Executive Thought Leadership

The Technology of Network Platforms

A focus on interactive transactions is fostering the growth of the IP network into the next new platform, supporting communications-centric applications.

In his famous treatise Metaphysica, Aristotle proclaimed, "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." His observation applies just as well to today's network technology as it did to nature all those centuries ago.

Network platforms are also more than the sum of their parts, as platforms enable people to create things never imagined by their builders. But few platforms scale to truly strategic proportions. Internet Protocol (IP) and HTML are two that do: After previously unifying all data, IP is now in the process of unifying all communications on one worldwide standard, and HTML unifies the Web user interface. Now Extensible Markup Language (XML), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), promise to unify application interaction.

IP is bringing similar unification and integration to personal communications and collaboration. Gaining momentum in enterprises and consumer services, Voice over IP (VoIP) delivers much more than plain old telephone service ever did. The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) upon which VoIP services are based promises to transform all forms of personal communications.

What's behind this emphasis on human interaction? Recent research from McKinsey discovered that to beat their competition, organizations want employees to interact more effectively with customers and suppliers. By focusing on personal interactions, companies hope to provide enhanced customer experiences that lead to a sustainable competitive advantage.

New communications applications and technology aimed at this rich user experience require high performance and functionality from the underlying network. For instance, many AJAX-based applications require low latency for keystroke-by-keystroke operation, and others dealing with rich media demand high throughput and quality of service.

Video over IP is growing in use because it facilitates development and collaboration processes. IT developers can build upon network services to deliver content in the form and quality suited to whichever device the user is viewing at the moment, and trust that it will be delivered securely.

Similarly, using IP as the foundation for voice, video, and data communications facilitates the development of integrated, interactive, multimedia applications for collaboration. Unified communications today is the platform for a variety of services, from affordable voice services (such as Skype) to advanced global teleconferencing that includes shared data and applications. By integrating communications over IP, and using standards-based protocols for services, the network platform allows these applications to run just about anywhere on just about any device.

The network platform helps more than just business. When public safety organizations can't communicate with each other in an emergency because their radios are incompatible, the consequences can be disastrous. Land Mobile Radio (LMR) over IP technology enables incompatible radio systems to interoperate. By combining LMR systems with the connectivity of IP networks, the network platform extends interoperability beyond the intrinsic capabilities of the individual radio devices.

Using the network as a platform can also greatly simplify the task of application developers. Application-oriented networks understand the content flowing over them and provide services such as translation, replication, routing, reliable delivery, security, and more. Having an application-aware platform lets developers spend less time worrying about these issues and more time thinking about the functionality of their application.

For many enterprises, the data center provides centralized access to enterprise applications on large numbers of servers. Virtualization, based on the IP network, promises to increase the efficiency and reduce the complexity of operations in these critical facilities. InfiniBand and new forms of Ethernet provide high-speed, low latency connectivity between server platforms as well as virtualized storage and I/O. Server switches in the data center link discrete server resources into a high-performance fabric, using logically mapped virtual resources to deliver computing services on demand. Increasingly the network serves as the backplane of virtualized servers, making it the platform for the virtualized servers of the future data center. This technology enables the applications network to respond to ever-changing demands.

Soon we can expect to see even more engaging uses of the network as a platform, such as telepresence systems that promise to take the collaboration ability of dispersed organizations far beyond anything seen before.

What else does the future hold? There will continue to be only a few strategic technological platforms, and the network platform will claim its place among them. It will continue to thrive as more interactive applications emerge, bringing with them new challenges for the network to meet. Advances in network technology will allow the network to provide ever-greater capabilities to aid services and applications that enable large organizations and consumers alike to efficiently and effectively conduct business.