Convergence: a word game

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: DENNIS DROGSETH ON NETWORK/SYSTEMS
MANAGEMENT
06/20/05
Today's focus: Convergence: a word game

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* The many faces of convergence
* Links related to Network/Systems Management
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: Convergence: a word game

By Dennis Drogseth

One of our clients last week reminded me that "convergence" is
taking on multiple meanings in our industry, beyond the
convergence of voice and data traffic.

The client was thinking of the need to manage multiple network
environments consistently - MPLS, ATM and frame relay - and then
the convergence of IT organizations managing network and
application traffic also came up. I pretty much shut down the
conversation there, realizing that "convergence" could easily
become a kind of catalyst for looking at many of the forces
shaping both IT organizations and technology requirements in
enterprise management.

The Oxford American Dictionary defines convergence as "coming to
or towards the same point." While this may be the ultimate
endgame for many of the trends in enterprise management today,
"convergence" in our marketplace means something more like
"coming to or towards the same fuzzy middle ground."

From both a technology - and certainly from an organizational -
perspective, it's more like immigrants from different countries
arriving on New World shores and trying to find a better way to
work together. For today's column, I thought I'd pick a few
examples to prove this point.

* VoIP - Voice over Internet Protocol, in bringing together
  voice and data traffic, and bringing together media and IP
  transport more generally (e.g., video on demand) is actually
  stimulating multiple types of convergence. These include the
  most commonly observed example of convergence - an integrated IP
  services network infrastructure. But VoIP and IP telephony will
  also demand an integrated approach to managing more
  heterogeneous applications (a convergence of telecommunications
  and data center application types) and through this stimulate
  organizational convergence - for instance, integrating the call
  center and the help desk with common processes and tool sets.

* Converging technology models in network and application
  performance - Probably the most accelerated cross-silo
  discussions occurring today are those where network and
  application performance teams are beginning to work together.
  But the flipside to this is that network and application
  technologies are also beginning to converge. Application flow
  management is the network model for managing aggregated or
  individual application flows as network traffic.
  Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and Web services deconstruct
  applications into modular, networked components that interact
  with each other across a geographically diffuse infrastructure.
  SOA also converges application design and business process.
  While the right hand (the application) and the left hand (the
  network) certainly aren't converged yet in terms of
  architecture, both are moving to a view of managing services
  that interact in multi-dimensional and unpredictable ways.

* Converging organizations - IT silos of networks, systems,
  apps, storage and security are beginning to converge along with
  their technologies, following the vision of managing an
  "infrastructure" to support a "business service." Enterprise
  Management Associates predicts the IT model of the future will
  be an integrated central operations team with common processes
  and tools supported by domain specialists.

* Converging best practices - As the models for managing
  enterprise IT and service provider Operation Support Systems
  begin to have more in common, organizations such as the
  Telemanagement Forum are examining IT best practices, such as
  those from the IT Infrastructure Library. While these efforts
  are not likely to converge to a single "point," they should
  result in a productive middle ground.

* Converging brands, otherwise known as mergers and acquisitions
  - Just look at the management marketplace and you'll see an
  amalgam of brands that are beginning to converge through M&A.
  And of course it's not just brands - it's product categories:
  root-cause analysis with storage, security with storage, data
  gathering with analytics, network management with systems
  management, etc. What we're looking at are converging solution
  sets - not indeed to a point, but to a fuzzy middle ground in
  which vendors are struggling for hegemony by providing
  integrated suites with competitive advantages for themselves,
  and seemingly for you, the buyer.

So is all this convergence a good thing? For the most part, I
would say yes. It may not always seem that way when these grand
designs hover in the air like storm clouds while you're back on
earth trying to put out ground fires. But storm clouds
eventually bring rain - and I believe that all of these trends
will provide benefits for IT over time.

Convergence, like many meaningful trends in this industry,
depends upon catalytic forces that will evolve over years and
probably decades. These are good industry directions, but they
require patience.

RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS

Entuity adds VoIP, blade server management to software
Network World, 06/20/05
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/062005-entuity.html?rl

Levanta puts Linux management in a box
Network World, 06/20/05
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/062005-levanta.html?rl
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To contact: Dennis Drogseth

Dennis Drogseth is a vice president with Enterprise Management
Associates <http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/>, a leading
analyst, market research and IT consulting firm based in
Boulder, Colorado, focusing exclusively on all aspects of
enterprise management. Dennis has extensive experience in
service level management and network management platforms and
products. He is actively researching trends in management
software and changing IT roles internationally. His 22-plus
years of experience in high-tech includes positions at IBM and
Cabletron. He is widely quoted in the press and is a speaker at
many industry events. He can be reached via e-mail
<mailto:drogseth@enterprisemanagement.com>.
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