Convergence is a necessary step to achieve significant cost savings
in an Convergence is a necessary step to achieve significant cost
savings in an
enterprise network. At the same time, enterprises can also make
money with their converged infrastructure. This publication
describes the key benefits of
convergence and explains how the Alcatel-Lucent portfolio of
products and solutions can help you realize these benefits.
1. Introduction
In today’s business climate, enterprises have come to rely
heavily on applications such as voice, video conferencing and data
sharing in order to achieve and exceed their business goals. The
underlying network infrastructure has had to evolve to support
these applications, and often separate overlay networks have been
built for each application. Through various stages of evolution the
network infrastructure has become complex and cumbersome to
maintain and administer.
Enterprises constantly face the challenge of how to save money –
even more so in the current turbulent economic times.
Enterprises are forced to cut their spending budgets by reducing
travel and minimizing expenses of all types.
This includes reducing both capital expenditures (CAPEX) and
operational expenditures (OPEX).
To sustain financial viability and future growth, enterprises must
also make money by seeking new and innovative business
opportunities that may not have been previously available to them.
Enterprises need new ways of doing business by extending their
business network and enabling closer interactions with partners and
suppliers.
One way to augment revenues is to increase employee productivity
and complete business transactions more quickly and effectively,
thereby
accelerating business execution.
Enabling Cost Reductions Through Convergence
It is now feasible to implement multiple applications (such as
voice, video and data), increase speed of execution and minimize
costs with
the implementation of a single converged network infrastructure. A
converged network eliminates the complexity of multiple
overlays,
reduces the required CAPEX and OPEX, and increases employee
productivity. This publication outlines the benefits of a
converged
network solution and reinforces the associated cost savings with
overviews of practical customer examples.
2. Key benefits
A converged network can bring many business benefits to an
enterprise, including increased productivity and positive effects
to an enterprise’s financial and business goals. The following
subsections outline a number of key benefits along with an
explanation of the associated cost savings.
Simplicity
One of the most obvious benefits of a converged network is the
reduced number of network overlays, which are costly and complex to
administer. A converged network supports a variety of applications,
technologies and protocols. The number of required platforms in the
converged network is reduced as well as the associated element and
network management costs.
A real-world example of an enterprise with increased cost savings
from a converged network is the University of Kuala Lumpur in
Malaysia (UniKL). UniKL wanted to provide comprehensive
communication and collaboration tools to students and staff. Their
solution had to incorporate an advanced communications and phone
system using VoIP while ensuring that an open network was
maintained for ease of integration with branch campuses. From an IT
management perspective, the introduction of a converged network has
resulted in easier maintenance.
The implementation involved upgrading the network with IP
technology for voice and data communication. UniKL upgraded its
main switch with the Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch™9000 series acting
as the core LAN switch for the converged network, at its main City
Campus and the Alcatel-
Lucent OmniSwitch™6850 series for its smaller, remote campuses.
The Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX™ Enterprise Communication Server was
also deployed to support IP telephony over the converged network.
Within the City Campus building, about 3,000 network nodes were set
up. A more efficient network has led to better communications
within the UniKL family and significant cost savings for the
university.
Increased productivity
A converged voice, video and data network gives employees access to
a broader range of tools and applications to help them do their
jobs more efficiently and effectively. For example, if an
enterprise chooses to cut travel budgets, employees can use
applications such as video
conferencing or Unified Communications tools to help them sustain
and even increase their level of productivity.
Enabling Cost Reductions Through Convergence
Increased mobility
A significant benefit of a converged network is the ability to
offer enhanced mobile connectivity for employees regardless of
their geographic location. The ability to connect to the corporate
network over any wireless access is critical for employees in
remote offices, on business travel or working from their home
office. There is continuous connectivity, no loss of quality and no
negative impact to an employee’s productivity.
Alcatel-Lucent has a very comprehensive OmniAccess™ wireless
portfolio composed of wireless routing platforms and access points
(APs) that can scale from a small to a large number of users.
Banyan Tree Resorts, a prestigious and widely distributed hotel
chain in the Middle East and Asia Pacific,
wanted to provide robust and technically excellent communications
to its high-end guests. The key challenge was to provide telephony
and Internet
access to guests no matter where they were located within the
resort.
The hotel chain chose to implement the OmniAccess wireless solution
from Alcatel-Lucent coupled with wireless IP phones for employees
and
guests. Alcatel-Lucent was able to install access points in
hard-to-reach Mobile connectivity can also increase productivity
and is further
explained in a subsequent section.
Efficient use of real estate
The consolidation of multiple layers of network and equipment into
one converged infrastructure saves rack space and floor space
within an enterprise’s network operations facility. There are
inherent savings in both cooling costs and facilities/real-estate
management.
Eco-friendliness
One converged network greatly reduces power consumption and an
enterprise can benefit significantly from the lower energy cost
savings.
Furthermore, an enterprise needs to deploy eco-friendly platforms
with low power usage in the converged network to further augment
the cost
savings and benefits. With Alcatel-Lucent platforms that are
purpose built for eco-sustainability, enterprises can save 20 to 30
percent on energy expenses.
For example, in one of Alcatel-Lucent’s own data centers the cost
savings of the eco-friendly Alcatel-Lucent solution compared to
another solution is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Limiting power consumption in a converged network is one quick and
easy way to save a significant amount of
money. locations, making the wireless network coverage pervasive
across the hotel grounds.
The key benefits for the hotel resort are:
•Full wireless voice, data, TV and video connectivity across the
entire site
•Immediate communication with key groups of staff
•Secure connectivity for guests
•Ease of maintenance, ensuring that customer service expectations
can be met and costs controlled
Enhanced user experience
Enterprises are increasingly accustomed to using a wide variety of
tools and applications for their day-to-day business. Different
applications put different demands on the network infrastructure,
and each application must be uniquely handled. The network must be
able to discern which applications are critical and which are of a
lower priority in order to assign bandwidth accordingly.
Alcatel-Lucent platforms support granular quality of service (QoS)
at the edge of the network, which then gets mapped to hierarchical
levels of QoS in the core of the network.
Alcatel-Lucent provides the ability to assign gradations of
priorities to Enabling Cost Reductions Through Convergence
applications in the network, thereby ensuring that mission-critical
voice or data are treated with the highest preference by the
network.
Enterprises no longer need to build separate overlay networks for
each type of application needed. With a converged infrastructure
that
supports sophisticated QoS, less equipment is required and
maintenance is simplified.
Application enabled networks
Employees need immediate and continuous access to intelligent
applications whether they are at their desktop or another location
within their organization. A converged network enables streamlined
unified communication solutions to help employees improve their
interactions and effectiveness.
Unified Communications solutions from Alcatel-Lucent comprise
real-time telephony, voice and fax messaging, instant messaging,
presence, collaboration and conferencing. These solutions can
Enabling Cost Reductions Through Convergence be offered either as
standalone products or as a pre-integrated package that simplifies
implementation for enterprises. All Alcatel-Lucent Unified
Communications solutions are available as a series of web services
which provides an open platform enabling integration and
interoperability with commercial applications, business
applications and web 2.0 environments.
An important component to Unified Communications is the integration
with mobile devices. The use of mobile devices such as the
RIM®
Blackberry®smartphone is becoming the norm for enterprise
employees, and IT departments have the challenge of managing and
securing
these devices. With Alcatel-Lucent, the solution offers an
ergonomic, simple-to-use interface independent of the underlying
operating system, thereby making the solution easier for IT
managers to support.
Alcatel-Lucent Unified Communications mobile solutions are also
available on Android™, Apple iPhone™, Nokia Eseries™and
Windows Mobile smartphones.
One of the top ten leading healthcare organizations in the United
States, Advocate Health Care, had as one of its primary goals to
increase collaboration between employees, home health-care workers
and doctors. The key benefit this leading health-care provider
experienced was increased employee productivity, with more time
devoted to core job functions such as patient care. The real-time
collaboration Alcatel-Lucent’s Unified Communications solution
reduced travel costs considerably and decreased the amount of time
needed for patient case resolution.
Full automation
The Alcatel-Lucent Unified Communications solution runs over an
extensive wired and wireless network infrastructure. Advocate
Healthcare is using the Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch™6850 in the LAN
in conjunction with the Alcatel-Lucent 7450 Ethernet
Service Switch and the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router in the
WAN for their end-to-end Alcatel-Lucent metropolitan area
network.
The Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess wireless LAN products and APs provide
connectivity from the main location to a number of smaller
sites
and/or campuses. Advocate Healthcare is able to ensure the highest
level of quality of service for their unified communications with
the Alcatel-Lucent data networks solution.
Enterprises, in their quest to make money, are looking for ways to
strengthen relationships with their existing customers and expand
their
reach to new customers.
Enabling Cost Reductions Through Convergence
Enabling Cost Reductions Through Convergence
iGDAŞ, a public utility company in Turkey, was able to improve
their customer and internal staff communications with a fully
converged solution from Alcatel-Lucent. iGDAŞ decided to build a
completely new IP network for voice, data and WiFi and a call
center using Alcatel-Lucent products.
Improved customer communications: With their previous call center
system, customers had difficulty contacting iGDAŞ, and their
previous management system made it impossible to track even basic
data, such as the number of missed calls.
iGDAŞ implemented the Alcatel-Lucent OmniGenesys™Contact Center,
and now the utility is now able to handle 3000 to 5000 customer
calls every day in an extremely structured way. The contact center
and the utility’s Emergency Line can now be reached more easily
and offer better service, thanks to additional features such as
conference calls and increased tracking possibilities.
Improved staff communications:
The introduction of wireless access points with Alcatel-Lucent
OmniAccess™wireless APs, at some iGDAŞ sites has also increased
mobility. Some employees use WiFi handsets and notebooks to
experience total freedom of movement within the company’s
premises. In this way, staff members can be conveniently reached at
any time.
Highly secure
Key challenges with a converged infrastructure are the ability to
secure communications with security policies and to define rules
for access, authentication and authorization that are easy to
administer. Enterprises need to ensure that there are no chances
for security breaches, which may
compromise network performance and availability, and that users can
access the information they need at any time.
Alcatel-Lucent has a fully integrated suite of security tools that
enable users and devices to authenticate in an automated manner and
to access network
resources without the need for IT network operator
intervention.
Abilene Christian University (ACU) is the first university in the
United States to provide an Apple®iPhone™ or iPod touch®to
incoming
freshmen, as a part of a program using innovative technology to
enhance the learning experience. The students use this media device
as part of the learning process, inside and outside the classroom,
over a fully meshed wired LAN and WiFi network based on the
Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch™
6850 and the Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess™Wireless LAN products. The
WiFi network has over five hundred access points deployed
across ACU's campus. In one popular classroom, the Alcatel-Lucent
wireless LAN infrastructure supports three hundred students at one
time,
making this the densest deployment of Apple iPhones anywhere in the
world.
Alcatel-Lucent’s security tools also help to protect the network
from any rogue or malicious users on campus who are seeking
to
compromise the network. The security tools are part of the
Alcatel-Lucent networking platforms without requiring additional
hardware or software. Costs are minimized and overall network
security is maximized with an Alcatel-Lucent solution.
3. Conclusion
Convergence is a necessary step to achieve significant cost savings
in an enterprise network. These cost savings can be realized in
many areas of the enterprise business, including telephony, video,
Unified Communications, contact centers and data.
Enterprises can also make money with their converged infrastructure
through Unified Communications tools and automated contact
center
applications for front and back office that help to improve
productivity.
Alcatel-Lucent has a comprehensive portfolio coupled with global
experience on the implementation, support and maintenance of
converged networks for a variety of enterprises in a multitude of
industry segments. Alcatel-Lucent is the partner of choice for
enterprises that want to save money and make money.
Enabling Cost Reductions Through Convergence
Key Findings
•Considering location and bandwidth are no longer enough to
ensure the proper design of an enterprise network.
Recommendations
•Network architects need to shift their thinking from technology
to users and business processes in order to meet changing network
requirements.
•As part of a cross-functional team, network architects and
designers must become an integral part of application planning and
deployment teams.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Network architects must expand their thinking to include individual
users, devices and application requirements early on in the
Five Dimensions of Network Design to Improve
Performance and Save Money
The research provides a framework for network architects to focus
their attention on business requirements rather than following
outdated design methodology. Architects that follow this approach
will develop more-effective solutions while achieving better
business alignment and cost containment.
network design process. Enterprises that adapt their design
practices to this approach will build better networks while
optimizing their spending on technologies that will make a
difference to the business.
ANALYSIS
Traditional network design practices had a near complete focus on
sizing bandwidth and ensuring connectivity to users and
locations.
This inevitably led many companies to “throwing bandwidth” at
the problem in the form of higher classes of services on their
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks, which often meant
just spending more money with little to show for it. Although it is
still necessary to perform these functions, the job of a network
architect no longer ends there. Changing application environments,
user expectations and network services demand that
architects expand their thinking to ensure that the network
supports new business requirements. The five dimensions of network
design
provide a framework for more advanced discussions to ensure that
emerging enterprise network architectures provide an expanded set
of services to the enterprise.
Introducing the Five Dimensions
The five dimensions that summarize major areas of consideration are
location, user, application, device and activity.
Location encompasses the past concepts of ensuring appropriate
bandwidth to corporate locations and appropriate access for remote
employees. It’s possible to distill much of this new thinking
into a single concept.
If network architects have a solid understanding of what their
users do for a living at the end of the network connection, they
will be in a much better position to design a network architecture
with a set of services to improve the productivity or
decision-making capabilities of those users. These concepts extend
easily to external users in random locations with various devices
with different levels of interaction or criticality.
These new concepts will lead network architects to think
differently about many areas where they may be used to using
standard, well-understood methodologies or “rules of thumb.”
Table 1 helps illustrate some of the ideas that the five dimensions
will introduce to the design process.
One Constraint
It’s difficult to talk about new network design approaches and
more-advanced functionality in today’s environment without
considering the financial impact of this process. Fortunately this
process can go hand-in-hand with cost containment activities that
many organizations face. Gartner has been
vocal about the amount of wasted expenditures in networking
infrastructure and services. One of our Top 10 Predictions for 2007
highlighted this fact. In addition, Gartner’s Vendor Influence
Curve research also points to a need to understand your
requirements clearly in order to make better business,
vendor and financial decisions. The five dimensions process enables
organizations to better understand their requirements to ultimately
build a better network at a reduced cost of acquisition and
operations. corporate sites to areas that are not under the direct
control of the enterprise – home offices, mobile-worker
situations, and the locations of business partners and
customers.
Locations outside direct enterprise control will need different
approaches to ensure appropriate service capabilities. Customers
will generally rely on the Internet as an access method, while
business partners could use basic Internet, through a virtual
private network (VPN) or, in some cases, with dedicated business
class connections. Location also needs to consider any external
service providers that might contribute to the IT architecture,
such as software as a service (SaaS) providers and cloud-computing
providers.
Users face the similar concept of being under enterprise
control.
Enterprises can dictate and lock down employee devices, making
network delivery of applications easier. However, users outside
direct control, such as business partners and customers, often need
to be considered. In addition, some businesses have users that
might be influenced but not controlled, such
as franchisees and agents. The key here is that enterprises cannot
assume that “one size fits all” and that designs should
accommodate the varied business demand of different users.
Understanding the applications running on the network is an
important aspect of network design.
Consider which applications and protocols are running. Are these
applications deployed via a centralized data center or distributed?
It is also critical to be aware of pending application architecture
changes. For example, are business-critical apps migrating from
client server (or even “green
screen”) to browser-based? Is there a major server or data center
consolidation project contemplated?
This dimension is all about providing context to the connection,
and considers how users interact with the network and the type of
interaction. For example, usage could be highly predictable and
largely consistent when dealing with a call center agent. It could
be consistent from an application
perspective, but highly variable and spiky for computer-aided
design (CAD) or software development engineers; or it could be
completely random for knowledge workers.
Activity can include concepts that capture the relative importance
of certain activities. For example, file system access for users
whose primary business function is interacting, compiling and
modifying file-based resources is critically important and will
significantly impact users’
productivity. Casual file system
Locations Users, Devices and Applications
How to Start
It is possible to boil down much of the concepts behind this
approach into two thoughts:
•To understand the requirements you have to get beyond IT.
•You can’t presuppose architectures, technologies or
vendors.
In essence you need to understand which groups of users need to do
their job. It’s important to reach out to the various users
groups in your organization – for example, manufacturing,
development, customer support, sales, marketing and finance in a
manufacturing organization; or nurses, radiology technicians and
doctors in a medical services organization. One approach is to hold
workshops – with various groups or across groups to brainstorm
and compile organizational requirements. While this research is
more narrow than the more-complete target discussed here, it does
provide a useful framework for gathering business and user
information outside of IT. The focus of the discussions should be
what drives their productivity. Dig beyond statements such as “I
need a faster network connection” or “I need a BlackBerry” to
determine which applications or constraints are negatively
impacting productivity or which applications need to run on a
mobile device. By gaining this understanding, IT will be in a
better position to translate the business requirements and
bottlenecks into technical requirements and solutions.
Organizations that follow the Six Sigma methodology can use the
“voice of the customer” process to gather this information.
Once you understand where and how users work and what applications
they use, network architects can then start translating this into a
set of network technologies. As portions of the network come due
for refresh or for new requirements, the work performed can form
the basis of a request for proposal (RFP) document and be sent to a
shortlist of vendors.
This approach will ensure that the network infrastructure better
meets the business requirements, and the competitive nature of
selecting a final vendor will save significant capital costs –
generally more than 35% for network infrastructure purchases.
