By Deb Mielke
Network World, 5/18/98

Describe your enterprise network and determine your business requirements. Focus on these key areas and answer the following questions:

• Applications and business processes the network supports. Are some services more mission-critical than others? Is your business global, national or regional? Are there critical periods when the network must be particularly stable?

• Current network service levels. What are the current goals and performance in such areas as availability, mean time to restore, utilization and latency? How are these metrics gathered and reported? Are there areas in which improvements could be realized through investment in automation?
  
  
• Network topology. Are there any long overdue network design changes? Which protocols are supported? Do you plan to add, remove or change locations, protocol support or speed? Have you experienced any major problems with the topology?

• Technology. What hardware and software are running on the network? Has any equipment or software been modified to support nonstandard protocols or systems? Do you plan to migrate from routers to switches, 14.4K bit/sec modems to V.90, or ISDN to digital subscriber line?

• Help desk. Does a single group handle application and network problem calls? What are the help desk's problem resolution responsibilities?

• Current budget. How much are you spending on people, hardware, software, tel-communications, network management, etc.? Take time to understand the components that will not be reduced or changed by outsourcing, such as your salary.

• Contractual obligations. Do any contracts have exclusivity clauses? What are the term commitments? This could be important if you end up choosing a carrier or ISP instead of your current service provider.

Find out what functions your prospective outsourcers can handle by visiting their Web sites. Next, meet with the vendors that appear to be able to meet your needs. If your requirements fall outside the outsourcer's definitions, outsourcing the network or specific components of the network may prove difficult, costly or just plain unfeasible.

Pare the list of potential vendors to a manageable number. How many vendors can you logically work with during the RFP process? Ideally, you should aim to work with three to five vendors.