Unified Communications
Maximize the benefits of unified
communications
Five steps to a service-oriented
network architecture system.
by Paul Liesenberg
Executives, employees, customers and
partners communicate using a variety of
methods and devices, from PCs, cell phones,
voice-over-IP systems and teleconferencing.
For optimal business operations,
communications should be unified, but
frequently the requirements of each business
unit, department, location or application
are addressed separately. Given this
situation, how can an enterprise accomplish
a functional unified communications (UC)
deployment?
A service-oriented network architecture
(SONA) can provide enterprise-wide unified
communications, while offering benefits both
in cost and agility. SONA consolidates
common application functions, such as
multicasting, encryption, load balancing and
data caching, and virtualizes them in the
network, so they can be shared by
applications across the enterprise. This
architecture delivers a set of reusable
general services, such as identity
management, location, mobility and security,
as well as specific services, such as call
control, data encryption, message logging
and protocol translation. Building on these
services, companywide tools and business
processes that support functional multimedia
collaboration among users and applications
can be constructed in a scalable manner.
SONA framework layers
The SONA framework provides a holistic,
network-based approach to the integration of
business and technology. It consists of
three layers: the network systems layer, the
integrated network services layer and the
applications layer.
The network systems layer is the single
converged IP network that provides
intelligent connectivity for all services
and applications, including voice, across
the enterprise. The integrated network
services layer provides network
infrastructure services that are vital for
the effective deployment of a UC solution
across the enterprise, including security,
quality of service (QoS) and services
management. The applications layer supports
traditional business applications and
collaboration applications such as
telephony, unified messaging, video, Web
conferencing, customer contact and instant
messaging that use network-based services.
Migrating to a SONA-based network
infrastructure may seem daunting, but the
following five steps describe a
simple-to-follow strategy:
Step 1: Plan. First and
foremost, get executive buy-in.
Line-of-business managers need assurance
that they will still get the resources and
applications they need. Map
interdependencies among applications and
databases, and set policies based on user
identities and needs.
Step 2: Consolidate.
During consolidation, focus on moving the
infrastructure from a business-group
alignment to a project-based alignment. This
step involves standardizing computing
resources and networking shared storage
resources, including combining storage
resources into single storage-area networks
(SANs) using virtual SANs.
Step 3: Virtualize.
During the virtualization phase, the
application, or service function, is
extracted from the underlying server,
storage and network infrastructure, so
resources can be dynamically partitioned,
provisioned and assigned to different
applications with ease. Key ingredients
during this phase are virtual machines,
network-hosted storage virtualization and
virtualized network service technologies.
At this point, shared infrastructure
services are deployed to address needs
across all server platforms and storage
systems. Where appropriate, these services
should be integrated into the network. For
example, network-hosted data replication,
global file sharing and data security can
reliably serve all networked server and
storage resources.
Step 4: Automate.
Automate repetitive, time-consuming
operational tasks. The virtualized server,
storage and network resources–along with
management systems, integrated services and
other aspects of the infrastructure–need to
be designed to achieve the goal of
automation and a service-aligned
infrastructure.
Step 5: Implement a UC system.
Implement a unified communications system
that exploits the converged network through
open standards such as XML, voice XML,
SIP/SIMPLE, HTTP and SOAP to virtualize
voice, video, presence and mobility services
within the network. These services then can
be delivered securely to any device,
anywhere, anytime, across multiple
applications to improve collaboration and
user experience.
Implementing an enterprise-wide,
architecturally holistic system requires the
selection of a UC solution designed for
flexibility and growth. A virtualized system
that ties next-generation services directly
to business processes can seamlessly unify
voice, video and data across a wide variety
of devices and applications, creating a
converged, media-rich environment. This
environment will best support today's
fast-changing enterprises, which may have
employees who work remotely from multiple
locations, who use a variety of media and
mobile devices, and who collaborate across
distances and time zones via e-mail, instant
messaging and videoconferencing.
At the integrated services layer, the
system should enable critical network-wide
functions by using identity, mobility,
security, unified communications and other
IP-based services provided through the SONA
framework. These services will allow the
system to integrate capabilities such as
firewalls, survivable remote site telephony,
QoS and load balancing throughout the
network for maximum resiliency and
operational efficiency.
The UC solution should also be able to
use the integrated services layer to provide
virtualized user and communication services
to business and collaboration applications.
It should also be able to expand the range
of unified communication services within
that layer to include:
- identity services that map resources
and policies to the user and device to
create preferences for collaborative
applications and provide single sign-on
capabilities;
- authentication services that use
multifactor methods to mutually
authenticate users and transactions
across applications, and identify
security threats for improved
responsiveness, resilience and security;
- presence services that keep track of
where users are on the network, what
their preferred devices are and who is
permitted to communicate with them;
- policy services that manage routing
rules, directory and application access,
and collaboration privileges, so
multiple, media-rich applications can
interoperate properly; and
- media services that promote
collaboration by integrating voice,
video and Web conferencing capabilities.
Support for open standards is a key
element in enabling interoperability with
popular UC applications. For example, the UC
system user can set his status to "In a
meeting," and this information will be
displayed to users of other
SIP/SIMPLE-compliant presence applications.
Open standards-based systems also allow for
further expansion of the UC system across
the enterprise. With advanced presence
capabilities, users could, for example,
customize their greetings ("With a
customer–back at 3 p.m." or "Traveling–call
my mobile.").
UC solutions and applications that take
advantage of SONA's integrated services
layer enable value-enhancing applications
that meet business requirements and unify
the IT infrastructure, applications and
contact centers. In turn, by unifying
network services and the UC system across
the enterprise, centralized data, policy and
business-process workflow services can be
used in UC applications.
Implementing a converged network based on
a SONA framework can provide significant
benefits to the enterprise. Consolidation
and standardization result in lower total
cost of ownership (TCO) through savings
gained from improvements in IT efficiency.
Overlapping administrative, operations,
engineering and applications-development
activities can be eliminated, achieving a
higher level of return on investment. In the
data center, the virtualization of network,
computing and storage resources creates a
pool of shared resources that can be
operated at higher utilization levels than
dedicated resources, resulting in lower TCO.
Rolling out technology and services to
branch offices and remote workers is
standardized, reducing deployment costs.
Standard security services result in fewer
virus attacks. Employee productivity and
mobility improve because services are
uniform across locations, reducing training
time and simplifying application use. The
enterprise can also roll out new
applications and services more quickly
without the time and manpower required for
the coordination of multiple separate IT
functions and entities.
Paul Liesenberg is a strategic
marketing manager for Cisco Systems'
SONA group, San Jose, Calif.
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