What's the fuss about... network infrastructure?

Every decent construction needs solid foundations. This week Quocirca analyst Clive Longbottom looks at the questions users should be asking to make sure their core IT infrastructure is sound...

Many years ago, there was the Monty Python film The Holy Grail. In it, there was a local noble who lived in a marsh and he wanted to leave it all to his son. The noble regaled his son with the story about how when he arrived, there was only marsh, so he built a castle. It sank. So he built another castle. That sank too. So he built another, and another, and... you get the picture.

It was funny in the film and no-one lost any real money through the story. Strange, then, how many of us like to make the same errors time and time again, losing our companies money, with the main board not finding it so funny.

As lord of all we survey, we do the equivalent of the local noble. When we arrived, it was all baked bean cans and pieces of string. So we put SAP on it - and it bombed. So we then put Siebel on it - and it bombed. So we're now going to put web services on it - that will make it all alright, won't it? Er, no - the baked bean cans and string are the problem. (Even if the applications are problematic in their own right.)

Fact is, if you have bad infrastructure, you'll have bad IT systems. If you have a bad IT system, you cannot facilitate the business processes that the applications are nominally in place to facilitate. In other words, try and 'make do' at the infrastructural level and you'll waste all your time and money on the rest of the systems.

On the other hand, put in place good network infrastructure and it will provide the basis for building solid business solutions on top. Network kit is intelligent these days. (It should be at the prices the likes of Cisco, Lucent and Nortel charge for it.) Look at using areas such as quality of service, priority of service and intelligent routing and you can maximise the throughput of data on your network, you can go for convergent voice and data systems, you can look at streaming video and more.

Look at network level security and you can nip port attacks and malicious hacking before it gets above the network layer. Look at least-cost routing, packet tunnelling, edge-of-network technologies - see how they can provide business benefits when applied to your network.

With all this capability hanging around, all the vendors are clamouring at your doors to sell you on the idea of how infrastructural change can help your business? What do you mean No?

Outside of the biggest, largest-spending companies, it seems the approach from the network vendors has been and continues to be a technical sell. You know, meaningful things along the lines of: "Come and buy our 802.11 access point. It has WEP and can fall over to a GPRS environment if you have Mobile IP underpinning it." Or: "Our VoIP solution, when combined with your PBX and our IP handsets, has been proven as the most cost-effective means of matching your voice and data needs."

It is meaningless twaddle peddled by a group of people who should know better.

When was the last time a representative of any of these companies actually spoke to you about your actual business? Have you had anyone saying: "So, you're in the customer service market. We find that the majority of companies in your space struggle with coping with information coming in from the customer in many forms. What we are finding is that we can save you money and make it easier for your agents to deal with customers at the same time, while also extending the reach of your systems into the back office and through to suppliers. We guarantee that by implementing this solution, you will be well placed to accelerate from your competitors when the markets pick up"?

Many of the vendors can do this but they are bogged down in the technology and in dealing with network managers, even when they purport to be dealing with the highest level of management across a broad range of end users.

The majority of network channel partners talk network jargon only, narrowing down their possible audiences to the network operations groups only. Only the big systems integrators seem to be able to go in and talk business - and then they seem to regard the network as an afterthought.

Reailse you can't wait on the vendors to come and tell you what they can do for you. You'll have to go to them with your top 10 business issues - what it is that's stopping you from being number one in your market, why the competition is catching up on you, what you really want to do out there, or whatever.

Talk to your account manager or channel representative about what they can show you that would help to solve these problems. Don't let them baffle you - insist on simple descriptions of what it all means and what it will do for you. Insist on references, and talk to the business guys in these reference sites to see if they recognise the benefit provided from the network changes.

It's in everyone's best interests - yours, in that it will help your business, and theirs, as it will help them shift more kit. Go on - surprise yourself - go and lay some foundations in that marsh out there.

**Quocirca is a leading, user-facing analyst house known for its focus on the 'big picture'. For a full summary of its activities see www.quocirca.com, or reach the company's founding directors by emailing quocirca@silicon.com.