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Men&Mice at Gartner IOCS: making network management business-compatible

It’s good to be reminded just how real the business ramifications of bad network management are.

Nov 21st, 2019

Men&Mice will be visiting the Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Cloud Strategies Conference next week, 25–26 November, in London. We’re always excited to attend events, and we’re particularly excited to meet the business side of network management through Gartner. One key issue is people often forgetting that IT is not siloed. Networks are the mission-critical component. It’s good to be reminded just how real the business ramifications of bad network management are.

The other is the emerging realization for high-level business executives that, in the long run, it’s the technology vendors who reap the profit of innovation. We’ll be at Gartner IOCS to show them: they can (and should!) also get a generous slice of that pie.

Network management that makes business sense

Our CEO Magnús Björnsson will give a talk on Tuesday about what we came to call compound networks. It’s a term we like because it’s inclusive. It’s on-premise and hybrid cloud and multicloud and everything in-between and beyond.

De-coupling the control plane of network management from the underlying hardware and software infrastructure is the most critical task of today. Network management tools designed for local, homogeneous environments (even if 'local' means a single cloud platform) simply cannot handle the global, heterogeneous reality of today’s IT landscape.

And, for business leaders, they no longer make business sense. IT, and networks in particular, grew out of the confines of “local” — why does network management cling to the idea still?

Businesses shouldn’t have to keep re-investing in their networks

Businesses are expected to sync with a snapshot of the technology landscape, while the real value from new technologies is a moving target. In the end, technology will always win because it propels forward along an exponential curve.

This mindset of thinking that management is tied to the underlying technology has to be broken.

Separating management from its backend gives control back to whom it belongs: decision-makers. No longer shackled by exorbitant upfront costs or hidden operating expenses, business units become free to steer the company toward business priorities.

Meet Men&Mice at Gartner IOCS

Magnús will hold his talk on Tuesday, 26 November at 9:30am. He'll underline the importance of companies once again guided by business priorities instead of IT limitations, and illustrate how to get out of vendor-lock and create scalable network management paradigms.

Throughout the event our team will be at Booth PL5: stop by! You’ll be able to learn more about how we ensure that control remains with you while also unlocking the full potential of your networks.