Beyond bells and whistles

Next-generation networks (NGNs) promise to do what umpteen technologies have done before them: improve productivity, reduce costs, increase ROI, lower TCO, increase efficiency. The list is endless. An NGN can indeed do all of the above, but there are a number of ifs and buts that need to be taken into consideration first.

The first is the ongoing confusion around what an NGN is. To be frank, it's an all-IP, packet-based network. Or, as the ITU prefers: "A packet-based network able to provide services including telecommunication and able to make use of multiple broadband, quality of service-enabled transport technologies and in which service-related functions are independent from underlying transport-related technologies. It offers unrestricted access by users to different service providers. It supports generalised mobility that will allow consistent and ubiquitous provision of services to users."

In other words, running voice, data and video over a single network doesn't make it an NGN. An NGN by definition is able to provide the broad range of services that have resulted in so much hype in recent years. Simply put, an NGN is the network that enables any form of content to be sent to a user, irrespective of where that user is, what device the user is using at that moment or how that user is connecting. For businesses, this ability has profound consequences that will impact on every level of operations.

Says Frost and Sullivan senior ICT research analyst Corrie Froehlich: "What we have today are product and application silos, disjointed networks and separate devices. What you want to get to in a few years' time is a presence-based, multi-modal/multi-service platform."

Says Dimension Data CTO Alpheus Mangale: "The network is becoming the communications middleware, where every aspect such as voice, video and data is facilitated."

As such, the network needs to be able to cope with any and all traffic being pushed over it and it needs to do so in a way that ensures the services it is enabling are useable. This is where quality of service (QoS) comes in. There's no point running SAP over your WAN if the transfer rate is so slow that it renders the application useless. Applying QoS and expecting things to just work isn't realistic, however.

"QoS gives you virtually guaranteed service quality, but only if you really understand demand," says Business Connexion CTO Andy Brauer.

"As demand grows, the quality that is being guaranteed needs to go up too. It becomes very tricky."

CIOs need to understand exactly what traffic is going over the network and why, before service levels can be allocated. Once service levels have been allocated, demand forecasting is needed to ensure quality is maintained.

Security is another consideration. As the network expands - as it will with every user being able to connect via any medium from any device - keeping said devices and data secure is going to require a different security model to the traditional ring-fencing approach. A lot of security, says Brauer, will need to be built in.

"It's not just a case of having a firewall. Once you're being spammed, have Trojans in the environment and are being targeted by cyber-terrorists, you need to incorporate all of these aspects and disciplines."

Bytes Communication Systems (BCS) product development manager Richard Menton concurs: "Realistically, mobility is the hottest button to any executive, but with that comes the maturity to embrace security issues, which nowadays need to be built into the switches. It kicks into gear from the entry and exit points in the network (the switches); waiting to stop a threat when it reaches the client is already too late."

Merging telephony, video, e-mail, audio, TV, e-commerce, IM, traditional Internet access and so on also requires a new management philosophy. Capacity planning, notes Brauer, will be key.

Build the business case for a converged solution carefully before betting the farm.

Richard Menton, product development manager, Bytes

As service providers start interconnecting, the traditional grid will be bypassed, says Brauer. This represents a major shift for traditional infrastructure providers and explains why companies like Telkom, Vodacom and MTN are moving into the services and content provision spheres.

Internet Solutions (IS) business solutions director Hillel Shrock agrees: "Although the infrastructure is not commoditised as yet, and while one must not underestimate what it takes to run services on infrastructure, our view is that, over time, the infrastructure becomes less and less important."

Shrock says IS sees infrastructure and services becoming more intertwined. "Whether you deliver over 3G, wireless, fixed line, Telkom, Neotel or Infraco, the question is: 'Are the service levels right and do they support the services?' The services will just assume the infrastructure is in place."

What CIOs will be dealing with, in other words, is a totally different service provider landscape, where today's service providers start acting as applications service providers, where the actual infrastructure (in terms of who owns it) is irrelevant beyond ensuring it works. The network itself will have built-in intelligence that will determine what services and data a person is entitled to access, where the user is (so it can route voicemail to a cellphone or IM client), where it should deliver that information to (what device the user is using) and that it should, for example, log a person off, switch off office lights and lock a few doors when a person logs out of a building.

As Frost and Sullivan's Froehlich notes, no one (in this case, traditional infrastructure providers) has yet worked out how to make money out of NGN.

"There is no branding. The integrated services we currently have focus on branding and customer ownership. In this [new] network, we have open stuff. There is a blurring of vendor and operator market shares now. We think the business models are also delaying [take up] because it's not right yet. Companies don't know how to make money out of it yet."

Quality of service gives you virtually guaranteed service quality, but only if you really understand demand.

Andy Brauer, CTO, Business Connexion

The providers may still be wrestling with business models. CIOs that are deploying NGN infrastructure are seeing real returns (see case study). Again, there's a catch, however, and it's the same one that applies to any IT investment: what is the real business benefit?

Says Bytes' Menton: "Build the business case for a converged solution carefully before betting the farm. Namely, identify all costs upfront, including one-time and project costs, ascertain if there truly will be cost savings, highlight and disseminate to your board a list of the benefits you hope to achieve, get a third party to conduct a ROI audit, and ensure that your systems integrator or project team has an internal sponsor who can lead the process at a board level."

Says Dimension Data's Mangale: "Every organisation should look at which business processes that rely on communications make money for them. Then create an NGN platform to support that. If the NGN is not supporting those processes, it is not adding value. If the network is not helping to drive the company's strategy, then the money is better spent elsewhere."

That really is the bottom line when it comes to any IT investment, and one that is perhaps subsumed in the deluge of vendor marketing, user requests and business demands that hit IT departments daily.