It’s easy to see how network tool sprawl gets started. The needs and challenges facing security and networking groups are immense. Network speeds have steadily increased, and there are always new demands and uses. Network conditions and requirements change weekly, if not daily. Security threats increase in number and approach. At the same time, technological advancement rapidly brings new solutions to the market that are beneficial in addressing networking and security needs.
Adding or changing tools or solutions becomes essential. Existing tools may have difficulty scaling to network growth and changes, and mismatches of network speeds and interfaces create difficult challenges. Many organizations contend with a jungle of cabling and connectors to get components connected in the right way, and managing this becomes increasingly difficult. This dynamic produces three distinct problems: the sizable work involved in approving each for deployment, the limitations in infrastructure to accommodate solutions and the potential conflicts solutions pose to each other or the network if not operating in logical sequence.