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Now the foundation for enterprise communication, Internet protocol is revolutionising working practices
IP, the Internet protocol, has become the foundation for almost all enterprise communication – and in the process it is revolutionising working practices.
Internet telephony is a prime example of what industry watchers describe as ‘consumer-led enterprise IT’. For many office workers, their first experience of making voice calls over the Internet has been through Skype, the free peer-to-peer communications service; but latterly new IP (Internet protocol) handsets have been appearing on many desks with few users noticing – or caring – that their calls are being routed over the Internet.
Despite lack of awareness, the wider transition to an IP-based communications environment that reaches right across the enterprise is about to fundamentally change office workers’ patterns of work.
For their employers, the main attraction of IP ubiquity is cost-cutting. Business managers at all levels have been drawn to the potential of technologies such as voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology to reduce comms bills. The business case has been proven by organisations such as insurer Friends Provident and aircraft manufacturer Airbus, which have been successfully running VoIP services for several years. Others, such as German automotive giant BMW, have more recently embarked on a large-scale migration to VoIP technology.
And IP technology is not only revolutionising fixed-line telephony, it is also beginning to have an impact on mobile communications. The latest generation of smartphones and high-bandwidth wireless networks offer users the potential to cut mobile bills by using VoIP services over a wireless connection. With smartphone 3G data packages now sold in ‘all-you-can-eat’ bundles, organisations are starting to see the potential for dramatically cutting calling costs even further.
The take-up of wireless VoIP has once again been led by consumers, but instances of enterprise adoption are beginning to emerge – especially where there is no alternative. At the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, for example, traditional mobile phones were prohibited because of the risk of interference with sensitive medical equipment. However, the restriction has been circumvented using a wireless IP-based system. More than 100 doctors, nurses and administrative staff have now been equipped with mobile IP phones.
Seamless communication
On top of the potential cost savings, moving to a converged voice and data network can have wider benefits. Indeed, cost savings can be overstated: users need to factor in the cost of migrating from analogue to IP and understand that, when they become reliant on a single IP-based network, they may need to build additional redundancy into the system.
Nevertheless, enthusiasm for convergence around IP has been fuelled by the potential to transform the way business-critical IT services are provided and at the same time deliver radical productivity gains. At GCap Media, the UK’s largest radio broadcaster, a converged IP network underpinned its very creation. The company was formed as a result of the merger of GWR Group and Capital Radio and, as Vincent Bourne, infrastructure development manager at GCap, acknowledges, telephony savings accounted for about 80% of the business case for its convergence project. But the business benefits have subsequently been extended further.
The new IP system enabled GCap to introduce some highly effective new telephony functions, such as ‘follow-me’ call-routing; but it has also enabled all of its radio stations, including Capital Radio and Classic FM, to broadcast content directly from the digital radio station onto the Internet.
Meanwhile, at NHS Direct, VoIP is helping to ensure that people seeking health advice can always get access to a helpline. NHS Direct has five telephone exchanges across the UK, all networked together. VoIP provides the flexibility to allow calls to be answered locally when possible, but also to be routed around the network to the next available agent, explains Murray Bain, IT director at NHS Direct. “The patient is getting a much quicker and better service this way,” he adds.
The growing acceptance that voice is just another piece of content to be routed over an IP network has spurred interest in the potential for unified communications platforms, with vendors such as Microsoft and IBM vying to establish such hubs to handle all manner of IP-based data.
Given Microsoft’s strong track record of integrating various components of its software stack and IBM’s messaging and middleware strengths, there is a clear prospect of voice services being integrated directly into other mainstream enterprise applications. This paves the way for large enterprises with significant investments in mission-critical IT systems to “enhance productivity and promote effectiveness and efficiency by adding voice support natively from within their core applications,” notes Geoff Johnson, an analyst at IT adviser Gartner.
As that suggests, the IP revolution still has a long way to run.
Further reading:
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Scottish Power's network make-over - IP convergence in action
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Elastic bandwidth
Until recently, most business users were happy enough that their internal Ethernet network – typically based on Fast Ethernet technology – did what it said on the tin: provide a fast pipe for data streaming across the corporate network. But technology that allows data transfer rates of 100 Mbps (megabits per second) is starting to
look sluggish with the bulk of user data increasingly delivered from central servers and users habitually accessing multi-megabyte files (PowerPoints, PDFs, multimedia documents, etc).
The solution to that will be, for many, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE): not only do products designed around this new standard promise up to 100 times faster data transmission, but already much of the kit for GbE and its turbo-charged big brother, 10 GbE, is comparable in price, making the switch-over compelling – at least when organisations reach the point where hunger for faster response times outweighs the cost of large-scale user upgrades.
For most network managers, the introduction of new high-bandwidth services – especially voice over IP and web conferencing – makes the need for upgraded services a given.
French publishing house Groupe Figaro, home to the internationally renowned Le Figaro newspaper, routinely ships large files across its corporate and publishing network, including digital video and VoIP data.
It expects network traffic to increase dramatically in coming years, especially as its websites become more content rich through extensive use of video.
It has pre-empted the rise in demand through implementing a 10 GbE Ethernet backbone network, with GbE connections to its production servers.
Today, not enough organisations routinely use bandwidth-munching facilities such as video to suggest an imminent wholesale switch to 10 GbE. Nevertheless, there is one emerging technology that could help redefine the IT function’s assumption over bandwidth requirements.
As businesses begin to virtualise ever greater swathes of their IT infrastructure, bandwidth requirements will rocket. Virtualisation is already helping IT to deliver a more effective server and storage infrastructure; over the coming years the application of virtualisation will be extended to almost all levels of IT. However, switching virtual environments on and off entails important bandwidth considerations. Technology such as VMware’s VMotion, which allows businesses to migrate virtual machines without downtime, are network intensive; as the data sets associated with virtual machines swell, so too do the bandwidth requirements.
While virtualisation will increase bandwidth requirements in the long term, the transition to 10 GbE does not need to be embraced immediately, cautions Andy Rolfe, an analyst at Gartner. Cabling costs and space requirements alone dictate that the transition is planned carefully, he adds. The hunger for bandwidth is evident elsewhere, though. Wireless data transfer rates have been boosted by the introduction of HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) technology. The technology has received an enthusiastic response from users, notes Martin Garner, a telecoms analyst with industry adviser Ovum. “HSDPA at last provides a user experience close to users’ expectation of broadband, and flat-rate pricing gives users more confidence in their bills.”
