Philosophy

IT Management is hard. Well, at least effective network management is hard. To paraphrase conventional wisdom, anyone who tells you it isn't is either lying or selling something.

One of the problems lies in a focus on technology and tools to solve management problems. This is a mistake. It is all about process, sometimes called "workflow". Technology can tell you that a problem exists, or even that a great number of problems exist, but it is workflow that gets those problems corrected.

When many management solutions are crafted, emphasis is placed on what software to buy. Imagine the surprise when the software arrives and it turns out that six to eight times the amount spent on the product is needed to pay for consulting services to get the product installed and configured. This is a figure often given out, usually privately, to value-added resellers (VARs) by proprietary software vendors.

The value of a particular solution is often measured by its Return on Investment, or ROI. Basically, it is the amount of time it takes for the management tool to pay for itself by preventing or quickly resolving issues. However, on-going maintenance and support, often not considered when choosing a solution, can add years to the ROI of a project. By getting rid of the software cost, open-source options can deliver ROI in times unrivaled by commercial software.