The Federal Network Visibility Crisis:
Get to Know Your Apps
A WHITE PAPER PRESENTED BY:
MAY 2015
PREPARED BY
MARKET CONNECTIONS, INC. 11350 RANDOM HILLS ROAD, SUITE 800 | FAIRFAX, VA 22030 T703.378.2025 | WWW.MARKETCONNECTIONSINC.COM
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THE FEDERAL NETWORK VISIBILITY CRISIS: GET TO KNOW YOUR APPS
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THE FEDERAL NETWORK VISIBILITY CRISIS
Get to Know Your Apps Applications have never been more important to the Federal Government—agencies rely on applications such as email, financial tools, ERP systems and collaboration platforms to deliver critical citizen services and mission support to warfighters on the battlefield. As agencies move to the cloud and consolidate their IT resources, data is traveling farther distances across agency networks to reach both defense and civilian workers who rely on those applications and information to do their jobs. That is why in today’s IT environment, network visibility has never been more critical, as it is the only way to quickly identify and fix application performance issues. Yet many federal IT leaders lack the financial, human and technological resources to do so.
THE CHALLENGE OF COMPLEX NETWORK ENVIRONMENTS “Applications have never been more critical to agency productivity. Yet as networks become more complex, if agencies don’t have insight into application performance, it takes too long to fix issues and impacts workers’ ability to use their applications.” SEAN APPLEGATE DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY & ADVANCED SOLUTIONS RIVERBED
From on-‐premise networks to broadly distributed enterprises to public clouds, the nature of the federal agency network environment is changing. A recent study1 found that about one-‐third of agencies are using or planning to use cloud services and another one-‐third are researching or considering moving to cloud services. At the same time, as part of the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative (FDCCI), agencies are consolidating IT resources to increase efficiencies and reduce costs. This means that while applications have become more mission-‐critical, the network paths they need to travel have become more complex. Research from IDC reveals that the average hourly cost of an infrastructure failure for a large organization is $100,000 per hour, and the average cost of a critical application failure per hour is $500,000 to $1 million. Because visibility is the only way to identify and fix infrastructure failures and performance in a timely manner—a challenge that directly impacts performance and budgets—agencies need to make sure they have visibility into the new network paths, and roadblocks their applications must navigate. Yet many federal IT executives lack the manpower, budget and tools necessary to find and fix performance issues quickly and efficiently, leading to lost productivity and network vulnerabilities. Without the right tools to monitor network and application performance, federal IT professionals cannot pinpoint latency and availability problems that directly impact agency or mission effectiveness. This could mean supply chain delays of materiel for warfighters in the field or lack of access to critical defense and global security applications. Latency and performance issues could stymie access to data essential to federal law enforcement, when up-‐to-‐the minute information can mean the difference between protecting public safety or losing a crucial lead. Performance issues and lack of visibility can also jeopardize citizen services, affecting the delivery of necessary support to vulnerable populations.
1
Research by Market Connections, Inc., on behalf of General Dynamics Information Technology, August 2014.
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If critical applications like email, collaboration, procurement, customer relationship management (CRM) and project management tools are down, and take hours or days to fix, agencies face lost productivity, lower workforce morale, delays in delivering critical citizen services and wasted taxpayer dollars. Agencies are left to answer some critical questions: • “Agencies are moving toward location-‐ independent IT environments, but they haven’t prepared for what happens when they reach their destination. This is creating a network visibility crisis that will significantly impact application performance if it’s not addressed.” SEAN APPLEGATE DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY & ADVANCED SOLUTIONS RIVERBED
• •
Does an IT manager have the ability to “see” and manage everything on a network infrastructure that is globally distributed across multiple locations? Are there enough resources necessary to identify and fix performance problems quickly and efficiently? How can network performance concerns be addressed within the confines of budgetary and staff restrictions in order to detect and address issues quickly for all users across distributed organizations?
To answer these questions, Riverbed commissioned leading government market research firm Market Connections, Inc. to determine in what way federal IT decision makers are using network and application management tools, the challenges they face, and the features that best help them address those concerns. Network complexity, response time and funding rose to the top as key challenges in the federal network environment: •
•
• •
Nearly half of poll respondents (45%) cited increasing network complexity as the greatest federal network management challenge—mission-‐critical IT resources are traveling longer and more complex paths to reach the federal workers that rely upon them every day. Those who rate their ability to monitor the network as excellent see this complexity as a bigger concern (63%) than those who do not. Two-‐thirds of respondents (66%) say they have some tools and procedures in place to monitor and troubleshoot network performance, and some of those tools may need updating; while less than one-‐third (30%) say their ability to monitor network performance is excellent. Slightly more than one-‐quarter (27%) are unable to find the root cause of network performance issues quickly. Almost half (44%) report insufficient funding to procure the solutions to address these challenges.
As federal agencies continue on their journey to the cloud, the vision of location-‐ independent networking—in which, regardless of where an application lives, end-‐users receive a seamless experience—is closer to becoming a universal reality. However, agencies need to prepare for what arriving at that destination means in terms of performance and productivity. With two-‐thirds of government moving to the cloud, © 2015 MA RKET CONNECTIONS I NC . | W W W . M A R KE TC O NNE C TI O NS I NC . C O M | 7 0 3 . 3 7 8 . 2 0 2 5
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more bandwidth will not solve problems of performance, latency and lack of control. In a distributed environment, network visibility is critical to monitoring application performance, identifying problems and quickly resolving latency.
*From Network Performance PulsePoll™ by Market Connections, Inc., May 2015
THE RESPONSE TIME ISSUE One of the most critical aspects of managing emerging federal network environments is the ability to quickly identify and manage problems that arise. With users sometimes hundreds of miles away from the data center, visibility into application performance is absolutely critical, yet more than half (51%) of respondents said it takes a day or more to detect and fix application performance issues. Only 17% of respondents are able to address network outages within minutes—meaning it could take hours to bring networks back up when problems arise!
*From “Realizing Business Value and ROI with Application-‐Aware Network Performance Management,” IDC, 2012
These slow response times have a significant impact on the agency’s budget and ability to execute on the mission. For example, assuming an average wage of $32.30/hour2, an 8-‐hour network outage at an agency with 5,000 employees affected would cost the agency nearly $1.3 million in salaries alone, which does not include the dramatic negative impact on delivery of citizen and constituent services.
2
Source: CBO Comparing Compensation for Federal and Private-‐Sector Employees, Jan 2012 http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/01-‐30-‐FedPay.pdf
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Slightly more than one-‐third (36%) of respondents see improved employee productivity as a benefit of application management tools; but given how important productivity is to achieving the agency mission, government networking professionals should be more concerned about this. Monitoring tools deliver results in the form of productivity and faster detection and response times.
ACHIEVE VISIBILITY INTO APPLICATION PERFORMANCE “The lack of network visibility has a direct impact on an agency’s ability to serve its constituents. We live in a world where response times of more than a few minutes are not acceptable—and not necessary.” SEAN APPLEGATE DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY & ADVANCED SOLUTIONS RIVERBED
Networks need to perform quickly and seamlessly in order to fulfill mission requirements. Performance monitoring tools provide the broadest, most comprehensive view into network activity, helping to ensure fast performance, high security and rapid recovery. More than two-‐thirds (68%) of respondents see improved network reliability as a key value of monitoring tools and more than three-‐quarters (77%) of respondents said automated investigation and diagnosis is an important feature in a network monitoring solution. With visibility across the entire network and its applications, IT departments can identify and fix problems in minutes—before end users notice, and before productivity and citizen services suffer. Network visibility requires the ability to proactively monitor both network and application performance metrics—because if metrics are not being monitored proactively, an agency can’t know when performance is suffering or an application is down. For example, one company reported that by using network visibility tools, they saved $12,047 per 100 users per year. In an agency with 5,000 users, this adds up to savings of more than $600,000 per year.3
MOST IMPORTANT FEATURES OF NETWORK MONITORING SOLUTIONS
79%
Capacity Planning
77%
Automated Investigation
65%
Application-‐aware Visibility
58%
Predictive Modeling
In addition to ensuring applications are always running, these tools can detect abnormalities in network packets that could impact security, making these tools extremely valuable when paired with complementary cybersecurity solutions. Respondents see a host of other benefits of monitoring tools, including improved reliability, early detection of problems, and improved speed. Application-‐aware visibility—which spans the entire process of application discovery, end-‐to-‐end performance monitoring and deep packet-‐level recording and analysis—is an important feature of network monitoring tools, and 65% of respondents see it as a benefit!
Interestingly, given how many applications are moving to the cloud, more than half of respondents (54%) said that Software as a Service (SAAS)/cloud visibility was not an 3
Lucinda Borovick, Randy Perry, Nancy Selig. “Realizing Business Value and ROI with Application-‐Aware Network Performance Management.” IDC. July 2012. © 2015 MA RKET CONNECTIONS I NC . | W W W . M A R KE TC O NNE C TI O NS I NC . C O M | 7 0 3 . 3 7 8 . 2 0 2 5
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important feature in a network monitoring solution. This speaks to the notion that agencies have been so focused on the journey to the cloud, they are not yet thinking about how to maximize application performance when they arrive there. When it comes to finding a network management solution, there are also several features respondents consider important: • • • •
Capacity planning – 79% Automated investigation – 77% Application-‐aware visibility – 65% Predictive modeling – 58%
It is no surprise these features rate highly, as all increase network visibility and help manage all aspects of IT consolidation and planning.
CONCLUSIONS Application and network visibility are essential to federal agency productivity and mission success. “Enhanced network visibility helped one of our customers see a 519% return on investment—an average $5.1 million in savings per year,” said Sean Applegate, Riverbed Director, Technology Strategy & Advanced Solutions. “The application performance tool reduced network and application downtime by 67%, thus restoring 73 hours of productive time to each user and saving the customer $26,057 annually per 100 users.” With today’s globally distributed federal workforce, network visibility is critical to monitoring performance, identifying and quickly fixing problems. Application and network performance monitoring tools are essential to that visibility. Using these tools is a critical step toward managing the complex network environment and ensuring migrations to the cloud are transformative and beneficial experiences for the agency, the end users and, ultimately, constituents. © 2015 MA RKET CONNECTIONS I NC . | W W W . M A R KE TC O NNE C TI O NS I NC . C O M | 7 0 3 . 3 7 8 . 2 0 2 5
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ABOUT THE STUDY Riverbed commissioned Market Connections, Inc. to poll federal IT managers knowledgeable about their agency’s network management to determine which types of applications federal agencies are using to manage their networks, and the challenges they face in this increasingly complex environment. Of the 100 respondents, 35% were from defense agencies and 65% from civilian agencies. More than half (57%) are on a team that makes decisions regarding network operations and management solutions, 49% evaluate or recommend firms offering network operations and management solutions, 45% develop technical requirements for network operations and management solutions and 17% make the final decision regarding network operations and management solutions or contractors.
ABOUT RIVERBED Riverbed®, at more than $1 billion in annual revenue, is the leader in Application Performance Infrastructure, delivering the most complete platform for Location-‐ Independent Computing. Location-‐Independent Computing turns location and distance into a competitive advantage by allowing IT to have the flexibility to host applications and data in the most optimal locations while ensuring applications perform as expected, data is always available when needed, and performance issues are detected and fixed before end users notice. Riverbed’s 25,000+ customers include 97% of both the Fortune 100 and the Forbes Global 100. Learn more at www.riverbed.com.
ABOUT MARKET CONNECTIONS, INC. Market Connections delivers actionable intelligence and insights that enable improved business performance and positioning for leading businesses, trade associations and the public sector. The custom market research firm is a sought-‐after authority on preferences, perceptions and trends among public sector decision-‐makers and the contractors who serve them, offering deep domain expertise in information technology and telecommunications, health care and education. For more information visit www.marketconnectionsinc.com.
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