You: Roundtable - The entire transcript

Network World, 7/26/99

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Top network professionals engage in a roundtable discussion on the top issues of the day, from electronic commerce to convergence.

In the rush to get things done day to day, it's probably not often that you have the time to stop and think about your job itself. How is it changing? What are they key things you need to focus on? How can you best prepare yourself and your company for the years ahead?

We asked six network executives to take a timeout to talk shop in a roundtable discussion that touched on topics ranging from the effect of expanded press coverage on their jobs to how they're dealing with the latest issues such as electronic commerce and convergence.

If this group is any indication, you'd best leave that TCP/IP book on the shelf and instead grab a good management manual or business book. Listening to these six professionals, it's clear that times have changed. No longer are we just talking up the importance of the IT professional who's got some business savvy. Now it's a requirement, along with strong project management skills. That's not to say you don't need to understand technology. With issues like IP convergence topping their to-do lists, that's far from the case. The point is, your role is now team leader, not chief technology guru.

Joining the discussion were: Russ Davis, assistant director for network services for Ernst & Young in New York; Mike Hinkle-Morrison, the former chief information officer at Pier One Imports and chief technology officer at TGI Friday's restaurant chain, who is currently searching for his next challenge; Gene Rindels, CIO of Respironics, Inc., a global medical device manufacturer in Pittsburgh; Brook Smith, manager of network engineering at Forum Financial Group, a mutual fund company in Portland, Maine; George Sullivan, senior network architect with the Bethpage, NY facility of Northrup Grumman, an aerospace manufacturer headquartered in Los Angeles; and George Yeager, manager of architecture and design at Columbia Energy Group Service in Columbus, Ohio.

The roundtable was moderated by Paul Desmond, who until recently was features editor of Network World. He is now vice president of King Content, a custom publishing company focusing on high technology.

For some time now, the business press and even the general press have been covering network-related issues. Publications ranging from Business Week to the New York Times now routinely cover stories about new technologies, mergers of major network players and so on. What effect has this increased exposure had on your job?
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Yeager: It's what's behind the press coverage that affects my job. And by that I mean network technology has really become a deeply integrated and a global business process. It's everywhere. And management now knows this. Networking has become a strategic factor for any business, as we just heard. And for telecommunications professionals, the coverage is helping to pull us out of the shadows of strategic planning and into the daylight. I think the press has really been a help in that regard. For me, it's easier to find an audience for proposals and to secure funding for a well considered project.

Rindels: I'd say that the heightened awareness for technology or information systems networks has had a positive impact. We are now becoming more and more a business partner and technology mentor as part of the senior business leadership team. And they are more aware now than ever of the effect that technology has on the way they serve and base their business to the customers.

Davis: Internally over the past few years at Ernst & Young, it has been recognized that our enterprise network has been one of the key enablers of technology initiatives, business processes, and also the growth of our firm. And our network has truly become mission critical in achieving the firm's business objectives. With the huge increase in publicity surrounding the network industry, all the mergers, and the development of a lot of these new technologies, our senior management awareness has been heightened dramatically regarding the complexity of networking, which is generally a good thing.

Our focus during the past year has been on processes, metrics, measurement, service level objectives and agreements, all of which somewhat demonstrate the maturity of the network that we have in place. And we really have very few issues concerning network availability and performance. Overall, the increased cautions and concerns on the part of senior management are either warranted or not, depending upon how you positioned your company's network for the future and also the stability and track record of your infrastructure within your own company.

Are there any negative consequences from all this press coverage and the heightened awareness on the part of upper management? Is there too much meddling or anything like that?
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Smith: I don't think there's anything negative that goes on, at least not at Forum. We routinely have discussions with senior management about technological solutions that we can use to solve a particular business problem. But almost never is it a negative thing.

Yeager: I agree. I think the impact is largely positive. The only slight negative might be that folks read about [new technologies] and think they're awfully easy to implement. It still takes a lot of planning to implement. But I think [the heightened management awareness] is very, very positive.

Does anyone disagree with that?
Smith: I think it's refreshing just to have senior management swing by your office and drop off an article that they read in the Wall Street Journal about some new technology with a simple note on it that says, "Is this something that's of interest to us?" They're looking at [technology] from a business perspective. And that's a great thing. It's an open door to have communication to solve business needs. That's a good thing.

Sullivan: What about the time lag between the introduction of a new technology, the latest gee whiz thing, and the time that you can institutionalize it and roll it out, en masse? It seems to me there is a huge time span between when I first read about something in Network World and when I can really use it in a production environment.

Hinkle-Morrison: I would also agree with you. I believe there's a lot of marketing pressure being put on the small and major vendors to reveal their strategies. And sometimes, I believe, they are a little aggressive on the marketing side. Some of these things, you start asking your team can we do it, and when we can do it. Most of them don't know about it and sometimes it's way out into the future.

Yeager: You guys have done a better job of stating what I really meant. And I still don't see that as a negative. I see it as a positive as when somebody dropped something off at my desk and said, "What about this? Can we use it?" We just have to be sure to do a good job of communicating with management and letting them known what risks are associated with new technologies, and just make them feel comfortable that we are trying to integrate these things where it makes sense and where it doesn't endanger enterprise assets.

Smith: I agree that a conservative approach to technology solves a lot of those problems. We're in the financial industry, so we can't make mistakes either. It could cost us a whole business relationship very quickly and very easily. So systemically, within the company, the way we approach technology is it's a tool, it needs to be mature, it needs to be proven, and we need to have ways around it should it fail.

Electronic commerce is one of the areas that the business press has been focusing on. In what ways has the whole e-commerce movement had a positive effect on your company and on the network group in particular?
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Davis: From a professional services perspective, Ernst & Young has the opportunity to shape the future and bring many companies into the Internet economy by working with them and transforming their organization into what's called an E-company. From an internal networking perspective, the e-commerce focus in the press, and the well publicized stories concerning companies like Amazon, show the strategic significance and advantage that the network has for any particular company. And, naturally, as a byproduct, we're also seeing a huge increased workload in terms of new projects and activities within the firm that funnel down to our department.

Yeager: I agree. We're seeing e-commerce growing at Columbia. We've been doing electronic gas commodity and pipeline transportation trading for years. But we're now breaking into residential energy and related services. And I think everybody views this as a very positive trend. With respect to the networking group, it's raised our corporate visibility, it's increased pressure on us to get things done very quickly, and we're seeing a lot happening much more rapidly in our non-regulated business.

Sullivan: In the aerospace industry, the Department of Defense is pushing the concept very much of integrated product teams, which are teams across various specialties and across different companies. And we find ourselves in a mode of operation that has dubbed "co-opetition," in which we are business partners with some of the biggest companies in the industry, like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. We are partners with them on a lot of projects and we're competing with them on other projects. So we have a number of very specialized network links to do electronic commerce with them on specific products.

Rindels: I agree with most of the comments made so far. It's really the ability for our company, and most companies, to directly engage their customers and start to build new ways to form strong relationships which always seem to be mutually positive. Certainly, these are technology initiatives, but they really are business initiatives.

Hinkle-Morrison: One of the e-commerce issues, at least from the retail perspective, especially on the consumer side, is being able to take on high and low demands. An example was during the Super Bowl. Victoria's Secret did a great job advertising their web site. And when it came down to the day when people needed to get access to it, there were a number of bottlenecks. One was the network, one was on the server side. In some cases, you don't know what kind of volume can hit you. And that is what challenges you, from the network side, because you've got to balance [the demand] with capacity and being able to afford the capacity when you need it, and be able to stretch it and collapse it whenever possible.

In the future it's going to challenge the network group even more, I believe, because we'll be doing real time ads. [Real-time advertisements are tailored to individual customers based on known preferences or artificial intelligence mechanisms that assess likely preferences. They also enable retailers to quickly change product offers to increase the likelihood of a sale.] When you get into the real time ads, your network group needs to be tied in with your marketing team to know how much to open that pipe up because you don't want to leave it open all the time and just pay a lot of money for something that's not used.

So, clearly, the e-commerce side is very much becoming entwined with the network group. In fact, this is the first time I've seen the network people sit in a room with the marketing team doing projects.

Has there been any negative fallout from the whole EC movement? Maybe too much pressure exerted on the network group, anything like that?
Smith: The only thing, and I don't think this is a negative, is it requires a rethinking of the business processes. You really do have to work with the different teams that are out there pushing different initiatives. For instance, we had an internal mailing that was going out through our marketing department that was going to ask customers to send in their email addresses for various pieces of information. But we hadn't built the infrastructure in the back to handle the responses. And it was just a fluke that we managed to catch the mailing before it went out there. It was a learning process for us. So the only negative is that you really need to pay attention and to educate other departments that we need to work together as a team if we're going to really solve these problems.

Let's move ahead. This kind of a blue sky question. If you could only focus on one network initiative for the next year, and Y2K is off the table, which one would it be?
Davis: I would say focus on a multi-service network infrastructure that would support integrated voice and data. There's a large opportunity for cost savings within Ernst & Young, which we plan to take advantage of down the road, with technology initiatives like IP multicasts, which we're in the midst of implementing today. That supporting technology is going to have a profound effect on the firm in areas like distance learning and just in time professional training, which will become a strategic advantage to us as a professional services firm, as compared to other big accounting companies out there.

Smith: I would agree completely with that. Building the infrastructure to quickly support initiatives as they come along is key as we go forward. That's one of the things we're focusing on here.

Hinkle-Morrison: I agree with that. Basically, what we're trying to make sure is that the end points are able to accept any kind of transport technology in the future that we can see-at least out the next three to five years-whether it's cable that's going to be the most efficient, or XDSL, or satellite or whatever type of technology. What we want to do is make sure that the ends are flexible enough to adapt very, very quickly, as well as deal with prioritizing our traffic. That's very important, making sure we have that infrastructure in place where we can control how we move information and the priority of it.

Yeager: I agree with that. We're already in the process of installing a new ATM backbone and doing frame relay internetworking. But something we're also concerned about is the appearance of a large number of new small offices in our business. And we'll probably go with thin client computing and virtual private networking, which is also related to end point flexibility. This is an area where I think we can make a big dent in the cost quality factors associated with our small offices.

So are you saying that's your single most important initiative - thin clients?
Yeager: New initiative, yes. I really sort of excluded the infrastructure we built from this discussion since it's already in progress.

Sullivan: It's very difficult to figure out which one is the most important. I'm thinking of a three-legged stool. Which of the three legs is the most important one? We have this general pressure to improve network performance and increase bandwidth. We seem to do that every year.

But over and above that, from our customers' perspective, the three most important initiatives we have are virtual private networking of various types, especially in the extranet arena and in the remote access. Another initiative that we've started working on this year is LDAP or directory services, how are we going to employ directory services and how is that going to help us manage and control our mix of applications, people and systems. And the third initiative we're working on is multi-purpose, multi-media networking over an IP network. The IP network at Northrup Grummin is based on SMDS technology, which is probably not the most popular choice today but it works really well for us. And we've been doing various tests and trials of voice and video over IP and over our SMDS plant. We're still working on ironing out some bugs with it.

Yeager: We're also beginning - and this would be our second initiative for the year coming - voice and data convergence. We're doing pilots right now on that. And I see tremendous opportunities for us. We want to make the maximum possible use out of our infrastructure and this looks like a good way to do it.

Rindels: I've been trying to convince everybody that Key Largo is the next best location for our network operations. And I don't think I'm being successful.

But other than that, I think what Russ indicated earlier about convergence strategies is very, very true. Short of that, though, I'd have to come back to the e-commerce initiative as probably one of the single areas we'd like to have the freedom just to focus on.

It sounds like most of you think convergence - the idea of voice, data and video all riding on an IP backbone - will play a big role in the enterprise. How soon do you think we're going to get there?
Davis: It's probably one to two years down the road for all but the most aggressive of companies that are willing to take some risk now. We are part of Sprint's ION service offering today. And we're going to attempt to continue to use their network and infrastructure as part of our strategic initiative in this area. And the nice thing is that the Sprint offering also dovetails with Cisco, which is our other strategic network vendor, providing the vast majority of all of our networking equipment across the 250 locations we have in the U.S.

Yeager: We're also looking at AT&T's INC (Integrated Network Connect) product, and some offerings from Ameritech. We have two voice over IP pilots underway. One is with Lucent, one is with Cisco. And we see this as a strategic method of simplifying our network architecture. We see it as a way to open the door to [computer-telephony integration], something that seems to have eluded most of us. And we see it as the direction that the global telephony infrastructure is moving. So we want to cautiously approach it, which is why we're doing the pilots. But I think a year down the road we're going to see a lot more of it.

Do you have a timetable, George, for when you want to roll it out company-wide?
Yeager: We don't have a general rollout plan. The pilot should be in service this month [June]. We'll evaluate them and we may attempt to roll out some small pieces in the year 2000.

Does anyone else have a timetable for convergence?

Hinkle-Morrison: From the retail side, and my planning in the past, I'm seeing 2001 and 2002 being the timetable. We have to get the price points down dramatically because there's not enough margin [in retail] to have much cost overhead added to the business.

Rindels: I concur wholeheartedly with Mike. [Convergence] really has to be balanced among how much technology investment you can make, what your return is, and what's critical to the business.

What would you say are the most important steps you can take today to prepare your network for the years ahead?
Davis: By this point in time, you probably should have positioned your company's network to take advantage of the cost-saving technologies like frame relay and even ATM. And you should be well on the way to providing some cost-effective, high performance network solutions that accommodate the business needs of your company. And as new technologies, like DSL and voice over IP surface, they probably should easily integrate into some roadmap that you've developed as part of your overall strategic vision for the company.

Right now, you should not be focusing on simple network connectivity, or even LAN connectivity, but more on application connectivity across the enterprise with performance and service level objectives that are well defined. If you're not there by now, you'd better get there quick because there's a dramatic change in the network industry that's occurring and if you take that along with some of these rapid advancements and new technologies, it brings a whole new complexity to the networking industry.

Yeager: I agree completely. We're in the process now of installing an ATM backbone with frame relay internetworking. And we know that voice over IP is coming so we're buying routers that support voice. We know that thin client technology, and VPNs are ways to efficiently and rapidly incorporate large numbers of small offices into a network. Those are the steps we're taking.

Sullivan: We have a project underway called Infrastructure 2000, which is a refreshing of most of our infrastructure. One of the interesting things is that networking isn't necessarily driven by the network itself. We've had a goal since 1995 to have an all IP network. But probably like a lot of companies, we're not quite there yet. We're working on it. One of the goals of our infrastructure project is to replace those systems that can't, or don't, or won't use IP. For example, we're replacing a lot of the older Novell devices, specifically to get to the all-IP network.

Hinkle-Morrison: I agree with that comment. The word that I have been using is we need to simplify things. We inherited a lot of complicated networks. And the good thing about Y2K is it gave us a bit of an excuse to get rid of the old stuff and try to consolidate down to, hopefully, one protocol. In some cases, people have to have two protocols. But, really, the word for me is to simplify as much as we can and get rid of the complexity. And we used Y2K as an excuse for some of it.

Rindels: We want to try to position ourselves to best take advantage of new technologies, things that are emerging, such as convergence. So a key thing we're trying to do is to build in interoperability, and then also ensure that high availability is a key attribute of that architecture so that we can continue to meet our service levels and also be positioned to take advantage of some of the new emerging technologies.

Smith: It's interesting, from my perspective, being a much smaller company, to listen to all of you folks talk about simplifying your networks because you've got disparate systems that have been created over decades, in some cases. We're a fairly small company. We're in the opposite mode right now where we're trying to add-we're not trying to add complexity, but we're trying to add layers of redundancy and availability to our network. We're already an all-IP network because we're a fairly new company and we started out that way. But [we need to add] layers of availability.

Sullivan: If you mean things like back up links and so on, that makes a lot of sense. One of our projects at Northrup Grumman was to develop, over the past year, an inexpensive method of having a dial-on demand ISDN type backup for our customers that want it. Now, granted, it adds a level of complexity, but it also introduces the comfort factor and a safety zone in case of a failure of some network link or access point.

What skills would you say will be most important for network managers to have as we look ahead two or three years?
Davis: For network managers and even network engineers, there's a need to move away from some of the technical and physical aspects of networking. These are really not strategic, especially the physical things like DSUs and circuit testing - that's all been moved into the carrier space.

Overall, there's been this ongoing shift occurring with the entire data processing industry, including the networking area, toward letting vendors assume a much larger role. Years ago, carriers sold circuits. Then they rented DSUs. Now they configure routers as part of a network solution. That shift is going to continue to occur and quickly move into the LAN environment, and even eventually include things like voice over IP, which we talked about, so everything will be bundled as a total solution.

So, really, all these technical and physical tasks should be viewed as operational-oriented, and not as strategic jobs or projects for the network engineer folks. It's important to have an in-depth knowledge of these areas so you can manage the vendors, but the real value to companies today is the ability to understand network technologies. How can they be used to provide a foundation for new business initiatives within companies or what is the impact on the network of an application architecture? So the network engineer of the future needs to be tied to things that are strategic, like capacity planning, trend analysis, strategic network designs, and even things like cost modeling, which enables you to model different designs that carriers are providing and proposing to you.

Sullivan: I kind of agree with you. But I think we're talking about two general skill sets which are more people oriented as opposed to technical oriented, and they have to do with relationship management. The network is basically the relationship between a whole bunch of systems. And the systems are run by people. Probably the most important job for a network manager to understand, and to become very actively involved with, is being a relationship manager between the different people and the different business units.

The other important skill, and it's always been important in our area, has been project management. How do you get something done in your business environment? How do you go and actually go ahead and put it in? And it could be managing an outsourcer. But the point is that you still have to know all the buttons to push and the wheels to spin to get the project off the ground, funded, and justified. I would say those two are probably the most important skills.

Any tips for how you develop those skills?
Hinkle-Morrison: It's through experience, on the job. Project management and those kind of skills you can preach all you want, but it really has to be part of how you run your business. You have to have a methodology that's not just used in network management, but throughout the company. That way it's bred into the culture and you learn from that.

Rindels: I agree both with George and Mike. I think what I hear described are just raw leadership skills. There are many attributes of fine leaders and we seek to try and develop those at every opportunity. To become network managers, you typically have to have sound technical fundamentals or have been a technologist. In the coming two to three years, it's no longer going to be good enough just to be proficient as an engineer or manager. The business is demanding that you also be a sound leader so you can navigate, manage projects, and also be able to develop and mentor the staff that works with you or under you. And these things are often lacking in some of the very bright folks that we have.

Yeager: I agree. We're clearly moving away from the nuts and bolts. We need leadership skills, project management skills. We need to be able to create, maintain, and present for our customers a clear and steady vision. We've got to make things happen quickly, creatively, and we've got to have good measurements to demonstrate quality of service for our customers. And if we can't do these things, we're not going to make it.

Hinkle-Morrison: One thing that's been interesting in this question is that we talked about skills needed and I didn't hear any telecom technical skills. We're talking about a high level of skills and I've heard hints of outsourcing. The position is being raised to a different level. In many IS organizations, it is becoming a manager/leader, project manager role versus a nuts and bolts person. At least that's what I'm seeing in some of the organizations I'm working in.

Rindels: It's all about where we can add value to the business, and the business is asking us to add value in new areas. The senior folks now who are moving into the network management area typically have more intimate business knowledge and can have a more profound impact on the business. And this is where our leaders would like us to focus resources and energy.

Most people would agree that there's a shortage of good, qualified technical people. What are your secrets for dealing with this issue? How do you keep your best people and make sure you hire good people?
Davis: In terms of hiring, we try to look for individuals who can grow, in addition to seasoned network professionals, and who fit within our culture. In the area of staff retention, I think it's important that everyone in the group understand the vision and the strategic direction we are moving towards. The network is really a very important part of the firm, and it's instrumental to Ernst & Young's continued growth. Our people understand that. And they understand that their job is very important and is really shaping the firm's future, which is a big factor in staff retention.

Yeager: We try to reduce our vulnerability by essentially outsourcing; manage the vendor instead of the technology. For example, we've outsourced our Internet firewall management process. We try to use ATM and frame relay as much as we can, so many of those management issues just move into the carrier domain. We try to hire folks who we think can do the job and will fit into our culture. We do a lot of training. And we try to let our people work in self-directed work teams as autonomously as we can.

As far as salary goes, we're probably not at the top, but we pay a reasonable salary. And we try to advance our people as quickly as we can where they demonstrate skill and dedication. And we apparently haven't done too bad, because I think in the last 12 months, we've only lost one out of a dozen core engineers. So that's not too bad.

Rindels: It's restating the obvious to say that our people are the most valuable resource we have, but we behave in a way that recognizes that. We also understanding that, unfortunately, we probably all spend more of our daily lives in the office with our associates and colleagues than we're able to with our families. You need to recognize that and to place the same value on that [work] time that I'm sure we all do when we have time with our families. It clearly has to be more than a job or you're never going to succeed at attracting and retaining some of the best people in the industry.

Brook, any thoughts on the staffing question from the smaller company perspective?
Smith: It sort of mirrors what everybody else has already said. You have to enable the people that are doing a lot of the work to have ownership for what they're doing. They have to know what the task is and be allowed the leeway to get it done in a way they think is right, as long as it meets the models that you've set up for them, and to work with the business managers along the way so they understand the vision and the purpose [behind projects]. We haven't had any turnover here in about two years. A big reason for it is that we give a project to an engineer and say, "Here you go. Here's the business manager. Here's our goals. And here's your time line. Just check back with me regularly and let me know how you're doing. And if you have issues, of course, come see me."

Here's where you get to give some advice to your vendors. If you could give the CEO of one network-related vendor one bit of advice that they would be forced to take, which CEO would you choose and what advice would you give?
Davis: I would choose John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco Systems. The advice would be what others had touched on a few minutes ago, to provide simplicity in terms of intelligent networking. Today, really, the problem that we all face is the onus is on us to do much of the best of breed system integration of products from Cisco and other leading network providers. And if you take a look at the staffing, the support costs, the technical skill set required to keep large enterprise networks running at peak performance, these costs are absolutely huge and they're growing very, very rapidly.

Hinkle-Morrison: I don't know if I would pick on any particular CEO. But one of the things that I would force them to do has to do with all the acquisitions. They have really complicated our lives and, in some cases, taken the vendor's eye off the ball. Sometimes vendors are basically saturated with all the takeovers and they just lose sight of [customer requirements]. And, as customers, sometimes we lose sight of what the vendor strategies are. I'll go back to the previous point: keep it simple and make networks easy to maintain and manage.

Rindels: I'd have to say Piyush Patel of Cabletron. Although innovation and advances in technology are oftentimes the path to reaching the top of your particular industry, service and quality are the things that help you stay there. I would say that Cabletron needs to remain cognizant of that.

Sullivan: It's interesting that people are talking about their hardware suppliers mostly. If there's a message for suppliers that I deal with, I would say it's on the carrier side of the house much more so than the hardware vendors, who generally have a direct relationship with us and have been very responsive. And I would include all the major networking vendors in that.

Where I would like to see more cooperation is from the carrier side of the house. All too often, some circuits fail someplace; failures are a fact of life. But we would like to see more cooperation between and among the different carriers, especially the wide area network people and the local exchange carriers. And secondly, I'd like to see more respect for our enterprise technicians on the part of the carriers.

Yeager: I agree. I picked all the interexchange carrier CEOs. And I basically have four or five things I would tell them. And that is, one, listen to your customers. Two, don't promise what you can't deliver. Three, deliver what you say you can when you say you will. And solve problems quickly and creatively; 30 to 45 days doesn't work in today's business environment. And when you've done that, render me a bill that I can read and use to bill my own internal customers. We have a lot of problems with that.

Smith: From a smaller company's perspective, and this is something I don't think anybody else here probably has to deal with, it's just access to information. It sounds like a lot of other people on the call have direct relationships with a lot of the manufacturers due to their size and their profile. Forum being a much smaller company, we're a nobody to Microsoft, Cisco, Novell, or any of the other big companies. So very seldom do we get timely information on fixes for products or solutions directly from the company. We end up going to outside sources and trying to find it through news groups and so on. But that's very time-consuming to do that type of research.

Any particular vendor you want to pick on there, Brook?
Smith: Off the top of my head, we're implementing a new Cisco network. And until we purchased some product, we weren't able to get into their Web site and get any of the good nuggets to help us do some design - white papers and such. You have to be a customer in order to become a customer, which I found rather frustrating.

This is more of a personal question regarding stress. I think anyone would agree that your jobs are fairly stressful. What would you say are the keys to handling that stress, and keeping your head?
Davis: Problems cause stress. And problems surface many times because of poor planning. And over here at E&Y, we generally plan, we plan, we plan, and then we execute one single time. And, overall, that seems to help.

Yeager: I agree. What I've done is just try to make sure I'm not the person who is always in the position of being the tactical expert. I try to rely on the staff as much as I can to configure and test, and keep my head out of the dust cloud so I can see where we're going. We try to make sure that we don't just have one resource to manage critical enterprise systems and we try to manage vendors rather than technology wherever we can. And from an architectural perspective, we try to keep things simple, modular, and standards-based, even at some increased cost.

Rindels: Did I mention Key Largo?

I agree with Russ. Basically, we try to keep our people in a planning mode, communicating effectively with the executive sponsorship of the initiative they're on, and allow them to be prepared for what lies ahead, keep them informed as much as possible what the business strategy is and what our strategy in support of that larger focus would be so that they stay informed and are prepared for the challenges that face them day in and day out.

Hinkle-Morrison: As a result of Y2K, we've simplified, so there's less stress. And, in some cases, we've outsourced many major components of the network. So that stress has now been put on someone else. And talking with some peers that I work with, many of us have outsourced major components of our network to companies that, during the feast times and the famine times, will have the staff needed to support the network.

Don't you still have to worry about the outsourcers doing a good job?
Hinkle-Morrison: Yes, you do. You make sure you have some good metrics in place and watch after them. But there's some good people out there. At least I've had good success.

Are there any things that you folks do to keep the stress level down among your staff - have parties, go on outings, anything like that?
Rindels: Certainly. We take the approach that there's no one-size-fits-all. We've got a very diverse group. We do try to do team building activities as a good stress release, such as a softball game or volleyball game, or something like that. Or just a chance to sit down and relax in an informal dining setting where we can share some of our experiences and stories from the road about the things that have been accomplished. I think it helps considerably.

Hinkle-Morrison: When I was at Friday's, we actually had beer machines in the break room. So that usually worked after 5:00.

What work-related issue worries you the most?
Davis: I would just say the vast amount of technical attention to detail that's required to keep large scale networks operating. You know, any single defect, either design, configuration, it's going to have a devastating impact on the network operation and translate directly back to the business.

Smith: I'd agree completely with that. The biggest issue I think we have at Forum is just dealing with the complexity that's there, even though our network isn't half as complex as some others. Knowing that there are single points of failure out there, and knowing that try as you might, you might not have identified them all. Those are the ones that keep me up at night wondering, 'OK, where is that beast that's out there looking for me?'

Hinkle-Morrison: The biggest work-related issue is just [dealing with] the amount of change and noise that's going on and making sure your strategy holds true and you don't take your eye off the ball. What you want to do is make sure you stay true to your direction, but make sure you take into account the right things as they evolve over time. Also, eliminate the noise out there. There's just so much information, it can overwhelm you if you take your eye off the ball.

Rindels: I think the classic used to be the alignment of the IT strategy with the business strategies. And although that's still critical, I think it's becoming more fundamental, and certainly not any less complex. I would place something I refer to as IT synchronization with business velocity at the top. Timing is everything. And this really refers to the well-timed execution of aligned business and network strategies. The evolution of technology is what makes this one of the more challenging attributes of the job.

Sullivan: I think I agree with that. One of the things that bothers me a lot is that the vendors, certainly the major ones, and the trade magazines, are probably overly optimistic in terms of how quickly these things can be rolled out.

Rindels: Absolutely.

Sullivan: Now, we've all been reading about voice over IP, as an example, for two years. And, yet, what I've heard is [companies are in] a similar position to our company, and we're piloting it. It's not ready for rollout yet. Going back two years ago, they were talking about voice over IP infrastructure by the year 2000, but it's just going to be beginning.

Rindalls: Our systems are becoming so complex today with the advances in technologies, it's somewhat analogous to the folks at NASA launching a space shuttle and people starting to act like that's a routine event when it's a phenomenal technology achievement. And whether we're implementing a vast, global ERP system or a commerce system, sometimes those achievements can be as significant as watching this little rocket go up off of Cape Canaveral. And sometimes it's starting to become an expected event. But it's not always that easy.

Hinkle-Morrison: Overall systems management is an issue, the fact that the black and white is now very gray between systems and network management, and how that overall [network and systems management] strategy should work in the future. If you look at how we're going to manage our systems in the future, it's not going to be network management. It will be at a systems level. And that's a big change that's going on in the organizations I'm dealing with.

Yeager: I agree. Often, there are fragmented processes in IT management. A lot of the processes and organizations are still based on legacy computing environments. In general, we're doing better in this area, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

Any closing thoughts anyone wants to leave with the group? Anything I didn't bring up that I should have?
Rindels: I'm just glad that some of the comments I've heard today are aligned with the things I'm facing. Oftentimes it gets very lonely in the darkness of night and you begin to wonder if you're unique. It's just refreshing to hear some of the professionals in this area do share the same worries, concerns, and challenges that I do.

Yeager: I agree. I'm glad to hear I'm not that far off base and that everybody else is having the same sorts of problems. But one of the things that didn't come up, that I kind of think is interesting, and is probably somewhat related to stress, is the role of professional organizations. I happen to be a member of CMA, the Communication Managers Association. And I'm also a member of the IEEE. I have found both organizations have been absolutely wonderful. Having local meetings, some regional conferences and conventions, and just meeting with your peers once a month is just an absolutely wonderful way of making sure you're not the voice in the wilderness.

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