Are You an IINite?

In today's global marketplace, with shrinking product
lifecycles and shorter time-to-market windows, business success is measured by
the speed with

which an organization is able to gather and analyze data, and effectively
execute plans based on that analysis. The fundamental reason IT exists is to
help companies succeed with that endeavor by providing two things: business
transparency and agility.

Nevertheless, many organizations have not utilized the enormous
IT investments to link vital networked resources and information assets. In
fact, it is not uncommon for organizations to have silos hosting hundreds of
applications and databases that cannot communicate with each other. The result:
Inability to share information efficiently across the organization.

Customer records, for example, cannot be accessed easily by
sales, customer service, or purchasing departments without creating different
overlay networks that join applications and information. This lack of
transparency exists because most IT infrastructures have grown without
systematic planning. Many organizations have realized that this unplanned
expansion has left them with multiple systems and distributed resources that are
uncoordinated and under-used. These disparate systems are also costly and
difficult to manage.

The IIN Vision

Having a long-term view of IIN can help global IT organizations correct
these problems and address new challenges such as the deployment of
Service-Oriented Architectures, web services, and virtualization. The vision of
an IIN facilitates this integration of the hardware and software, making it
possible for the organizations to better align IT resources with business
priorities. IIN is an evolutionary approach rather than a revolutionary approach
to the evolving role of the network.

Not to forget that by building intelligence into an existing
network infrastructure, IIN also helps organizations realize the benefits such
as reduced infrastructure complexity and cost. It also provides organizations
with the enhanced functionality that they need to develop enterprise wide
visibility and organizational agility, which is vital for it to respond rapidly
to the changing business and market conditions.

Why Intelligence?

To eliminate the technology islands found in today's IT environment, the
infrastructure needs to be more closely linked to and responsive to the
requirements of the applications, resources, and devices connected to it. And,
therefore, a there is a need to build an ecosystem with applications vendors,
hardware and software giants, so that organizations can integrate business
processes tightly with IT and allow computing resources to be dynamically
allocated to users as needed. However, enterprises need to realize that these
greater functions can't be realized without rethinking the network, the
foundation on which an IT infrastructure is built. This is because the network
is the one element of the infrastructure that touches all others-from the
applications and middleware to the servers and users. Therefore, it is in a
unique position to monitor the transfer of information and also to enforce
policies coherently and cost-effectively.

An integrated system, active participation, and enforcing policy
with the network are the three distinguishing attributes of an intelligent
network. By adding intelligence to the network, the network can actively
participate in the delivery of applications and services. Active participation
in service delivery makes it possible for the network to effectively manage,
monitor, and optimize application and service delivery across the entire IT
environment. Network-wide intelligence also allows infrastructure-wide policies.
Enforcing policy with the network let organizations link business objectives and
processes to network rules, so that they can closely align the IT environment
with business goals and more effectively use IT resources to improve business
operations. It also gives organizations the ability to adapt quickly to the IT
environment to respond to changing business requirements.

Building IT

The IIN transforms an existing infrastructure with all its interconnected
components into a single integrated system. This systems approach extends
intelligence across multiple products and infrastructure layers and more closely
links the network to the rest of the IT infrastructure.

This vision offers an evolutionary approach that consists of
three phases in which functionality can be added to the infrastructure as
required.

Phase I: We can call
this the integrated transport phase, where everything-data, voice, and video-consolidates
onto an IP network for secure network convergence. By integrating data, voice
and video transport onto a single, standards-based, modular network,
organizations can simplify network management and generate enterprise-wide
efficiencies. Network convergence also lays the foundation for a new class of
IP-enabled applications. Early adopters of IP communications have realized
substantial savings in toll charges, maintenance and support costs. But recent
studies reveal that the principal reason for adopting IP communications isn't
just cost saving; it's the potential for deploying new applications that
transform communications and build competitive advantage.

Phase II: Lets call
this the integrated services phase, where once the network infrastructure has
been converged, IT resources can be pooled and shared or virtualized to flexibly
address the changing needs of the organization. Integrated services help to
unify common elements such as storage and data center server capacity. By
extending virtualization capabilities to encompass server, storage, and network
elements, an organization can transparently use all of its resources more
efficiently. Business continuity is also enhanced because shared resources
across the IIN provide services in the event of a local systems failure.

Phase III: This is the
integrated application phase, where Application-Oriented Networking (AON)
technology helps enterprises build the IIN. This phase focuses on making the
network 'application aware' so that it can optimize application performance
and more efficiently deliver networked applications to users. In addition to
capabilities such as content caching, load balancing, and application-level
security, AON makes it possible for the network to simplify the application
infrastructure by integrating intelligent application message handling,
optimization, and security into the existing network. This integration delivers
the information transparency and organizational agility needed to succeed in
today's fast-paced business environment.

Tomorrow's IIN

The role of the network is evolving. The intelligent network of tomorrow
will offer much more than basic connectivity, bandwidth for users and access to
applications. It will also offer the kind of end-to-end functionality and
centralized, unified control that will promote true business transparency and
agility.

With the integration of business processes, applications, and
the network, organizations will be able to collect and share data anytime and
anywhere, whether it is external information from partners and customers or
internal data across business functions, product groups, or geographies. The IIN
will make it possible for IT organizations to act quickly and efficiently on
that information by adding, removing, or changing business processes to adapt to
new market conditions.

Pramodh Menon

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

The author is VP-Channels, Cisco Systems India & Saarc