Putting it together

Multimedia data traffic these days is creating greater demand on infrastructure. Brian J Dooley looks at the current state of converged networks

By Brian J Dooley, Auckland | Monday, 04 July 2011
Today’s networks need to handle an increasing amount of real-time voice and multimedia traffic including VoIP, videoconferencing, video streaming, as well as new applications that link these elements together.

There is a range of new drivers as telepresence brings videoconferencing back into consideration, collaboration software and Web 2.0 bring voice and video into web applications, and smartphones and tablets begin to access video and voice applications.

Converged IP networks make it possible to mix multiple streams, but they do require new expertise. Voice and data require different skills, and partnerships between resellers specialising in these areas can often prove productive. This is now developing quickly, with a number of opportunities emerging for resellers.

Networking giant Cisco sees a major impact from developing multimedia upon network infrastructure. “Cisco has long been a market leader in business video, from immersive telepresence technology and multi-room video conferencing, down to desktop videophone applications,” says Unified Communications product manager, Alan Register. “Business video also incorporates Cisco’s Show and Share, a webcasting and video sharing application that provides the equivalent of a secure YouTube environment for the enterprise.“

Register sees video as particularly important to emerging network requirements. “Globally, it is likely that there will be 1.7 billion internet video users by 2015, up from one billion in 2010,” he says. “This is a sudden jump and a lot of it is due to the changing nature of information consumption in both the consumer and business environments. Businesses are now creating digital video content in areas such as advertising and training. For example, Cisco’s products can all be found on YouTube.”

A shift from on-premise to online training also requires network convergence, and video is increasingly being used for corporate internal and external messaging.

“Videoconferencing technologies, especially immersive high definition solutions, are more frequently being sought,” says Register. “Ease of use and a high definition experience are important. Previous teleconferencing was not immersive enough. For businesses, multimedia usage is often around collaboration, which is emerging as a key driver for converged networks. In addition to voice and video, the ability to show visual slides and talk has a huge impact on users’ ability to absorb information.”

The challenge for resellers is to change from a technology focus to a focus on business outcomes, working with customer around cultural changes to get the real benefits of multimedia solutions.

Polycom is a leading supplier of VoIP, telephone, and videoconferencing solutions. “For videoconferencing, the network is as important to the solution as the video endpoints,” says technical director James Brennan. “Without a high quality network set up for real time communications, the solution will not work. All of our resellers are highly skilled in networking. Additionally we work with leading networking vendors such as Juniper.”

The overall market for unified communications is now growing significantly. VoIP stagnated for a year as a result of the Global Economic Crisis. Polycom is now seeing an increase in deployments.

“The current trend is toward converged networks, “ says Brennan. “Previously, there was more debate about running overlay video networks instead, keeping video and data traffic separate. That trend is now reversing. Most projects we work on with resellers involve creating high quality converged networks to support voice, video and data.

“Networks now really have intelligence and quality, and resellers have a better understanding of requirements. The end user is benefitting as a result. Overlay networks create islands of capability. Converged networks creates efficiencies and a better end-user experience.”

Current trends include recent growth in telepresence as that technology matures. Key areas for telepresence are in education and healthcare. Another area seeing large growth is teleworking. People are working from home, or from the road, with the same experience as in the office. Unified communications is making this a reality.

Mobility is the next wave of growth. “For a few years [we] have had desktop wireless,” says Brennan. “The next wave is tablets and smartphones, and we are actively working with manufacturers such as Samsung, Motorola, and HP to put telepresence software on their tablets. As they come to market in the next six to 18 months, it will impact networks.

“Wireless networks introduce new factors; for example, they are less likely to have VPNs and there may be concern over quality of service (QoS) and quality of connections.”

Streaming media and multimedia are also major growth areas in which Polycom has been active. Companies are looking for strategies to create a full multimedia portal, offering presentations and training over video. For this, they need a secure platform. Polycom recently acquired Accordent, a leading provider of multimedia management systems, with a solution that is something like an enterprise-class YouTube.

“There is a huge opportunity for resellers to become more involved in the networking side,” says Brennan. “We are also seeing partnering between resellers to meet the equipment and network needs of converged infrastructure. Resellers need to have expertise in the differences between data networks and real time communications networks.

“There are huge differences in requirements. It is important to have techs and engineers skilled in communications networks, and also to be able to explain to the customer how these solutions can make them more productive.”

Alcatel-Lucent is an international network infrastructure vendor providing converged solutions mainly at the carrier level. “We provide several converged networking network solutions in the carrier and enterprise segment in New Zealand,” says local customer solutions director, Sebastien Spas. “These solutions enable carriers to provide converged services to businesses, converge their own network infrastructure, and provide solutions to businesses based on this.”

New techniques and network architecture options are emerging that permit enterprises to cope with increased bandwidth demands in a much more cost effective way.

“One of the most recent global developments is the development of open network APIs,” says Spas. “This provides network access to context, control, content and communication mechanisms, in both consumer and business applications. It means applications behave better for the end user, and it also enables traffic load in the networks to be better managed.

“Converged services applications can directly interact with the network and dynamically request and setup the appropriate QoS connectivity when needed.”

QoS is important in real-time applications such as voice and video. It is a set of technologies that prioritise network traffic to ensure the stream is unbroken and delivered uniformly. Without QoS, high traffic situations and reduced bandwidth availability seriously impact the user experience for applications such as VoIP and video streaming.

“The initial drive for converged networks was cost reduction,” says Spas. “Running a single converged infrastructure for multiple services has proven significantly cheaper than running a dedicated infrastructure for each service.

“More recent drivers are emerging around an improved end user experience. Converging all services around a single network allows different applications to better interact. Unified communications, for example, blends voice communications, voice mail, instant messaging and email into a coherent set of services – and all of these applications interact strongly,” he says.

“Such a tight integration wouldn’t be possible without an underlying converged network infrastructure.”

Spas recommends that resellers form a relationship with a telco to get involved with converged networking. “This will enable two things,” he says. “It will allow bundled solutions to be developed, and it will also provide additional networking skills to the existing sales, presales and post sales functions.

“Resellers also need to remember that these days convergence goes beyond voice and LAN/WAN. It includes converged multimedia collaboration and contact centre applications including voice, IM, video, desktop, application sharing and mobile integration. To enter this higher value-added and margin business with confidence and simplicity, resellers need a partner that specialises in products across all these areas,” he suggests.

Telecom’s Gen-i IT division is also involved in converged networks. “Virtually all of Gen-i’s ICT solutions require some level of convergence of clients’ network access, IT infrastructure and applications,” says customer engagement solutions business manager Steve McGinn.

“This requires capability to integrate communications applications and IT infrastructure with clients’ business applications. With this level of convergence, businesses benefit by having greater flexibility and agility in their day-to-day operations.

“Consolidation and convergence of network, infrastructure, and applications ultimately is driving efficiencies. It is also helping businesses future-proof their infrastructure and take advantage of the latest technologies.”

Network convergence is being driven by a number of forces, including VoIP and an increase in video usage within the corporation.

“There is a strong focus on video conferencing as a result of the ROIs that can be achieved from travel reduction,” says McGinn. “This in turn is driving adoption of IP telephony deployments that integrate seamlessly with a video solution.

“Video and social media applications are driving an increase in IP data bandwidth, but the attachment and integration of IP telephony and mobile communications with IP application solutions is enabling network consolidation. We have definitely seen an increase in New Zealand business looking to take advantage of this trend.”

Many New Zealand enterprises are considering a move to fully-managed public or private-hybrid voice and video cloud solutions, partly because of the difficulties organisations find in maintaining such complex integrated environments themselves.

“Whether the preference is fixed, mobile or wifi, there is a real need for providers to ensure the network quality is highly managed, responsive, flexible and available,” says McGinn.

“Those providers that are not providing the very best in access will struggle to address the requirements around risk and security for New Zealand businesses.”

Unisys has multiple roles in the converged networks sector as a value added services provider, systems integrator, and data centre provider. “Current technology trends include a move toward using data networks to provide applications for mobile devices, says architecture director, Sachin Shangarpawar.

“There is a move from network-centric converged network solutions to distributed solutions with network access. Virtual voicemail is an example. Voicemail is stored on the handset, and that allows people to use it in a way not thought of before—for example, it can be passed as multimedia content, used as a greeting, or sent as voice SMS content.”

Tablets and smartphones are driving new networking demands he says, particularly for 4G networks. Devices such as Android phone and tablets consume a lot of data. The need for bandwidth drives 4G network rollouts around the world, including New Zealand.

“The main implication is that the demand for network bandwidth is going up and up and up, as mobile ‘apps’ become stronger,” says Shangarpawar . “It is a whole new paradigm that impacts both the networks and applications such as enterprise security management.“