Advice for running IT at branch offices

Branch Office Best Practices Newsletter By Robin Gareiss, Network World, 06/27/06

If you’re responsible in any way for a new IT initiative in the branch office, one of your biggest concerns is likely to be how to monitor and manage the products and services involved with the initiative.

After all, without insight into the performance, you won't be able to document success (or failure) - and you'll be hearing from the end users in those branch offices when they can't access an application, complete a call, or are experiencing long delays.

I’ve talked to many IT executives about this challenge. If they had no budget constraints whatsoever, the ideal scenario is a combination of sophisticated management tools and a dedicated IT person at every location.

Back to reality: Rarely do we see an IT person at every site (though those types of companies actually do exist!) And often, the management tools provide only part of what the IT staff needs.

That brings me to one of my top pieces of advice for running IT at branch offices: Invest the time, money, and effort at the outset of any new IT project to address management concerns.

Perhaps the best example these days is with VoIP. So many organizations are deploying the technology out to the branch office, and about 85% of them do not budget for VoIP-specific management tools. They (usually incorrectly) believe the free management tools that come with the IP PBX or their existing, general network management products will do the trick.

But, as more applications are added to the converged IP backbone, the management becomes more tricky. Which real-time applications get top priority? At which times of the day? What are the precursors to performance issues, and how do you find them? What are the root causes of some of the problems? And which applications require and are using bandwidth at which times of the day?

By examining the options up front, you'll reduce the risk of performance problems later. Consider management tools that are specifically geared toward your branch office application or project. Or, evaluate offerings from managed service providers, which can offload the management tasks.

There’s no universally right answer to how to best manage branch office IT initiatives. But there definitely is a universally wrong answer: Ignore the issue or spend little time and attention contemplating solutions. Do that, and you'll wish you hadn’t.