CIO Tech Vision 2007: Visualizing The Future

The new year comes with new promises, new thoughts and new

opportunities. With growing consumer needs and to put their enterprises at the

top, CIOs are under tremendous pressure. Though technology is evolving to a new

height everyday, the trick to adopt this ever-evolving technology lies with the

enterprises' vision for the coming years. Competition is at its peak and CIOs

cannot afford to go with the same pace as they did earlier. CIOs need to

incorporate the new technologies without fail in their ICT frame plan for the

overall performance of their enterprises and to get the best results.

Connectivity Matters



As enterprises grow and expand their operation, the need for a better and
improved connectivity services with assurance of quality services is becoming

the order of the day. The enterprises are becoming more demanding. Also, the

kind of SLAs, which they are asking from service provider, has undergone a

tremendous change over the years. Today the connectivity options to the

enterprise customers are multifold offering their unique benefits. Enterprises

have different strategies for their core network and distribution network. Core

network is the backbone of any organization. There is a serious shift from TDM

and leased line systems to other technologies like MPLS. Cost is the biggest

factor. Most enterprises are not comfortable moving out of a private to a public

network. The responsibility of providing quality service in VPN rests primarily

with service providers.

With convergence and shift from TDM to IP, the concept of single

network providing all services is gaining ground and so the concept of

connectivity services is catching up. Earlier, service providers used to offer

services as per the license agreements, eg basic service providers used to offer

basic telephony and ISDN services whereas NLD operators used to offer leased

line services. But large operators now opt for all types of licenses. Initially,

all the operators were busy with infrastructure deployment but with majority of

the deployments are complete in large cities, the concept of integrated service

became the order of the day.

Mobility Empowerment



Most enterprises perceive mobility as a relatively minor portion of their
overall IT budgets, despite it is being consistently placed among the top five

initiatives of the next three years in surveys of business executives. As a

result, companies have failed to adequately plan and manage the growth of

mobility over the past few years, and more importantly, have failed to plan for

the accelerated growth which will occur over the next few years. Mobile

empowerment enables employees to take back office systems to the point of

interaction with the customer, no matter where their customer might be. As a

result, customers receive a higher level of service and exhibit a higher level

of satisfaction and loyalty to their supplier.

Managing mobility is different and requires new tools and

processes. While local area network (LAN) connected notebook computers and

off-site workers are currently handled by a standardized IT process developed

for an inside-the-company-facilities model, the massive growth of mobility over

the next 3-5 years will leave IT organizations unable to cope with the new

mobile reality unless they reconsider the existing strategy.

One of the greatest challenges to both business and IT groups

within companies over the next five years will be effective deployment and

management of mobility in the workforce, over a wide array of devices,

connections and applications. Failure to effectively tackle the mobility

challenge will leave companies with inefficient operations and at a major

competitive disadvantage through poor customer service, higher cost of

operations, and lack of flexibility. Mobility, therefore, must be included in

any enterprise strategy.

Security is Money



The other very clear trend is the management of security that will continue
to become more complicated and costlier. Threats to networks are simply getting

faster and perhaps a bit smarter, galvanizing vendors to produce solutions that

are smart and fast. With the underworld looking at it as a serious new avenue,

the network is unlikely ever to be completely safe. The related trend that seems

to be picking up is that security is becoming an application in itself. Not just

the vendors, but even service providers are increasingly putting it up as a

value added service.

Storage Needs



In organizations today, storage needs have doubled or tripled annually for
the past few years. Moreover, storage is directly attached to tens or hundreds

of individual distributed servers, configuration, backup and other management

tasks that have become more expensive, time consuming, and staff intensive.

Therefore, network storage in organizations is passing through a transition

phase and new technologies are evolving.

As data availability becomes a key differentiator for

enterprises, an increasing amount of resources are being spent in ensuring

continuous operations. Dedicated networks are being provisioned to guarantee

performance as well as security for backup applications. However, some concerns

still exist with CIO's that include performance of the application, management

of various data centers, complexity of design and deployment, cost of the

solution, availability, and security.

Bottom Line



The new year is going to see drastic changes in Indian communications
industry. The nation is gearing up to roll out 3G and WiMax in 2007. The

communication minister has already renamed the coming year as the year of

broadband. NGN is widely talked about as the next technology trend and wireless

network is going to be the only way of communication. With so much happening in

the industry, it is up to the enterprises and their CIOs to visualize their

business future much ahead of the time.

And hope this new year provides them with the technology mantra

which is a must for them, in order to attain their goals.

Happy New Year!

Gyana Ranjan Swain





gyanas@cybermedia.co.in