2023 Network IT Management Report
What is the current state of network management as a field, and what does its future look like?
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Highlights in this report
4500
4500 IT professionals and decision-makers surveyed
86%
86% support a hybrid or remote workforce
45%
45% don’t know the full configuration of their network
45%
45% are measured on their service to end-users
The future of work is evolving
Now is the time to consider automating network tasks and improving network visibility.
As the network expands beyond an office firewall and into what we at Auvik have termed The Last Mile of the Office Network, IT professionals, and particularly, decision makers, need to be aware of the role that network monitoring and management, as well as SaaS, Wi-Fi, and End-User Experience, play in their organizations.
Now is the time to consider automating network tasks and improving network visibility, so that the workforce of the future can continue to be managed successfully by internal in-house IT and MSPs.
Support for hybrid teams is table stakes
Remote work has been a hot topic for the last 3 years, and it isn’t going away any time soon.
86% of respondents to our field survey support a team that is remote at least some of the time.
The concept that work is done entirely on an office network, secured behind a firewall, is an idea from pre-pandemic times.
Network visibility improved – but still lacking
IT professionals need to have full visibility when it comes to their team’s connected devices and network performance.
In last year’s Network Field Report, we noted that 57% of IT teams did not fully know the configuration of their networks.
While that percentage has since decreased, our results still point to a worrying 45% of IT professionals lacking a complete picture of the current network.
Configuration sprawl contributes to risk
21% of network configuration changes are made by users outside the network administration team, perhaps by adjacent teams like DevOps.
This increases risk when not accompanied by proper documentation and detailed config management hygiene.
Without accurate, up-to-date documentation, troubleshooting network issues stemming from configuration changes becomes more challenging and time-consuming.
End-User experience matters
While multiple and traditional metrics like MTTR still matter, 45% cited end-user satisfaction as the top success metric for ITOps and NetOps teams. The ability to troubleshoot network issues affecting the end-user experience quickly and efficiently is critical to keeping end-users productive and businesses happy.
45%
45% of respondents are tracked on the satisfaction of their end-user or customer
42%
42% of respondents are tracked on the percentage of uptime and downtime at their organization
37%
37% of respondents are tracked on the number of tickets closed in a time period
33%
33% of respondents are tracked on Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR)