industry spotlight

IT Infrastructure

The IT infrastructure industry has changed dramatically over the last five years. From in-house servers and applications, the availability of abundant new outsourced services and connectivity options have super-charged enterprise reliance on leading infrastructure providers. Business continuity, virtualisation and real-time infrastructure (RTI) are all driving efficiency, with cost savings, agility and quality paramount.

Last month saw Equinix acquire IXEurope, making it the clear global leader in the network-neutral co-location market, with 35 datacentres (ISO9001:2000 certified across Europe) and over 1,700 customers in the enterprise, internet and networking markets. Equinix works with customers to provide resilient business infrastructure, optimise performance, achieve availability objectives and reduce corporate risk. Crucially it achieves this more cost effectively than in-house teams. Enterprises benefit from a TCO saving of as much as 40% in the first five years, while receiving the very highest levels of customer service. 

NetEvidence has worked closely with IXEurope since 2002. Andy Castle, VP of IT Services (Europe) explains: "NetEvidence's Highlight provides a differentiated, quality service to our customers. Highlight's colourful performance visibility of Internet transit enables us to communicate effectively with financial decision makers at customer organisations, without the need for engineers to translate technical data into English. Addressing customer needs proactively in this way results in a better connection and satisfaction for the customer which in turn leads to greater loyalty."

notworking

Global Incident Map

Highlight is constantly updated to provide you with clear, fast visibility into the performance of your data networks, but as your business evolves wouldn't it be useful to have some insight into the health status of the entire planet? Global Incident Map uses Google Maps to pinpoint areas of "terrorism and other suspicious events" around the world, literally giving you a snapshot of what on earth is going on out there! Whether your next business meeting is in Beirut or Birmingham, this handy site will update you on breaking news from serious bomb blast to irritating rail incidents. 

welcome

...to the third issue of The Monthly Highlight, a regular newsletter created for NetEvidence customers, partners, and users of our core product, Highlight.

This month we pick out up some interesting network news headlines from October, take a closer look at the IT Infrastructure industry, and explain just how easy it is for Highlight users to add new accounts and logins. We also unveil an invaluable new series of step-by-step online Flash demos which introduce and explain many of the key practical benefits of Highlight visibility. If that isn't enough for you, we also show you how to monitor the health of the whole world in our NotWorking section.

As ever, please don't hesitate to contact me with any feedback or ideas you have for The Monthly Highlight. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this latest issue.  

Best regards,

- Jeremy

Jeremy Edwards, NetEvidence services director
jedwards@net-evidence.com

network news

BT uncertain of true demand for fibre

A senior BT executive told ZDNetUK this month that the company is more concerned about the level of demand for next-generation access (NGA) fibre-based broadband networks than regulation surrounding it. Amy Chalfen, BT Openreach's director of equivalence and regulatory and public affairs admitted that return on investment for NGA was the primary concern and that it was vital to gauge public demand prior to that investment. NGA concerns the last mile of the PSTN between exchanges and homes or businesses. Although the UK national broadband backbone is already fibre, the local loop remains copper and therefore a potential connectivity bottleneck for the future. Techworld also reported Ofcom launching a two-month consultation period into NGA rollout. The regulator insists the private sector will have to foot any bills. BT estimates a nationwide rollout of fibre to the home (FTTH) would cost between £10bn and £15bn.

eBay admits falling for Skype hype

Even the mighty eBay can make major strategic business blunders in today's fast moving data communications market. The auction king bought desktop VoIP developer Skype for $2.6 billion two years ago, but now admits it may have paid over the odds. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Skype's revenue amounted to just $90 million in the second quarter - up from $44 million a year earlier but still peanuts compared to the acquisition outlay. EBay has decided to take a $900 million charge on Skype, essentially admitting it overpaid on the initial deal. Niklas Zennstrom, Skype's chief executive and co-founder, has also resigned. Michael van Swaaij, eBay's chief strategy officer, will act as Skype's CEO until a replacement is hired.

Microsoft targets enterprise VoIP market

When it launched Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 this month, Microsoft was staking its claim for a hefty slice of the evolving enterprise telephony market. The company, which wants to be a major force in unified communications and voice, also announced a range of new hardware gadgets designed to be used with the OCS voice, email, text and video platform. The device currently getting the most press attention is the RoundTable, a small tabletop toy with a panoramic camera and a directional microphone that detects each speaker in a meeting and complements a new range of portable IP conference phones.

highlight update

New Online Demos!

Could you detect a Kazaa outbreak in your network? Could you identify the difference between a faulty network link and a congested one? Would you know when to upgrade capacity or when to move services?

We have created a new series of practical online demos to help you. They quickly walk you through events like those mentioned and show you how to activate and benefit from advanced status displays.

We've also taken the opportunity to unveil Highlight Meeting Point, important new functionality released next month that introduces email 'Invitations' to help you share scenarios with your colleagues or your provider. (This last feature is still a secret though, so don't tell anyone until November!)

Click here to see your new Demo menu.

feature focus

Admin access is free and easy!

Network Service is a complex issue: being able to quickly and easily discuss network issues with your colleagues while sharing visibility makes problem-solving faster and justifying recommendations simple.

Once you have access to Highlight, it is easy to add additional users free of charge by simply clicking the 'Request New User' button on the homepage. Just tap in the names and individual email accounts of colleagues and the system will ensure the support team takes care of the rest.

Perhaps you'd like administrate Highlight users yourself? If so, contact support and we'll hand over rights to the Admin Toolbar.

Click here to see a demo.

how do I get highlight?

NetEvidence provides Highlight in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model through partnerships with service and solutions providers (http://www.net-evidence.com/web/site/Partners/partnersTab.asp), who provide performance visibility to their customers.

If you're interested in more information about Highlight, or need your login details resetting, please email support@net-evidence.com and we will liaise to action your request.

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