Network: Pain point for managed services

SAN FRANCISCO, US: PacketTrap Networks, a provider of network monitoring and management software developed for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), today announced the results of a survey completed by 258 MSPs.

According to the survey, 83 per cent of participants identified lack of visibility into network traffic as the number one pain point, with 75 per cent stating a strong need for better granular traffic analysis software.

More than 50 per cent of respondents spent more than 13 per cent of their time troubleshooting sluggish networks, which can be caused by clients’ employees surfing the Web for personal use, including bandwidth hogs such as YouTube.

When survey respondents were asked the question, “Select the items that are top-of-mind issues for you as they relate to challenges you have with your customers, moving assets to cloud was stated by 41 per cent.
37 and 34 per cent stated too many applications to manage and Managing / monitoring laptop fleets as a challenge respectively and 21 per cent stated server management as an issue.

MSPs responded to the PacketTrap survey during the month of July 2009 via email. They were asked questions about everything from current technologies implemented to long-term business goals.

60 per cent stated their clients did not have storage, personal surfing or software download policies for their employees with most stating they were dissatisfied with their capabilities to monitor these areas. Unmonitored networks raise potential liability and performance issues for organizations and MSPs are responsible.

“It is apparent from the survey that there is a clear need for better network management software for MSPs, with traffic analysis capabilities being the most critical,” said Steve Goodman, CEO of PacketTrap.