Network Infrastructure

When is the last time you have reviewed your network switch infrastructure? What is your recurring maintenance cost on your network infrastructure? Most clients have been asking how they can reduce their expense budget with recurring maintenance costs.

As vendors mature, they receive less revenue from product sales and more revenue from renewal and support contracts. The typical cost is 20-30 percent of the cost of the hardware you have purchased. Over about 5 years, you have bought the infrastructure over again with maintenance fee’s.

With the economy outlook bleak for 2009, most companies are looking at cutting expense and maintenance budgets. One of the first tips I have is to drop the maintenance on gear that is not mission critical or lower the maintenance levels. You can purchase a spare and place it on the self or purchase a contract from a third party company for half the price. If you are looking at cutting your Cisco maintenance number, a company such as Network Hardware Resale offers replacement parts and phone support, you can cut your maintenance costs by 75%.

Another option is to look at an alternative vendor for switching and routing. We have had a relationship with Juniper since 2004. They make a very nice switching product that was released last year. This switch is really a next generation switch with some great features. The maintenance renewal is very inexpensive.

The same can be said for firewalls. Unified Threat Management (UTM) devices allow you to cut maintenance costs and operational costs. You can usually eliminate 2-3 products by implementing a UTM firewall. You administrators time will be greatly reduced only having to deal with 1 interface instead of 4.

Feel Free to contact me to discuss how you can reduce your operating costs.