OPINION: What are the technologies that will be keeping Network administrators up late in the coming year?
The start of another, hopefully less traumatic year than 2001, is here and this provides an opportune moment to pause and reflect on the technologies that will provide the biggest benefits (and nightmares) to businesses in the next two to three years.
Voice over IP
In the not so distant past, voice over IP (VoIP) was an effective cost-reduction strategy, typically implemented as Voice over Frame Relay.
Due to telecommunications costs being lower for data than for voice (and the ability to use "spare" data bandwidth to carry voice traffic), reducing or eliminating STD or ISD calls produced significant savings and a Return on Investment of 6-12 months. While this practise is more accurately labelled "toll bypass", and not IP telephony, it could be easily justified based on economic returns.
Telecommunications deregulation (increased competition) rendered the toll bypass argument obsolete. Reduced voice tariffs meant that there was no longer a compelling argument to combine voice and data traffic.
In fact, most telecommunications themselves have moved to a digital transmission of voice, enabling them to utilise bandwidth more effectively and contributing to the significant shift in traffic types.
The National Office of the Information Economy predicted last year that domestic data traffic is expected to exceed voice traffic this year, two to three years before the rest of the world.
Voice over IP will start to gain serious acceptance with medium to large businesses in 2002. What will drive this technology is not reduced telecommunications costs, but a combination of reduced cost of ownership and "killer apps" enabled by the use of IP handsets.
The ability to deploy applications--from head office to remote branches--will be the real benefit of IP Telephony. Applications that increase personal and workgroup flexibility already exist (for example, voice mail linked to MS Outlook, which "knows" that someone will be in a meeting until 11am and varies the message based on this information).
As these are joined by "killer apps" designed for specific industries, there will be a compelling reason for a take-up of this technology.
Convenience networking
It's not really anything new. Or even exciting. Our experience in 2001 showed customers efforts increasingly focused on leveraging the network. Focusing on implementing solutions that extend the reach and functionality of the network.
This trend is reflected in a number of areas: wireless networking is increasing in popularity, with its ability to extend the network throughout a building and provide flexible and mobile access to the network. Similarly, network-attached storage (NAS) recognises that the value of any network is in providing access to data, and the more "access points" to that data the better.
Storage area networking (SANs) and NAS have been deployed for years by large enterprise. Now smaller organisations are realising the benefits of moving data from notebook and PC hard drives to a central storage array.
Finally, the corporate network is extending across the Internet. As ADSL and other technologies (finally) offer a panacea to the joys of working on a 56K dial-up connection, networks are being made more accessible from outside the office.
Web-based access to e-mail and corporate resources and VPNs are replacing traditional remote access solutions, enabling employees to work-effectively-just about anywhere, anytime.
e-business
e-business remains a black-listed word. B2C e-business remains a black-listed business model. However, despite the disillusionment surrounding e-business, Internet usage continues to grow and the e-procurement market is still forecast to grow at 24 percent year-on-year for the next five years (IDC, October 2001).
We continue to see customers investing in e-business systems and infrastructures, not replacing their existing business model, but enabling improved customers service and reduced operating costs.
In many industries, supply chain management reduces the need to hold large inventories, by seamlessly integrating suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. Internet commerce reduces transactional costs and enables faster response to changing market conditions.
As expectations and reality align more closely in the next few years, e-business will regain credibility.
Oliver Descoeudres is marketing manager at network IP/Internet network infrastructure builder and solutions provider NetStar Australia. He can be contacted at marketing@netstarnetworks.com or on 61 2 9805 9759.
