Given the complexity of today's technology, the rapid pace of change, and the short retention time of key technical personnel, organizations often find themselves in the position of working with technology that they do not fully understand. With increasing dependence on computing networks, optimized network performance is critical for both competitive advantage and cost control. And when contemplating functionality enhancements and or rectifying performance issues inadequate knowledge can be extremely costly and problematic. Of course, the key to successfully managing and exploiting technology is to develop and maintain the deepest understanding of it possible.

The MicroAge Network Assessment provides a clear, objective, in depth analysis of the client's network including its overall health, topology and components. Utilizing highly specialized tools and proven industry best practices, our network specialists will examine the infrastructure and report any condition that may cause negative performance, and highlight any areas where further performance increases can be gained. We will evaluate client business needs and compare them against the current network infrastructure, existing methodologies, and management systems.

We will begin the Network Assessment by conducting interviews to develop a greater understanding of the client's business and their IT objectives. We will then have one of our experienced network specialists survey the infrastructure to capture pertinent information such as topology and configuration of key network components including servers, switches and routers as well as key applications and their performance requirements. Using best-in-class tools, our specialists will then gather network statistics over a predetermined period to develop an accurate and representative performance baseline. We will conduct an in depth analysis to identify performance issues and gaps and to assess the network's growth capabilities with respect to the client's business and IT objectives. We will then produce a detailed report that clearly outlines our recommendations to resolve performance issues as well as how to most effectively accommodate growth objectives. If required, we can also provide cost justification information to assist the decision makers considering the recommendations. In addition, we will provide a network documentation report complete with all relevant configuration information of the critical components within the network. As a result, clients will benefit from an even greater understanding of their infrastructure as well as a greater ability to perform network upgrades and changes in the future.

Key Benefits
The MicroAge Network Assessment is a cost-effective turnkey solution designed to provide clients with the information required to manage their environment more effectively and keep it up and running at its maximum potential with the lowest possible costs. The MicroAge Network assessment provides clients with an in-depth view of their network, availability, and bandwidth utilization and brings previously undetected network issues to light.

The assessment will help clients to:
- Rank their network concerns in order of priority
- Build justifications for needed network improvements
- Evaluate their ability to handle future network growth

With proper and complete implementation, clients will also receive the following additional benefits:

Increased Application Performance and Reliability
Informed IT decision-makers must keep an eye on both network and application performance. The Network Assessment presents a clear view of network traffic flow, allowing clients to optimize application performance according to business needs.

Proactive Network Performance Management
Network demands often lead to performance degradation that, if left unresolved, may cause slowdowns and outages. The MicroAge Network Assessment can prevent most network performance issues before they arise to help maintain a reliable environment and keep users and customers satisfied.

Accelerating performance improvements and reducing IT costs
The Network Assessment can help clients identify the most effective hardware, software, networks and services for their environment prior to implementation to optimize system performance and IT investments. This helps secure the availability of applications and improve productivity while keeping costs down.

Enhancing your environment
The Network Assessment looks at each function of the infrastructure that could affect reliability and availability to help identify limitations and risks and then compares them to current and future business requirements to create an effective road map for enhancing the infrastructure.

Improved ability to plan & manage upgrade
The network documentation report will include all relevant configuration information of the critical components within the network. As a result, clients will benefit from an even greater understanding of their infrastructure as well as a greater ability to perform network upgrades and changes in the future by knowing exactly what is in place within their organization.

Accurate and representative information
The performance baseline is developed over a substantial time period to ensure reading is reflective of true overall performance. In addition, the baseline facilitates ongoing analysis of network performance by comparing 'snapshots' to baseline.

Meaningful results in business relevant terms
Business relevant information on network trends and activities provided rather than the pure data provided by most network tools.

Limitations
The Network Assessment does not encompass a complete inventory of the client's systems. The equipment listed and depth of information provided will be limited to the equipment indicated on the network topology diagram for the specified environment.

Other potentially networked technologies including photocopiers, telephony and fax services, archives and various other, often industry-specific, technologies such as lab equipment and manufacturing equipment connected to the network may not be included in the assessment. The impact and/or relationship the service has with the network must be assessed beforehand to determine whether or not it should and will be included.

The assessment does not go into analyzing the various policies and procedures in place within the organization such as those surrounding asset management, information protection, system security, appropriate use of business resources, standards implementation and maintenance, and user education.