Planning for the Future of your IT Infrastructure

Highlights from the May 2007 Interop Show in Las Vegas

Unlike consumer shows, Interop brings together Information Technology (IT) and business leaders to discuss, share, and see the latest technologies that will shape the future of how businesses will operate and grow. The show centers on the specific needs of business technology and features:

• 450 exhibitors
• More than 250 presentations and speakers
• 20,000 attendees from around the world

Key themes and recommendation from the event were focused on five topics:

Data Centers Management

With Data Centers, a common belief among the vendors and speakers is that a typical data center or server room should be built right and built to last for at least seven to ten years to be most effective. Servers should be able to accommodate at least 10 gigabits (GB) of data; however with the growing demand for bandwidth, technology planning should anticipate and prepare for the need of 100 GB to run efficiently.

Another common concern being addressed throughout the show was the need for power and cooling of server rooms. As an example, Google's IT department spends more money on the electricity for cooling their server rooms annually than the cost of the servers in their data centers.

Lastly, Virtualization was also a popular topic of discussion. Virtualization is a term that refers to the technique for hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources (through encapsulation) from the way in which other systems, applications, or end users interact with those resources. This includes making a single physical resource (such as a server, an operating system, an application, or abstraction) appear to function as multiple logical resources; or it can include making multiple physical resources (such as storage devices or servers) appear as a single logical resource. It is crucial to know where Virtualization can help. Although it can reduce the physical number of servers, Virtualization does not mean that the administrative time to support them is also reduced. Administrative costs could hinder the process and the attempt at this cost-saving method.

Infrastructure and Services

With Infrastructure and Services as with Data Center management, Virtualization has many advantages worth discussing; however, experts underscore the fact that it can create much more work especially in larger environments.

Appliance solutions are making a return as they provide simple, reliable services with very little overhead, which makes them perfect for an environment where administrative support comes at a premium price.

The final point in this area is Asset Management. Network Administrators should be aware and keep accurate records of every piece of equipment, not just workstations and servers. Control of this information is important for the obvious reasons of security and administrative purposes as well as for optimization and lifecycle management.

Security

Many businesses expressed interest in securing their data as well as compliance issues. A ‘Defense in Depth’ approach or a layered defense seemed to be the recommended advice. If you’re not familiar with the concept of Defense in Depth, listen to our web seminar on the topic “Barbarians at the Gate: IT Security Strategies for Small Business.”

Perimeter defense systems using Web Gateways and Unified Threat Management were on display from a variety of companies and discussed by several speakers. These systems not only monitored and blocked web usage, but could defend against complex attacks using intrusion detection and prevention.

NAC, or Network Access Control, was front and center at the conference. Network Access Control prevents unauthorized access both through the Ethernet and via wireless access points.

The last security point that was heavily emphasized was Encryption. No security scheme is complete without encrypting sensitive data. If a system is breached and the data is not encrypted, the industry will have no tolerance for this unsafe practice.

VoIP and Collaboration

VoIP and Collaboration was a high-profile theme at Interop. While everyone agrees that Voice over IP and Collaboration technologies can be a significant advantage to users, speakers and vendors agreed that there is no one size fits all solution. The needs of the client must match the features of the solution whether it’s a local IP PBX system, a hosted solution, or some combination of the two.

VoWF, or Voice over Wi-Fi, was on display as well. Although many offices are connected over wi-fi, there are some complexities and solutions to make VoIP works on these types of networks.

In addition, there were many applications that can link Smartphones into a VoIP network so that the user can gain access to emails and other systems.

Wireless and Mobility

With Wireless and Mobility, most of the speakers and vendors were discussing the various access methodologies for gaining access to corporate data from mobile phones. The key point to all of these methods was security methodologies including SSL, encryption, and some other system to ensure that the data flowing between the wireless system and corporate headquarters is secure in transit.

The fact is that almost all businesses are moving towards a more mobile workforce. It’s not only the executive staff working from home or working offsite, but all the various telecommuting, sales forces, and field personnel that need access to data while away from corporate headquarters to do their jobs successfully.

The last discussion point regarding Wireless and Mobility centered around the architecture of wireless access point placement especially for campus environments. With advances in technology and need for bandwidth, it radically changes the way these networks are set up.

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