Dimension Data recently came out with their 2014 Network Barometer Report. The report has business and technology insights based on data gathered from 74,000 network devices in 32 countries. Some of the findings are counter-intuitive, like failure rates and mean-time-repair (MTTR) are lower for obsolete equipment. See press release here, and download the full report here (requires registration). Also, check out their Google+ hangout on Wednesday July 9th.
Based on this exhaustive report, Dimension Data’s top recommendation is:
“Have an accurate inventory of your network estate.”
The very fact that this is a top recommendation shows that creating accurate network inventory is hard. Otherwise, customers would already be doing this, and Dimension Data wouldn’t need to make it their top recommendation.
We are doing our part to make it easy for customers to create an accurate inventory of their network devices. Cisco Active Advisor is a free cloud-based service that can scan your network for Cisco enterprise and small business products such as Catalyst switches, routers, wireless access points, wireless controllers, and more. It provides valuable information on these products such as security vulnerabilities (PSIRTs), product lifecycle (End of Sale, End of Support), service contract status, warranty status, and more. You can view the report in an elegant web-based interface, and setup alerts. Cisco Active Advisor is ideal for small and mid-size networks.Cisco Active Advisor already supports more than 500 part numbers across Cisco Catalyst switches, routers, wireless controllers, wireless access points, SMB products, with more coming soon. It supports the following Java-enabled web browsers: Internet Explorer and Firefox on Windows, and Safari on Apple OSX.
For more information, please visit the Cisco Active Advisor or check out this how-to video:
You can also review a list of parts support by Cisco Active Advisor (Downloadable Excel spreadsheet): https://ciscoactiveadvisor.com/ux/app/resources/images/CAA_Supported%20Device%20list.xlsx
This sounds like a great tool since it’s “FREE”. I did not play with this yet. So, I do not have any comments on the functionality of this yet. However, after working with Cisco Advanced Services for 13 years, I still do not understand that when a BU releases a tool why other BU devices are not supported. Cisco should become BU agnostic from both internal and external customers !
Follow-up with the above comment. I’m mentioning about the non-support of Nexus/DC devices on this tool.
Hi Lakshman,
Thanks for your feedback. You are right, Nexus/Data Center products are not covered yet. We are constantly adding support for more products, and we did not want to hold back in anticipation of covering all the products. I will make sure your feedback gets to the product team.
Thanks,
Pradeep
Thanks for your comments. CAA is looking to support most devices for the enterprise over time. On our roadmap we have been trying to balance feature enhancements along with device support.
In terms of other devices, we have been looking into both the collaboration endpoints and Nexus over the last few months. The Nexus software architecture is a bit different than other Cisco devices. We will have to implement a totally different application interface. No dates at this point, but it is in the queue of stuff to do.