Single-vendor vs. best-of-breed network
I'm trying to make an informed decision whether moving to a multi-vendor best-of-breed makes sense for my organization. This is obviously a complex question, so I am hoping to tap some (figurative) "grey hair" advise from real-world experiences for the general areas I should focus on in making/justifying a decision. What, if anything, makes a multi-vendor (wide-area) network successful and worth the risks over the "safe" single-vendor network nobody gets fired for buying (you can probably guess what vendor Powers my network now). What are the (un)quantifiable metrics/ROI/arguments you've used to justify being single-vendor or best-of-breed? The single-vendor argument seems to primarily focus on customer support (no finger-pointing, no confusion who to call) and single skill-set (leverage training, hire rote technicians) advantages. The multi-vendor faction seems to focus on best features/performance, best price, and keeping vendors honest. What are the real factors and what is FUD for someone who has been on both sides? Personal experience, pointers to case studies, (vendor) white papers, etc on both sides of the argument are appreciated. Thanks. Pete.
On Fri, 21 Dec 2001, Pete Kruckenberg wrote:
What, if anything, makes a multi-vendor (wide-area) network successful and worth the risks over the "safe" single-vendor network nobody gets fired for buying (you can probably guess what vendor Powers my network now). What are the (un)quantifiable metrics/ROI/arguments you've used to justify being single-vendor or best-of-breed?
My experience is showing me a lot more organizations are moving along the same lines of thought as you. Many are even moving to an "anything but single vendor's products" mentality. Juniper led the way and proved that a good product can be coupled with good support and provide an adequate or superior replacement. Other vendors have had a chance to grow and cope with the needs of large networks and provide the service required to handle a tier-1 type network. Locking yourself into a vendor just because "it's safe" has often been the path of least resistance for a middle manager out of their league. You may end up with old, often overpriced, and often buggy equipment, but hey, "our market cap is more then all of our competitors combined", and we know thats what really matters right? Also, buying from a single vendor doesn't go very far for promising any sort of interoperability of consistancy. Think about all those aquisitions and employee turnover. Don't get me wrong. I think too many vendors make for a mess, and dealing with startups is a risky business. "Thats nice that your box has all these features, come talk to me when you have some customers. Preferebly tier-1s that have deployed the box for a couple of years at least." So stick with the top 10 brands and companies not on the verge of being delisted. All vendors suck, but different ones suck less in different applications. You owe it to yourself to look around and find the best bang for your buck that will let you sleep at night. Or as a buddy of mine recently put it, "gee, the list price for lies and arrogance is at a premium these days". andy -- PGP Key Available at http://www.tigerteam.net/andy/pgp
Personally, I find a limited best of breed network the best. I'm one for finding the best component for the job. Right now, my organization just bought over a hundred NETGEAR hubs/switches, to replace dozens of various aged switches and hubs (IBM, 3COM, SMC, bizarre brands I've never heard of...). This compliments our Cisco stuff, which manages high end LAN and WAN issues. Multivendor also gives you some protection in failures. For example, some Cisco CPE DSL routers with web access enabled and an old IOS crashed during the Code Red worm. This happened at the ISP I worked for. Our Cisco customers were dropping like flies, but the Netopia endpoints remained solid. If this had been a more virulent and vicious worm, it could perhaps have made things a nightmare, especially if it could infect upper end Cisco models. As for having to have engineers know multiple systems... I think the engineers are capable of it most times, it is just a pain. As long as you have a set standards base on various other things (naming and IP schemes, etc etc), things shouldn't be that bad. Heck, at my current work, our servers are NT4, Win2k, Lotus Notes on NT4, ancient Novell servers and several Linux based ones. It is a pain to manage and make everything work together and we are moving to solidate (Dumping NT and Lotus... Novell is a legacy we HAVE to support because it runs software which manages our primary function and no one up high wants to pay to migrate it to something more modern). Before I sign off: IMHO and YMHV :) - James -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Pete Kruckenberg Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 1:12 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Single-vendor vs. best-of-breed network I'm trying to make an informed decision whether moving to a multi-vendor best-of-breed makes sense for my organization. This is obviously a complex question, so I am hoping to tap some (figurative) "grey hair" advise from real-world experiences for the general areas I should focus on in making/justifying a decision. What, if anything, makes a multi-vendor (wide-area) network successful and worth the risks over the "safe" single-vendor network nobody gets fired for buying (you can probably guess what vendor Powers my network now). What are the (un)quantifiable metrics/ROI/arguments you've used to justify being single-vendor or best-of-breed? The single-vendor argument seems to primarily focus on customer support (no finger-pointing, no confusion who to call) and single skill-set (leverage training, hire rote technicians) advantages. The multi-vendor faction seems to focus on best features/performance, best price, and keeping vendors honest. What are the real factors and what is FUD for someone who has been on both sides? Personal experience, pointers to case studies, (vendor) white papers, etc on both sides of the argument are appreciated. Thanks. Pete.
What, if anything, makes a multi-vendor (wide-area) network successful and worth the risks over the "safe" single-vendor network nobody gets fired for buying (you can probably guess what vendor Powers my network now).
I like thinking of where an organization wants to be on a risk/reward spectrum. Newer and/or point solution vendors exist to leapfrog the status quo and give you an advantage, which they do very well. This is particularly true on the optical side, where lasers, components, and software have all changed dramatically. The price you pay is risk. If you don't have capacity problems or take an incumbent role, then you would prefer a defensive, conservative strategy favoring the single-vendor solution. Smaller providers wanting to do more for less or be more aggressive in general would prefer the best in breed because of a higher risk tolerance and greater desire to advance the network. Take this risk/reward concept and combine with some of the other posts and I can imagine a spreadsheet or graph that matches your company objectives (ie: double capacity) with vendor capabilities, reputation, etc. that lets you assess your risk tolerance quantitatively. Hope this helps. Marc Pierrat marc@sunchar.com
participants (4)
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Andy Walden -
James -
Marc Pierrat -
Pete Kruckenberg