Multi-vendor networks have become a trend as businesses seek to meet diverse needs using solutions from multiple vendors. These often include routers, switches, firewalls, and other network software and devices. While engaging multiple vendors is advantageous and leads to cost savings, flexibility, and improved performance, it can also present significant challenges and make network management daunting for administrators.

As they grow their infrastructure to include more vendors and technologies, managing these networks becomes exceedingly complex, time-consuming, and challenging. This article explores 5 key challenges associated with multi-vendor network management.

Integration

One of the key challenges of managing multi-vendor networks is integration. Vendors often use diverse proprietary protocols, standards, and management interfaces. These differences introduce a significant interoperability challenge that decreases the ability of the components to work together seamlessly. The more the vendors involved, the more daunting the task.

Complexity

In addition to integration challenges, multi-vendor networks can be exceedingly complex. This is especially true for larger enterprises that include even more vendors. The numerous components, configuration, and protocols are difficult to track, and the complexity only increases as the network expands to incorporate even more.

Configuring and deploying new devices on these networks also requires significant manual effort and time since they must be integrated and interoperable with the existing ones on the network. In addition, when there are configuration issues, operators need to manually telnet/SSH the devices to make changes.

Network operators for multi-vendor networks are also often introduced to upgrade challenges. These upgrades from different suppliers need to be thoroughly planned and tested for compatibility. Incompatibility and human error while planning and testing may introduce significant downtime and disrupt business activities.

These complexities call for network admins who are conversant with diverse technologies so they can easily monitor, troubleshoot, and make changes on the network when needed.

Security

The security policies and procedures that different vendors use make securing multi vendor networks significantly more difficult than single vendor networks. Integrating these security policies and procedures may leave gaps in security coverage that need to be addressed. Additionally, integrating components from different vendors onto a network may introduce more vulnerabilities.

To solve this challenge, network administrators need to develop and set comprehensive network-wide security policies and procedures.

Network Performance Management

In large multi-vendor and multi-technology networks, performance management is also often difficult. Admins for such networks need to collect data such as device status, memory status, and hardware information, but the vendors having unique Object identifiers (OIDs) complicates the process.

In addition, lack of a standardized NMS that can support multi-vendor infrastructure paralyzes telemetry data collection and analysis. Troubleshooting and identifying the root causes of performance issues is also challenging and time consuming.

Vendor Management

Vendor management is another significant difficulty for multi-vendor networks that may lead to long lead times. For instance, each vendor in such a network has individual paths for issue escalation and receipt of support, making it challenging to achieve timeliness during crises. Different service level agreements (SLAs) and maintenance schedules from the vendors further complicate maintenance procedures.

Enterprises can alleviate the vendor management challenge by setting up and maintaining effective management processes. Developing strong relationships with vendors, defining escalation paths, and negotiating for beneficial SLAs and maintenance schedules can all help.

SGRwin – The All-In-One Solution for Multi-Vendor Network Management

SGRwin offers a comprehensive suite of solutions for managing and monitoring multi-vendor networks. Our flexible platform provides a wide range of functionalities that make managing your network simpler and more efficient.

Protocol Support

Our platform fully supports a broad range of protocols for both OT and IT networks, including.

Say Goodbye to Interop Issues with SGRwin

SGRwin consolidates all the management and monitoring operations of multi-vendor networks efficiently. Our platform supports a wide range of brands and models. You can check our compatibility list for more information here

SGRwin Makes Multi-Vendor Device Integration Easy

With our platform, you can create different types of templates, such as Advanced IP, Framework IP, or OAM IP. In just seven easy steps, you can fully integrate a new device into your network in as little as 10 minutes. Check out our video demonstration here

Discover More About SGRwin

Our suite brings together over 400 functionalities based on FCAPS. You can obtain all the performance data of your network with advanced statistics, have a complete inventory of all the multi-manufacturer devices, advanced control panels, and more.

Get in touch with our team today to learn more about how SGRwin can simplify and improve your network management experience.