A new survey of senior IT networking professionals indicates many continue to struggle with application performance.

Network Instruments' annual 'State of Networking' survey carried out in January 2008, revealed 75 per cent of network professionals reported difficulties in identifying the primary cause of poor application performance. Last year, that figure was just 25 per cent.

"These problems will continue to grow as companies implement new technologies and applications on their networks, without the necessary visibility into them, " said Ian Cummins, EMEA vice president, Network Instruments. "Although the primary cause is an application/network/server issue, the upshot is, it becomes a 'staying-in-business' issue."

Other highlights of the survey, showed 31 per cent citing lack of troubleshooting information as their major network concern; while 25 per cent said ensuring application delivery was their biggest network problem.

The survey also showed a five per cent increase in VoIP implementations, with 66 per cent of firms having implemented or looking to implement VoIP in the next 12 months. The number of network professionals expressing confidence in their VoIP rollouts also increased from 12 per cent last year to 25 per cent.

Multiprotocol label switched systems (MPLS), a technique for increasing network speeds and giving better network management, together with 10 gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) connectivity are still on firms' radar, but rollouts are in the initial stages. The survey shows 55 per cent have no intention to migrate to MPLS, while 71 per cent indicated they had no plans for deploying 10GbE.

The survey sample size was 600, with CIOs and IT managers from around the world being questioned about the problems they face troubleshooting application performance.