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| Wednesday, 12 September 2007 | |
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Unified communications on the rise, but beware the fog of more…
IT service assurance company Network General Corporation has released survey findings showing that components of a Unified Communications (UC) infrastructure are contributing significantly to network traffic, and that the impact of UC applications on network traffic is poised to become even more pronounced. The survey, which polled 576 Network General customers worldwide, found that 75% of companies estimate that a quarter of their network traffic over the last three months consisted of unified communications-related applications (VoIP, unified messaging, instant messaging, and so on). Some 40% of the companies polled use integrated voice, video and Web conferencing, and nearly 70% have deployed VoIP – although only 12% credit voice communication alone as responsible for additional network traffic. However, nearly 80% of respondents expected the network traffic from all their communications applications to increase during the next 12 months. Network General reckons that with increasing communications traffic, IT managers will be confronted with the challenge of maintaining quality of service for all applications. The company states that the ramp-up in UC is already taking its toll: nearly 40% of enterprises have suffered application performance problems due to the convergence of communications applications onto their IP network, and almost 20% weren’t sure if their performance problems were related to the convergence of communications. “With the growth of unified communications and additional new applications, IT departments are finding that their environments are becoming increasingly complex, as each new service often comes with unique management tools,” judges James Messer, director of technical marketing at Network General. Unified-View industry analyst Art Rosenberg believes the survey results are indicative of the viral aspects UC applications will have upon enterprise network resources. “As end users adopt the efficiencies of unified communications tools, business communication traffic will increase. This, in turn, will increase the need for network flexibility and capacity for enterprise traffic,” he calculates. “UC migration will present enterprise organisations with a ‘chicken and egg’ problem. Until enterprises can gain intelligence into their business operations, they really won’t know what their new network requirements will be,” adds According to the survey despite the complexities there’s no stopping the UC trend, with only 9% of respondents not yet using a UC-related application in their business. “The increasing mobility of the workplace is driving unified communications to a new usage level,” reasons Messer. “Additionally, it is through implementing unified communications – and streamlining business processes to support those communications – that IT managers will be able to help their companies communicate more effectively.” But not only is UC putting pressure on network performance and QoS, it’s also raising concerns about security. In another recent study – this time carried out by Datamonitor on behalf of IT services specialist Dimension Data - suggests that UC is believed to be as secure as other technologies in the workplace, but that most end-users users remain unaware of the potential risks they could be exposing their organisations to. Apparently some 52% of IT users perceive UC to be as secure as most other ICT technologies while IT managers were a bit more cautious, with 42% believing it was as secure as other ICT technologies. But it ain’t necessarily so, particularly if public network technologies are involved. “While enterprise-grade tools are available, many organisations still allow employees to use public tools in the environment. Placing unified communications technologies in the hands of end users who are unaware of the risks and corporate policies could result in the benefits being offset by the increased risk and security threats in the corporate environment,” says Dimension Data’s UC global business development manager Gavin Hill, arguing that that user education and change management around the best use of UC technologies is critical. John Williamson |
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