When it comes to debating the relative virtues of outsourcing or out-tasking an organisation`s network, out-tasking, on the face of it, may look like the cheaper option as well as being the one that gives the customer company the greater long-term control over his systems and structure.
In reality, it is not. For one thing, networks are not projects. In modern business, and certainly with e-commerce as the business methodology of the future, a company network is more of a fixture than a mine-shaft. In fact, a mine shaft could reach the end of its useful life and be closed down even while its parent mining group continues to exist, but a network must live as long as the company does.
Says Greg Lock, UUNET corporate business unit manager: "The requirement for continuity which is inherent in a network nullifies the objective of out-tasking.
"Then there are all the financial and infrastructural issues surrounding a network, which make it far too complex, vigorous and attention-demanding for a company whose core business is not the ownership of networks, to do anything but outsource it.
"It is the need to integrate systems that in fact makes the outsourcing of a network such a beneficial commercial option.
"Whether a company has a LAN, a WAN or Internet connectivity, at some point in the evolution of that company the various systems must eventually be made to talk to each other, to integrate one with another - so as to meet the business objectives of the company.
"The keys to connectivity, though, are redundancy and bandwidth. Neither of these, on a sufficient scale and appropriately deployed, are within the cost-effective reach even of the biggest companies.
"For a company with its own network to install extra lines or bandwidth is prohibitively expensive. For a data network services provider it is not, because he buys bulk bandwidth and sells off portions pro-rata to his paying customers, passing on his economies of scale. With his bulk bandwidth, his high speed lines between cities, his 2 Mb services (of which most customers each buy only a 64 Kb piece) the data network services provider can reconfigure his service to customers on demand.
"There is no need to ask Telkom to install extra lines and then wait for Telkom to put in the new infrastructure. Also, bulk bandwidth enables the network provider to give large companies which need it a committed information rate of up to 128 Kb.
"For the data network services provider, bandwidth and redundancy solutions are immediate and cost-effective and his customers get the benefit.
"For a lone business wanting the same benefits and flexibility, it would need to develop into a network services provider itself - which hardly seems to be the right sort of redundancy!
"Then, of course, there is the constant evolution of the telecommunications and computer industries - with ever-increasing integration between them - which requires the type of large scale capital investment which is a normal cost to a service provider but an extraordinary cost to a non-network provider business.
"The monitoring of a network so that faults can be spotted immediately and repaired without delay also involves technical and human resources which are a necessary part of service provider`s cost infrastructure and, again, economies of scale can be passed on to the customer via an outsourcing service.
"What most companies under-rate, in the debate about outsourcing networks and connectivity, is the question of international peering agreements. The Internet is a huge conglomerate of thousands upon thousands of individual networks, growing every day. Getting information from one network to another is a matter of formal, legal and complex agreements between network providers. That is a highly specialised side of the business which non-provider companies enter at enormous risk to themselves. There is a risk of not keeping up the pace of connectivity as the Internet grows and there is the risk of making inadequate or inappropriate agreements for the needs of your particular company. Why take that risk on board when there really is no need?
"Getting a Virtual Private Network (which can be integrated with your LAN or WAN) built on the backbone of a network provider`s own network facilities is by far the easiest, most rational and most necessary outsourcing decision a company would ever be called upon to make. With an outsourcing network services provider, which specialises in corporate solutions, a company can have a tailor-made network which is designed to adapt to his growth needs."
Share
UUNET SA
UUNET SA is one of South Africa`s leading Internet infrastructure providers. A joint venture between Datatec and UUNET Technologies, the company provides Internet connectivity and corporate network services to major corporations and access services to Internet Service Providers such as M-Web. UUNET is the only southern African internetworking operator to have its own network access point in the United States. This allows UUNET to link its data network directly with the largest United States based internetworking backbones providing quicker data throughput rates and greater network redundancy. Datatec is a technology and services company focusing on corporate networking and the Internet. UUNET Technologies is a subsidiary of MCI WorldCom, the world`s largest provider of Internet network access and the largest Internet Service Provider.
Editorial contacts