not function without electricity. That does not mean that the company’s senior business managers believe that electricity provides direct business benefit. They know they need it and they just expect it to be there. In many cases, the same thing applies to the WAN. The difference being that many senior business managers would rather have a conversation about electricity than about MPLS or other WAN technologies. So what’s the good news? The good news is that while senior business managers are not interested in WAN technologies, they are interested in the performance of the few key applications that they use to run their business. This presents the network organization with the opportunity to show business value, and potentially bolster our careers, by demonstrating how we ensure that the company’s key business applications exhibit acceptable performance. Get Up to Speed on the Latest in WLANs Easily stay on top of the latest developments and issues in WLAN technology, standards, security, telephony, management and more with Network World's latest Executive Guide, "Keeping Up With the Wireless Whirlwind." Click here to download! As mentioned, there is also bad news, ensuring acceptable application performance is extremely difficult. One of the reasons is because ensuring acceptable application performance requires the tight integration of multiple tasks. As explained in our Performance Management Mandate report, some of the tasks that must be integrated include planning, optimization, management and control. We will come back to the topic of integrating these tasks in our next newsletter. As we said, ensuring acceptable application performance is not easy but we believe the effort is worth it for a number of reasons. We’d have better careers if we are perceived as adding and managing the functionality required to ensure the performance of the applications that the company uses to run their business than if we are perceived as merely managing commodity-like WAN services. We would like to hear from you on the topic of how application delivery is impacting your job. One thing that we are particularly curious about is whether you are spending less time on classic networking issues such as fault management and more on issues of application performance and security.   What do you think? Post a comment on this newsletter

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Contact the author: Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. For more detailed information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter, connect to Webtorials, the premier site for Web-based educational presentations, white papers, and market research. Taylor can be reached at taylor@webtorials.com Jim Metzler is the Vice President of Ashton, Metzler & Associates, a consulting organization that focuses on leveraging technology for business success. Jim assists vendors to refine product strategies, service providers to deploy technologies and services, and enterprises evolve their network infrastructure. He can be reached via e-mail. This newsletter is sponsored by Akamai Technologies Improve app performance globally Find out how Nike made the decision to go with a managed Web application service provider to improve performance on one of its key retail applications. After deciding a distributed datacenter was too costly, Nike went with Akamai. Its once sluggish app is now chugging along. ARCHIVE Archive of the Wide Area Networking Newsletter. BONUS FEATURE IT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE You've got the technology snapshot of your choice delivered to your inbox each day. Extend your knowledge with a print subscription to the Network World newsweekly, Apply here today. International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: networking.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007