Devil's Advocate: Private networks are just so passé

In his latest look at the ebusiness scene Martin Brampton, director at consultancy Black Sheep Research, casts his critical eye across the networking landscape and explains why public networks are the only way to go.

The idea of the general network goes back almost as far as the concepts of individual computers, Windows, icons or software objects. And these ideas long predate the products that we now take for granted. Development of the various notions has created some artificial splits.

In the early eighties, development of the personal computer raced ahead. The name and the early uses of this new device put all the emphasis on "personal" and created a product that was intended to be self sufficient and operate alone. At the same time networking development accelerated, fuelled by the work of Novell. However, the device on the desktop remained resolutely personal.

Distortion of the architecture has pushed functions to the network that should be in the desktop device and vice versa. Security is a function that needs to be tied primarily to the role of the person accessing networked systems. Quite apart from maintaining the security of critical systems, the individual computers used as access devices need protection. The whole problem of viruses and other hostile programs is linked to the fact that personal computers will run programs without knowing who asked for them to be run.

Conversely, the personal computer attempts to hold all the software needed by its users. That creates enormous problems of software distribution and management. It militates against modern working practices, such as hot-desking and general mobility. As we move to a situation where most computers are connected to a single global network for most of the time, we need different architectures.

The boundaries of an organisation are not easily drawn. Even now, people travel extensively and require access to corporate information wherever they go. Customers, suppliers and collaborators are increasingly invited to share in the use of corporate systems. Questions of effective and secure access to corporate systems cannot be answered in relation to private networks with boundaries defined by real world factors such as company buildings. The locus of management has to be narrowed to the individual device in the user's hands.

At the same time, expectations of network services are constantly growing. Data networks are expected to provide speedy delivery of information reliably and unobtrusively. The kinds of data become ever more varied as graphics, voice and video are added to the basic information capabilities. Networks offer IT managers far more opportunities for brickbats than bouquets. As their requirements for specialist skills continue to grow, they become prime candidates for outsourcing.

Given the architectural issues, extensive outsourcing will lead to a merging of networks into a general public utility that relies on established internet standards to achieve global links. While networks will secure themselves by placing some controls on traffic, the primary responsibility for security and service delivery will fall on collaboration between servers and the delivery devices on people's desks. Only by this flexible approach can the inexorable trends in corporate life be adequately supported.

Where there are concentrations of servers, specialist private networks will remain. In that environment the concepts of the computer bus and the network are merging. Infiniband is the bus technology that will take over high performance servers as an agreed standard between major vendors. It is intended to go further than that, though, being capable of extension outside the server to groups of other devices. Ultra high-speed networking and active switches will also continue to play a role in data centres.

But outside data centres, general networks are a simple utility. In the future, companies will take them for granted in exactly the same way as mains electricity. It is always available, and if something goes wrong, contractors are called in to fix it. Likewise, the network will be the unsung utility that underlies information processing.