The evolution of the network appliance reflects corporate personnel management.

Mike Murray noted the other day on his blog:

“And, unfortunately, these appliances are actually beginning to do the opposite of their original promise - as enterprises organize their security infrastructure to automate patching and ensure availability, the proliferation of different appliances actually adds to TCO - we're spending more time managing our appliances than our actual infrastructure.”

Full disclosure, Mike is a good friend and ex nCircle employee. So when I say Mike failed to note the human characteristic of his findings, he’ll take it on as a challenge.

Absolutely, there is an appliance for just about every management need – compliance, configuration, patching, etc. Mike misses the corollary. Enterprises like building silos of control. We see it in technology and it’s mirrored in personnel practices. Take a look at some job titles on popular recruiting websites: “IT Audit SAP”, “ITIL Professional”, “ERP Controls”, “Metrics Analyst”.

When you get to an enterprise level, breaking the problems and goals into bite size chunks makes some sense. As a result, you have employees solely focused on a specific task with measurable goals. The down side is you are stuck and many times in political battles with the other silos.