Over the past several years, the capacity planning area for IT professionals has become much more challenging when dealing with managing active switch ports. For most organizations, the challenge is threefold:
- The sheer number of ports requested has continued to grow year over year.
- The transient nature of users keeps the infrastructure in continuous state of flux as users plug into an active for a period of time and then move on when done with that requirement.
- The current economic state has greatly reduced expansion in regards to equipment, so the number of new ports hasn't grown as fast as the new demand for most organizations.
Keeping track of which ports are being used or were used but now are available isn't rocket science, it just falls to the bottom of the priority list for most IT staff. It's much easier to just add a new port you know is available instead of manually digging and sifting through each device to decipher where previously used ports are now available.
I recently published a new tech tip on the port saturation issue that covers how to better plan for capacity requirements. The good news is automation is available to help with this task as well as better managing your entire network infrastructure.