Candidate areas for solutions were considered in response to the defined problem. Each participant was asked to report on the most important task or key problem area their users faced. These were then clustered to define focus areas. Information Visualization Representation and manipulation of large collections of objects is a common requirement. Capture and Access to Trouble Shooting Information Diagnosis and problem solving in a chaotic heterogeneous networking environment with widely varying information needs to be supported within applications.
Information capture is critical and automated support of correlation across objects and time key.
Scalability of Solutions Organizations need to be supported with applications that can span entire companies while at the same time allowing subset domains to be established and controlled. As companies grow or change the tools should be able to do likewise. Education and Training For small and medium businesses where the network or system management is often a part time job for an employee there needs to be a way to supply expertise and training as part of the application. These users are not experts, which is the typical requirement for use of management products. Customization of Interface Users and organizations need to be able to tailor their applications to suit scope of responsibility and task.