How can a company’s choice of technology impact its infrastructure?
The technology they pick for telephony infrastructure will directly impact their actual hardware infrastructure because the two must match. Very high-demand, high-end, data-centric customers like financial institutions need to have the power within their telecom network to transmit their data quickly and with a high level of security to ensure their information will make it from point A to point B. The way they do that is to match the hardware infrastructure to telecommunications infrastructure. They will have many points of redundancy built into their data network, and they will build the same kind of redundancy into their telecom network. If they don’t do it, it’s like buying a race car and putting diesel in it. It’s just not made for that.
What are the keys to choosing the right technology to support your infrastructure?
The key is understanding how critical the data being passed across a wide-area network is, as well as how responsive the carrier network would be to supporting application growth and putting in new applications. There are critical applications that customers run, like PeopleSoft, SAP, and Oracle. Those are mission-critical applications to some customers, and some can live without them for short to extended periods of time and still be able to run their business effectively.
There are also emerging applications that companies are capitalizing on for reduced costs and better control of their voice/telephone communications. For voice, the tech becoming prevalent, like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), has far-reaching benefits for companies. They are able to control all the voice traffic across their network and standardize on a platform that will reduce their overall costs from a monthly reoccurring standpoint, and also reduce their ongoing maintenance needs. As customers move to these new technologies, they have to respond by putting in networks that can handle them effectively.
Those new apps are very intolerant of any disruptions in or delays on your data network. The applications will fail if they don’t have high-quality, always-on, dedicated connectivity.
How can a company assess its infrastructure and technology needs?
There are software systems available that will allow companies to look at their current trends and report on whether or not there are any inefficiencies or areas to be improved on. That’s one way to do it, but typically that will create a heavy load to 1) find the right software to get the information, 2) dedicate the human resources to correlate that information and 3) spend the time evaluating different vendor options to fill the need or meet the deficiencies.
Many customers are having success engaging third-party resources that can help them to pull the information, come up with recommendations and sort through the different carrier options out there. These companies take the load off of the customer and allow them to run the evaluations and make the right decisions for their company.
Justin Switzer is director of strategic partnerships with Simplify Inc. Reach him at [email protected] or (281) 465-6014.