Reference Architecture to the Rescue
March 17, 2008
Written By Anatoli Levine
My CEO swears by Yahoo messenger. My R&D guys swear by Jabber. We have Cisco Call Manager connecting our offices in 15 countries and providing seamless voice connectivity. We use Polycom room systems in most of our conference room, however some of new Tandberg devices we connected just recently, also work quite well. We just equipped two of our boardrooms with brand new Telepresence systems from Telanetix. And our support department is really happy with their decision to use Skype to allow customers call in with questions for any place in the world. My Sales department is demanding that each sales director is always reachable on one and the same number, whether inside or outside of the corporate office, so I need to find an FMC solution for them. By now you probably figured that I’m in charge of information systems in my company, so I’m really the one who have to make this all work together. And hh yes, yesterday my friends got really upset with me – I didn’t have twitter installed on my brand corporate smartphone, so we couldn’t chat during the football game.
Sounds far fetching? I don’t think so. Today’s enterprise deploys myriad complex communications tools and technologies, all of which should function in concert. Does it always? No, not really, there is lots of work required and no success is guaranteed. What can help here? IMTC is proposing to define a reference architecture, a deployment blueprint which will define a minimum technological profile for the prospective equipment and recommend potential design of the network to make all the pieces to interoperate smoothly and successfully. Want to learn more about it? Come to VON.x in San Jose this week and participate in IMTC Panel “Reference Architectures for Content Delivery & Unified Communications” which will take place on Thursday, March 20 from 1:30pm - 2:45pm.
Do you remember the times when service providers didn’t think about issues such as being a pipe versus media company? When media consumers could easily identify which device is used for video and which for audio? When content creators had to buy equipment in millions and millions of dollars just to create one minute of moving picture - and distribute it?
Well, these times are long gone. Today, technology is disrupting the whole industry - and its value chain. Content creators are making new innovative media products for a fraction of the cost, and distribute it independently. Availability of high bandwidth across networks poses a dilemma to service provider regarding their role in the market place, and which infrastructure will support an unclear future. Users consume media in various shapes and forms - often with intrusive content protection methods that affect their rights.
IMTC Forum will discuss these issues and more, with thought leaders from companies such as Radvision, Cisco, AT&T, BEA, Avaya, RealNetworks, FWD, and independent content creators. Panels cover perspectives of each industry player - vendors, users, content creators, service providers, and the link between content delivery and unified communication.
The event, a Fall VON pre-conference, is taking place in Boston on the 29th of October. Come to say Hello, and be a part of a controversial and insightful conversation.
(Cross posted here)
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