Performance management involves optimization of network service response time and management of the consistency and quality of individual and overall network services. The most important service is the need to measure the user/application response time. This variable shapes the perception of network success by both your users and application administrators. Capacity planning is the process by which you determine requirements for future network resources in order to prevent a performance or availability impact on business critical applications.

In the area of capacity planning, the network baseline cpu, memory, buffers, in/out octets, etc. In networks, this is typically bandwidth and data that must wait in queues before it can be transmitted through the network. In voice applications, this wait time almost certainly impacts users because factors such as delay and jitter affect the quality of the voice call.

Another major issue that complicates performance management is that although high network availability is mission critical for both large enterprise and service provider networks, the tendency is to seek short term economic gains at the risk of often unforeseen higher costs in the long run. During every budget cycle, network administrators and project implementation personnel struggle to find a balance between performance and fast implementation. Further, network administrators face challenges that include rapid product development in order to meet narrow market windows, complex technologies, business consolidation, competing markets, unscheduled downtime, lack of expertise, and often insufficient tools. In light of these challenges, how does performance fit within the network management framework? the primary function of an ideal network management system is to optimize the operational capabilities of a network.

Once you accept this as the ultimate goal for network management, then the focus of network management is to keep network operation at peak performance. An ideal network management system includes these principle operations: informs the operator of impending performance deterioration. Provides easy alternative routing and workarounds when performance deterioration or failure takes place. It is important to note that with newer applications like voice and video, performance is the key variable to success and if you cannot achieve consistent performance, the service is considered of low value and fails. In other cases, users simply suffer from variable performance with intermittent application timeouts that degrade productivity and user satisfaction.

This document details the most critical performance management issues, which include critical success factors, key performance indicators, and a high level process map for performance management. It also discusses the concepts of availability, response time, accuracy, utilization, and capacity planning and includes a short discussion on the role of proactive fault analysis within performance management and the ideal network management system. Critical success factors identify the requirements for implementation best practices. In order to qualify as a critical success factor, a process or procedure must improve availability or the absence of the procedure must decrease availability. In addition, the critical success factor should be measurable so that the organization can determine the extent of their success. These are the critical success factors for performance management: gather a baseline for both network and application data. Determine the network management overhead for all proposed or potential network management services.

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Periodically review capacity information for both network and applications, as well as baseline and exception. Have upgrade or tuning procedures set up to handle capacity issues on both a reactive and long term basis. Performance indicators provide the mechanism by which an organization can measure critical success factors. Performance indicators for performance planning include: document the network management business objectives. This could be a formal concept of operations for network management or a less formal statement of required features and objectives. Provide documentation of the service level agreements with charts or graphs that show the success or failure of how these agreements are met over time.

Collect a list of the variables for the baseline, such as polling interval, network management overhead incurred, possible trigger thresholds, whether the variable is used as a trigger for a trap, and trending analysis used against each variable. When thresholds are exceed, develop documentation on the methodology used to increase network resources. One item to document is the time line required to put in additional wan bandwidth and a cost table. 7 habits of highly effective people first published in 1989, it has sold an estimated 25 million copies in 38 languages. i still try to follow its guidelines in my own life. With apologies, ive applied the 7 habits to the act of marketing with highly effective white papers. Generate leads? nurture leads already in your funnel? beat out competitors on a cost benefit analysis? on a technical checklist? launch a new solution to an old problem? then pick the best flavor of white paper to accomplish that purpose. hint. Next, visualize how your published white paper will look and feel when its all done.

Use my infographic you have it, right? to plan a page by page flow of the contents. Then imagine how you will assemble the right team, gather research, manage reviewers, repurpose into other formats, and promote your finished white paper all to overcome the marketing challenge you identified in habit 1. The first step in managing a white paper project is to find the right creative suppliers: a writer, a designer, and perhaps an illustrator.

Then you need a pile of background for your writer to study. you may need subject matter experts smes who are willing to be interviewed by your writer and theyll need to set aside a few minutes to review drafts. And you need members of your marketing team who can promote the finished paper through the web, social media, journalists, bloggers, events, and channel partners. Strive to make the entire process of planning, creating, publishing and promoting your white paper enjoyable for everyone.

Ask for frequent small deliverables: notes on your kickoff call, draft outlines, rough graphics. What information can you provide to help your prospects? do not jump into describing your solution too soon, or in too much detail. If your goal is to generate leads, you want readers to be intrigued enough to engage with your company and find out more. One white paper can be repurposed in many different ways: as blog posts, a slide deck or webinar, a press release, an opinion piece. Thats how to squeeze every last drop of value from your investment in such a formidable piece. Be sure to take the time to track your white paper campaign results, build your swipe file, and continue to monitor the key trends and issues in b2b content marketing.

Another best practice is to hold a brief post mortem to discuss how to improve your process the next time around. Dont allow finger pointing a good way to avoid this is to focus on processes, not personalities. If you as a b2b marketer follow these seven habits on every white paper project, i believe you will quickly improve your published content, your project management, and your marketing results. And your white papers will become even more highly effective at overcoming your marketing challenges. Using your time efficiently to achieve your lifes goals begin with good planning.