You: Roundtable - Convergence

Convergence

Network World, 7/26/99

Note: Click on highlighted words to bring up a definition of them and links to additional resources.

The participants:
Russ Davis
Ass't. director, network services, Ernst & Young in New York

Mike Hinkle-Morrison
Former CIO at Pier One Imports and CTO at TGI Friday's restaurant chain

Gene Rindels
CIO of Respironics, Inc., Pittsburgh

Brook Smith
Mgr., network engineering, Forum Financial Group, Portland, Maine

George Sullivan
Sr. network architect,Northrup Grumman, Bethpage, NY

George Yeager
Mgr., architecture and design, Columbia Energy Group Service, Columbus, Ohio
This is 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.

Other sections of the roundtable:

Intro
Putting this discussion into context.

The press and e-commerce
What happens when non-technical execs read about the latest technology in the general media? And what impact has e-commerce had on your company in general and the network group in particular?

A look ahead
What would you say are the most important steps you can take today to prepare your network for the years ahead?

Staffing and advice to vendors
What are your secrets for keeping and hiring the best people? If you could make the CEO of one vendor take your advice, which CEO would it be and what advice would you give?

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?

The whole thing
The entire roundtable transcript.

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