HP ProCurve Business White Paper: Redefining the Economics of Networking

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1 HP ProCurve Business White Paper: Redefining the Economics of Networking Advanced networking that break IT barriers and redefine the value of networking Executive summary...2 Challenge among change...2 Proprietary vs. open standards...2 Value-driven solutions...3 Breaking the barriers of networking...3 Conclusion...5 For more information...5

2 Executive summary Businesses today find themselves in an increasingly complex and volatile global economic climate. As technology continues to advance, business challenges only intensify. Today businesses are forced to do more with few resources and smaller IT budgets. The days of excessive IT spending is now a thing of the past as the impact of the global economic downturn is causing IT and network executives to examine every planned project for clear and documented return on investment. Balancing intense budget pressures with the need to innovate, IT and network managers are taking a closer look at their network infrastructure and are seeking less expensive, more flexible solutions that can support overarching business objectives. To address these challenges and maintain or achieve leadership in these difficult economic times, companies need to drive a set of strategic imperatives to reduce CAPEX and OPEX while achieving operational agility in response to new business opportunities and competitive pressures. This paper provides an overview of the challenges businesses face today and how IT addresses the explicit need to manage network costs, provide choice and flexibility and reduce complexity. In addition, this paper highlights the difference between proprietary and standards-based networking and how innovative networking solutions that embrace a standards-based approach allow organizations to break free from restrictive proprietary networking solutions and enable better business outcomes. Challenges among change The networking landscape has been relatively static for a number of years. The single-vendor model that has clearly dominated the market offers solutions that are exorbitantly expensive and complex to manage. Focused primarily on innovative solutions to create new technologies, these vendors lose sight of end user needs, often increasing complexity and requiring expensive on-going support rather than providing ease of use and derailing businesses from true innovation. With such wide-spread deployment of proprietary technology, (and rather stale marketing practice) companies become locked into a financial model that is unsustainable, thus creating significant business and budgetary constraints, while missing compelling opportunities to better utilize IT. Proprietary vs. open standard Networking infrastructure is difficult to build and even more difficult to operate as your network grows in size and complexity. Yet the risk lies in the silo approach of innovation that proprietary vendors take and the inherent complexity it brings. Information driven organizations need large, fast and flexible networks with intelligence at the edge to adapt to changing business needs, support application management, promote efficient maintenance, and provide the ability to provision applications. With the high cost and complexity of many networking vendors, the question of proprietary vs. standardsbased networking should be addressed. Traditional proprietary networking platforms are typically developed based on strategic pricing decisions for the products sold directly to the enduser as well as complementary products offered by other vendors. Simply put, this long standing business model contains intellectual property created by the vendor which is shared through licensing to maintain a competitive advantage and drive revenue. Their perceived ease of adoption and ability of the vendor to provide professional services, make them an attractive option at first glance. However, this model also has a down side. Proprietary networks are inherently inflexible offerings that entail arduous and extremely high maintenance costs. They also lack the key components needed to achieve optimal centralized network management. According to Matt Asay of CNETnews.com The politics of proprietary software will keep it entrenched for many years, but it s becoming harder to justify the bloat and expense of proprietary software. One has to be an ardent partisan indeed to maintain the proprietary status quo in the face of so much evidence that the expense and bother is wasteful. A recent shift towards networking infrastructure based on open-standards is helping to redefine the economics of networking, offering an alternative to the inflexible, costly propriety solutions businesses have come to rely on. Open standardsbased platforms, when used in conjunction with complementary applications provide customers with a choice of the best available solution now and into the future. This ability to leverage the right balance of applications and hardware can optimize business results and break free from the restrictions of proprietary technology that stifles innovative network infrastructure and better business outcomes. 2

3 Value-driven solutions Organizations can no longer afford to manage the network independently from the rest of their infrastructure and business priorities. For businesses to build a competitive advantage and meet their evolving business needs, adopting a standardsbased approach allows IT managers to purchase, maintain, and operate networks at a lower overall cost. This architecture gives business quick, reliable networks that scale to meet their ever changing needs and contribute to a higher value returned. ROI alone is no longer sufficient. Businesses must focus on finding advanced networking solutions to change their current IT economics and lower their bottom lines. To do so, it is important to understand what those top business imperatives are in order to find the best choice solution to fit their individual needs. Manage costs while increasing capabilities IT managers know that networking equipment can be expensive to purchase in the short-term and leave IT budgets burdened long-term by high annual support costs years afterward. Organizations need efficient networks that decrease operational support costs and minimize network downtime. A standardsbased approach does just that. It allows customers to purchase, maintain, and operate at a lower overall cost while allowing customers to quickly and reliably scale to meet their ever changing business needs. Reduce complexity Organizations today face increased pressure to realize operational efficiencies without jeopardizing overall effectiveness. While some vendors claim to embed appropriate capabilities within the network infrastructure, often the products are complex, lack consistent integration, and are difficult to manage. The challenge lies in incorporating new functionality seamlessly into the network while maintaining IT governance policies. Businesses need integrated solutions that deliver seamless networking, centralized management and security. Choice and flexibility The continuous evolution of technology fuels business growth while the ability to implement the right technology to meet organizational needs determines competitiveness. Organizations need vendors who can accelerate their ability to deliver business and productivity to users, partners, and customers. Networking infrastructure that stimulates innovation by leveraging complementary technologies will gain sustainable time-to-service and cost per user advantages. Thus businesses need consistent and flexible infrastructure to support new applications and increase employee productivity through core-toedge connectivity and unified communications. These business imperatives present both a challenge and an opportunity in how to apply the most appropriate, efficient networking solutions in response to business and competitive pressures. HP ProCurve Networking believes the key to increasing business agility and building value-driven networks is to provide businesses advanced networking solutions to meet these challenges. Breaking the barriers of networking HP ProCurve is delivering a new era of networking. The time has come to transform the expectations of the network and redefine the way businesses evaluate, deploy and manage their network infrastructure. HP ProCurve s expansive portfolio of networking solutions allows organizations to break free from restrictive and proprietary technologies of the past. With modular, open, standards-based solutions, organizations can deploy solutions incrementally which may help reduce their cost of deployment while taking advantage of the largest technology company on the planet - HP. With more than 20 years in the network industry, HP ProCurve is positioned as the fastestgrowing enterprise Ethernet LAN networking vendor (2x the market), and rated a Leader by Gartner. Underlying this proposition and success is a commitment and history of advanced technology. This focus takes place at all levels of the organization, including development of new products and services, leadership in defining industry standards, development of our reseller partners, and simplicity and integrity in our business practices. HP ProCurve is driving a standards-based approach to networking that breaks free from restrictive models to help meet organizational needs and improve bottom lines. Managing costs The foundation of this strategy rests on HP s ability to provide businesses with choice. With intense budget pressures looming, competitors still offer equipment that is expensive to purchase in the short-term, leaving IT budgets burdened by high annual support costs for years to come. Moreover, new network solutions are needed to help reduce operations costs (labor associated with network administration 3

4 Manage Costs Choice & Flexibility Reduce Complexity and troubleshooting) and mitigate risk. ProCurve s Adaptive network vision is aligned with HP s Adaptive Infrastructure that networks boost competitiveness, fortify security, increase productivity and reduce complexity by being readily adaptive to users, applications and organizations needs gives customers the flexibility to address growing network and IT capabilities while managing costs. HP ProCurve s expansive line of products is engineered to legendary HP quality standards backed by ProCurve s service, support and training, and industry-leading warranty. Offering end-to-end networking solutions based on common software and a consistent management interface, ProCurve allows business to simplify ongoing operations and maintenance, increase capabilities and reduce acquisition costs of Layer 2 and Layer 3 switches. Plus, HP ProCurve networking equipment is typically offered at lower prices than major competitors. Energy efficiency is another operational cost high on IT manager s lists, making green initiatives a priority as well. ProCurve can help reduce energy costs compared to the industry average with 8 Miercom Green certified switches (Switch 8212zl, 5406zl, 3500yl, 6600, 2910, 2610 and 2510G Source: Miercom, 2009) while high mean time before failure (MTBF) eliminates the need for expensive redundant network design and reduces the need to maintain spare parts. Choice and flexibility The issue of choice and flexibility is one that many businesses have yet to experience. Being locked into proprietary network architecture limits such freedom and stifles opportunities to design unique and innovative network infrastructure to meet individual business needs and develop a competitive advantage. HP believes organizations deserve a choice of the best available solution required to achieve the most value from their network. Break free from restrictive proprietary networking solutions and embrace an open, standards-based environment based on HP ProCurve to help manage cost of ownership. Proprietary and inflexible networking infrastructure makes change difficult and expensive. With a more effective, standards-based approach, network architectures have the ability to adapt to business needs as they grow and allow businesses to innovate at a lower cost to fit in line with strict IT budgets. This type of architecture allows quick and reliable networking solutions needed to handle the challenges of a complex climate while building a competitive advantage. HP ProCurve s strategy provides businesses investment protection by enabling low cost, incremental growth and scalability. ProCurve s Open Network Ecosystem (ONE) only strengthens this message by giving businesses the opportunity to harness industry-wide innovation from leading application vendors. Through the simple concept of choice, the ProCurve ONE ecosystem consists of complementary best-in-class solutions. Our end-toend solutions and security facilitate better business outcomes and streamline over-all IT operations. Reduce complexity Networking is complex by nature. When paired with the speed at which technology evolves, this complexity only increases. For example, discrete wireless network solutions are very costly to install and operate because they are deployed using specialized gear that is managed, secured, and maintained as a separate system. Wired and wireless networks are completely separate even though they operate in much the same way. As 4

5 networks are asked to do more with less, the amount of applications and hardware needed will likely increase as well. This multiplies personnel costs, increases space and power consumption, reduces reliability and creates security risks. Businesses should choose integrated, end-to-end networking solutions that provide centralized management and security to foster business rather than deter its daily operations. HP ProCurve delivers networking solutions that meet this complete need, from the core to the edge. Based on common software and a consistent management interface, business can simplify ongoing operations and maintenance with advanced hardware and software. Address issues of workforce mobility with ProCurve s converged wired and wireless networking solutions, allowing customers to dramatically simplify delivery of multiple IP-based services by combining centralized network operations with mobility controllers and a discrete in-wall access device. This is only further supported by third party research in which according to an IDC Unified Communications study, suggest that ProCurve may help reduce complexity with up to 451% return on investment and 11-month payback period with secure, unified management of wired and wireless networks. Address issues of virtualization with HP ProCurve s Data center Connection Manager (DCM) to automate data center operations and design solutions to meet business needs regardless of the size of IT resources available. people to address core IT and business problems specific to business needs, we look to continually evolve with need of businesses. HP ProCurve s strategy of driving a standards-based approach to networking allows organizations to meet strategic imperatives and achieve operational efficiency in response to new business opportunities and competitive pressures. By innovating across multiple dimensions, HP ProCurve is redefining the economics of networking to enable lower cost of ownership and increase network value while helping meeting business demands. For more information To find out more about the joint HP ProCurve Networking solutions, visit For as long as you own the product, with next-business-day advance replacement (available in most countries). The following hardware products have a five-year hardware warranty for the disk drive and lifetime hardware warranty (for as long as you own the product) for the rest of the module: HP ProCurve ONE Services zl Module, HP ProCurve Threat Management Services zl Module, and HP ProCurve MSM765zl Mobility Controller. The following hardware products and their related series modules have a one-year hardware warranty with extensions available: HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9300m series, HP ProCurve Switch 8100fl series, HP ProCurve Network Access Controller 800, and HP ProCurve DCM Controller. The following hardware products have a one-year hardware warranty with extensions available: HP ProCurve M111 Client Bridge, HP ProCurve MSM3xx-R Access Points, HP ProCurve MSM7xx Mobility and Access Controllers, HP ProCurve RF Manager IDS/IPS Systems, HP ProCurve MSM Power Supplies, HP ProCurve 1 Port Power Injector, HP ProCurve CNMS Appliances, and HP ProCurve MSM317 Access Device. Standalone software, upgrades, or licenses may have a different warranty duration. For details, refer to the ProCurve Software License, Warranty, and Support booklet at Conclusion As the speed at which business and technology continue to move HP ProCurve is dedicated in the best traditions of HP to helping deliver better business outcomes. With a unique and refined combination of products, solutions, services and This is an HP Indigo print. Technology for better business outcomes To learn more, visit Copyright 2009 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. 4AA2-8006ENN, September 2009