'3G, WiMax Will Make Cloud a Reality'

The concept of remote IT management or systems management has become more prevalent. This has made 'Managed IT Service' possible with vendors extending the demarcation further into the enterprise, or known as extended enterprise. Managed services uses a pro-active approach to managing IT systems, which includes continuous monitoring of the network, performing recurring preventative maintenance activities and troubleshooting of the systems, using remote log-in tools and software. The cloud will be a game changer for small and medium business IT support companies, as these tools need no longer be limited by a physical location but virtualized in the 'cloud'. However same urge is stopping many network enterprises to reluctantly adopt cloud services with its cons predominating pros.

Cloud or Not

While organizations realize the need to move their applications to the cloud to increase their business agility, they have been cautious in their adoption of cloud services, and the transition to cloud services has not been rapid as expected. Security, compatibility with existing applications, lack of a migration path from existing applications to clouds, freedom of choice, federation of internal and external resources, lack of service level agreements (SLAs) for policy based management, and interoperability are some of the main road blocks hindering migration to the cloud.

Users connecting over cloud based network are touching different network and security devices in the data center. It becomes extremely challenging for the network manager to trace these user activities and security enablement. Today, there are NMS tools for user identity and policy enablement across different devices and applications particularly for the users connecting from the cloud.

The key challenge with any kind of consolidated IT infrastructure, which public and private cloud models both,is that the user is often very far away from their applications and data. This leads to application performance problems that can often cause critical business applications to be virtually unusable.

Enterprises have to balance the pros and cons of using private and public clouds to store and serve this data. Data needs to be secure, and enterprises should know where exactly their data is and what problems can occur. Public clouds may not offer the guarantee of knowing where the data is all the time and private clouds are expensive to build and operate. So enterprises have to decide what to build on the private cloud and the public cloud. The solution to this may not be to select one or the other but to perhaps run a hybrid type environment where data is classified and run on either a private or public cloud depending on the classification.

However, these concerns will be short-lived as cloud computing matures and the specifics are worked out.

3G Calling

With the rollout of 3G and WiMax networks along with the exponentially increasing adoption of portable and smart devices, the demands on the bandwidth are set to skyrocket in India. To meet the growing requirements of the enterprises and end consumers, service providers will have to find more efficient ways to allocate and use their network resources.

There are more challenges when it comes to ensuring service quality for WiMax and 3G wireless technologies than for wireline. This is due to several factors, including the weather, how the cell towers are connected, and the bandwidth that is available to the towers. Also, operators are relying on their back haul networks in order to bring the increasing volume of data from the towers back to the data packet core.

With end-to-end visibility, operators are equipped with real-time monitoring of every infrastructure entity along the service delivery path. This goes beyond the historically siloed approach of network and service management tools, vastly improving efficiencies by enabling operating and engineering teams to collaborate and identify root causes of service degradations. Top-down visibility delivers a comprehensive view of per-subscriber service quality, which is critical to accelerate data service troubleshooting. With 3G cards, for example, users may have different plans with different data limitations, and operators can face issues such as someone having an expired card. Ensuring service quality requires the ability to monitor closely at the subscriber level and to gain visibility into particular subscriber issues, regarding connecting to the packet core.

Greening Networks

The adoption of WAN optimization technology allows considerable rationalization and cost reduction. The uptake of cloud services also promises the same economic benefits, as long as they are optimized. Cloud optimization technologies such as the cloud steel head and whitewater products from Riverbed claims to fulfill this demand. InfoVista is supporting the green initiatives by supporting products in virtualized environment, hence reducing the foot print of physical servers and reducing the power consumption. Cisco's routing and switching systems are uniquely positioned to have a positive, broad-based impact on network energy management,operational efficiency, sustainable business practices and extended service life. Sify Technologies have deployed unified fabric supporting most protocols on common infrastructure layer thus drastically reducing network device footprints.

Growth Prospects

Network management has evolved over the years from basic, physical and logical awareness of things like “Is my router link up?” and “Can I ping this server?” to a much more intelligent model, now termed “Application Aware Network Performance Management”.

Networks today need to be built with smart and strategic road maps that will enable them to achieve the highest technical and business performance. In order to remain competitive, businesses have to adopt resilient and scalable architectures that supports expansion and helps them stay ahead of the rapidly changing market place. Intelligent networks can aid businesses to be more competent, integrate network collaboration, business process applications and improve productivity.

Akanksha Singh
akankshas@cybermedia.co.in