Netcordia Offers Integrated Management to the Mid-Sized Firm

By Arthur C. Cole

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

Ever-increasing burdens on enterprise networks – from security and compliance responsibilities to burgeoning voice and data traffic – is leading to new solutions aimed at boosting management and analysis capabilities.

The latest systems are targeting mid-sized businesses that are quickly ramping up their networks, and are thus finding themselves more dependent than ever on the smooth flow of information to boost sales and productivity and increase the bottom line.

Netcordia, of Annapolis, Md., is making a new play for this market with the release of a series of appliance modules in its NetMRI line. Dubbed the NetMRI Campus, the system is designed for organizations running between 50 and 150 routers, switches or access points either on the local or wide area network.

“We’re seeing significant market growth with voice over IP (VoIP) and video, not to mention growing concerns about security and compliance,” said Paul Markun, vice president of marketing at Netcording, during an interview with TMCnet. “Plus there’s the fact that there are so many more applications – critical applications – going out over the networks.”


Markun said that one of the main problems with the network management industry today is that only the top-tier solutions can provide the kind of over-arching network functionality that mid-level companies are starting to require. Most mid-level approaches are geared toward legacy silos within the enterprise, making it difficult to overcome many of the configuration and integration issues that exist between business units.

The NetMRI Campus system was designed to offer a single approach to give system administrators a way to examine configuration and performance across all routers and switches. It also provides a means to generate and maintain standard or customized best practices and automatically fix problems before they begin to seriously degrade network operability.

“The system continuously builds a library of best practices, either through industry or manufacturer recommendations or from clients implementing their own rules,” Markun said. “It also has the ability to implement configuration command scripts (CSIs) to update routers that may be outside of specifications, allowing engineers to correct configuration issues in the network.”

The MRI system is appliance-based, running on Linux with a built-in Web server. The system is adept at running across multiple platforms and vendors, including Cisco, Juniper, Foundry, Extreme, Avaya (News - Alert), Notel, HP and Alcatel (News - Alert).

Netcordia is highly channel-oriented, Markun said, operating through eight sales regions tied to local channel partners. The company is also branching out into the Pacific Rim and Europe, lining up resellers in the U.K., Switzerland and Germany.

Markun said network management is likely to remain a crucial growth area going forward as organizations require ever-increasing functionality.

“People have high expectations when it comes to the experiences they have over their networks,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot more video, along with voice. And then there are things like hosted applications and distributed storage where data is being swapped around a lot more. All of these things allow firms to leverage their infrastructure, but it puts on a tremendous strain as well.”

Fixed-mobile convergence is no longer a matter of “if” but “when” and although projections vary on timing, everyone knows the it is now inevitable. How can service providers capitalize on it? What do enterprises and end-users to need to do to prepare for it? Be sure to attend the Mobility Summit taking place at INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & Expo, WEST, which runs October 10-13, 2006, in San Diego.

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Arthur Cole is a freelance writer specializing in high-tech information and communications. To see more of his articles, visit his columnist page.