>To me, a part-time network admin, that your network person is "unapproachable" is completely unacceptable. This person's job is to serve the users and improve their computing experience. This attitude is costing your organization real time and money.
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>Going over this person's head would probably harden his/her opposition so I wouldn't do that....

Having been on both sides of this sort of problem, an IT administrator is one of the most powerful individual in an organization and sometimes THE most powerful individual.

When that person has an ego problem, everyone dealing with him/her has a big problem. In these cases they tend to be overly territorial and as, for the most part, they are very intelligent people, they'll always know what side of their personality to show at any given moment, so in most cases, those who could fire them, are often delighted with their performance.

The job is also fraught with problems and most of what they do is solve problems, so the least thing they want is to open the door even slightly to the possibility of having yet another source of headaches.

I suggest you don't take it personally, just go to this person and explain to him that in order for the application to be usable, it needs to respond quickly, that you have done everything in your hands to optimize it and that the only problems that aren't possible to rule out are in HIS hands.

Or, ask for his help. Hey Sam, I'm having this problem and you're the only person that can help me. Stroke his ego; this works most of the time.

Alex