Caught in a CrossfireCaught in a Crossfire

Network management is no longer the same old engineering feat of simply managing packets and configuring routers. Complex challenges, such as the integration of voice and data, keep CIOs and their IT organizations contemplating the next chess move necessary to adapt their networks to keep pace with evolving business requirements. Once again, users rely heavily on their IT colleagues as a support backbone to ensure that telephones ring and queries get processed.

Blindness to service quality is no longer acceptable. Whether you're in the executive ranks or a staff knowledge worker, network technology has assumed dominance in making work productive — or not. In yesteryear, managing bits and bytes was left to wizards who knew best how to extract the right data to support a user's inquiry. A reasonable waiting period for a queried report was natural and expected. Batch processing meant just that: get in line for answers. Meanwhile, in the world of voice communications, when you picked up the telephone, you always counted on that dial tone before you placed a call. It would be difficult to imagine anything more predictable than reports that simply landed on our desktops, or telephones that functioned with certainty.

Now, we're heading down the road toward the marriage of voice and data. And as the networking universe morphs into a homogenous blend of VoIP calls and broadband data packets, complexity just rose by an order of magnitude. IT organizations are discovering that they are ill-prepared to handle it, let alone hold their ground. IT needs intelligence: specifically, the ability to apply advanced analytics to the network equation and determine just how a change, such as a new business application, will impact performance considerations. As complexity rises, what matters is the imperative to simplify the network picture. IT needs a more strategic understanding of how users will react to change, and key performance indicator (KPI) metrics to better assess the satisfaction of the business user constituency.

Most IT fundamentalists would agree with the notion that we need sophisticated tools to keep today's network intact and humming at greater speed (and bandwidth) than ever before. However, we live not only in an age where faster is better but one that requires compliance with regulatory policy or rule-based computing architectures. It's no longer enough just to satisfy users: IT must carefully regulate access privileges. This can pit IT's network performance mission against a determination to control user access and interaction. CIOs must find the right balance.

Crossing the Bridge

An interesting crop of vendors is coming to IT's aid as it tries to resolve new dilemmas. Opnet Technologies of Bethesda, Maryland is focusing on how IT may simplify itself through automation while adding neural intelligence that better manages the integration of new functionality. Offering a mature set of network modeling solutions, the company's flagship product, IT Guru, enables IT departments to take the guesswork out of "what-if" scenarios, such as a projected rollout of CRM, ERP, or other business applications that will consume greater bandwidth and impart new constraints. Being able to see what modifications will bring — and how best to map constraints to policies — is a real panacea for delivering service expectations. While best known for troubleshooting network problems, Opnet's toolset is rapidly creating value as not just a firefighting agent, but rather a long-range support component.

Pearson Education Data Center Services in Iowa City, Iowa has been a strong proponent of predictive network modeling as the company continues the evolution of its networks to eke out performance gains. Robert Morales, resource management specialist, says that his department is constantly searching for new approaches to stave off problems before they manifest themselves as user satisfaction issues. "Our goal is to enable the betterment of customer service by ensuring, or exceeding, the basics of service-level agreements," cites Morales. This goal "translates unequivocally to greater satisfaction and a quality of service that balances a prudent ROI for the organization." According to Morales, he has witnessed the business cause of network technology move itself upstream in recent years; and along with this tidal shift comes increased complexity. "By using solutions like IT Guru, we effectively entered the optimization phase of being capable of seeing application performance in an end-to-end fashion."

And if the footrace to keep up with emerging technologies wasn't fast enough, user demand for the latest innovations such as telephony routing, self-service data fulfillment, and real-time information management keep support teams like Pearson's running a full-bore marathon. No amount of technology support appears great enough to win the race. IT departments find that the difficulty of adding applications to the network isn't the addition itself, but rather the aftermath of doing so without being able to see the net disruption. For every new function, the support consideration is a daunting task that can't be overlooked for long.

Other CIO teams take a slightly different course to finding service nirvana. With some, the basic notion of mapping the network to achieve a unified view of its architecture is enough to get started. John Sosa, senior staff networking engineer at Seagate, describes his adoption of Opnet's VNE Server solution as a means toward seeing the holistic enterprise. "We essentially needed to see beyond the router and understand the flows of individual applications," notes Sosa. "With business factors and network reliability taking center stage, the new imperative is to keep the information continuum moving with proof-positive results." By analyzing the single points of failure and simulating scenarios, Sosa's colleagues with Seagate's Global Network Engineering team aim to keep the core function of the business as simple as turning on the light switch. While burned out bulbs are often difficult to predict, predictive network modeling is enhancing the reality of measurable service performance on a day-to-day basis. And that keeps executives and staff focused on the business mission — not the technology.

Up the Value Chain

The economics of globalization and business computing have propelled us toward the "always on" enterprise era. With this era comes a certain expectation of being connected to intelligence at our fingertips — often more of it than we can reasonably handle. Users don't really care much about the gee-whiz gadgetry and technology circumstances until failure presents itself — and blocks them from achieving a productive outcome. Research into human factors of network utility — or the explicit value that users place on network function — shows us that IP networks are assuming an increasingly share of the primary inputs that drive economic productivity. Being unplugged is truly a stumbling block to forward progress; a disruption can bring catastrophic business consequences.

Whereas before the network was inherently unstable — outages being the norm — today an implosion could lead to dead telephones, abandoned customers, and global trade grinding to a halt. Network engineers, too, have learned some valuable lessons about the importance of networks to the business infrastructure. Seagate's Sosa comments, "Our future as an IT organization is to think in terms of business applications and how to carefully manage service delivery to the end user." While some managers tend to think strategically about compliance, the real motivation of the enterprise is to move with the current of change and seek out ways to improve the economic value that network technology serves to create.

When it comes to delivering service to the end user, technology becomes a transparent layer to the foreground of uninterrupted reliability. To truly adapt as a connected enterprise, Pearson's Morales sums it up best: "Users expect — no, they demand — the equivalent of dial tone service from their networks." Try answering that support call next time when the phone doesn't ring. Or worse yet, when the customer can't connect, be sure to turn the lights off. Welcome to the economic shadow of technology within the enterprise.

Guest columnist Frank J. Bernhard is an author, technology economist and managing principal with OMNI Consulting Group LLP, an economic advisory and assurance firm. His latest book is Beyond Collaboration: How Supply Chains Meet Demand Chains (CRC Press, 2004).