Destination: Advanced IP paradise

How two IT execs are plotting their way to an all-IP world.

For IT directors, the new data center road map is clear: Head toward an all-IP network, complete with advanced IP applications such as real-time collaboration.

Already, companies are moving along the steppingstones to this all-IP place. Many have implemented voice and video over IP, and are turning out frame relay networks and other private links in favor of pure IP connections, such as provided via MPLS-based networks.

Two network leaders plotting their courses to the advanced IP paradise are Erik Durand, IT director for Costa Mesa, Calif., civil engineering firm Psomas, and Jim Klein, director of Information Services and Technology at Saugus Union School District in Saugus, Calif. Both were finalists in the Network World Renovator Awards earlier this year.

For Durand and Klein, the goal is to achieve real-time collaboration with advanced IP applications and an all-IP network.

Engineered for advanced IP

In a perfect world, Durand says, the CAD/CAM drawings his users rely upon would be available from anywhere at anytime. “Our engineers would be able to collaborate on construction projects using whiteboard applications and videoconferencing over wireless LAN, cellular or satellite connections from a remote office, an on-site trailer or even a dirt mound,” he says.

Today, he is laying the groundwork that will help him attain this network nirvana.

“As an engineering company, we work with large CAD files – 300M bytes to 500M bytes on average for each one,” he says. “This wasn’t a problem when we were a smaller company and everyone worked in the same office, but as we’ve grown – 20% per year over the last two years – we find we really need to share work across offices.”

Durand already has swapped out his frame relay network in favor of an MPLS-based, fully meshed, pure-IP topography.

“The advantage is that we can have every-office-to-every-office connections, where before we had to pass through a main hub. We’ve lessened the number of hops, which will speed access to data,” he says.

He also has consolidated file servers at the company’s locations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah to a handful of data centers equipped with Riverbed Technology’s Steelhead file services appliances. These appliances allow real-time access and sharing of centralized data over the wide area.

“We used to do offline file synchronizations overnight, but they were a day behind and were a nightmare to manage. Users would ask if they could share work across offices and we’d have to say ‘no.’ Now we can do it,” he says. Another benefit has been the ease of file restores, which are frequently required because of human error, he explains.

The move to a consolidated all-IP network also has enabled Psomas to open new offices quickly, without a lot of gear and staff. In fact, Durand’s 14-person staff has not increased even though the company has grown rapidly over the past two years to support 620 users.

“We can open new offices with minimal servers, a router, a switch, an appliance and a large pipe. We refer to it as an ‘office in a box.’ This means less real estate for a LAN room, less costs, and the ability to do remote management. This approach is enabling us to save money as a growing company,” he says.

As a next step, Durand is evaluating IP storage-area networks (SAN) to complement the file services appliances. “The chief benefit will be cost savings,” he says. IP SANs will allow Psomas to have less off-site storage. “Once we get the core system in place, then additional storage is cheap. We can do near-line backups and minimize the need for tapes. We’ll also only have to send tapes off-site once a month rather than once a week.”

While this vision of an all-IP paradise seems easy, Durand says obstacles stand in the way. He points to the high cost of Riverbed appliances – around $10,000 for a basic unit. “That’s cost-prohibitive to put in every project trailer,” he says.

The slow speeds of wireless cellular cards – a critical element of Durand’s anytime, anywhere access vision – also frustrate him. “We’ve demoed cellular IP cards with an overlay VPN and the overhead was painful,” he says. At 100K to 300K bit/sec, the cards were too slow for the company’s large files. He’s excited about the emerging EV-DO cards carriers are touting to have speeds up to 2M bit/sec, but is waiting for them to have a larger coverage area.

School daze

While Saugus Union’s Klein doesn’t need to provide advanced IP on dirt mounds like Durand wants to, he does want to deliver it to wherever the user might be.

“For us, collaboration means not having to gather all the students in a single room for a presentation – that’s a hassle, and it takes time,” Klein says. “With an advanced IP network and applications, we can broadcast a presentation to the whole school in their individual rooms. This saves time and opens us up to a larger pool of presenters.” Some speakers, he says, are more comfortable addressing smaller groups, such as a single class. In such cases, he can broadcast the presentation in real time to every room.

Klein also wants teachers to be able to communicate with each other and faculty without leaving the classroom.

To facilitate these and other collaborative opportunities, Klein has made great strides toward an all-IP network equipped with VoIP, wireless networks and video. He started two years ago by rewiring the district, which includes 16 elementary, middle and high schools, “for a next-generation network.” Power over Ethernet technology, for data centers, gives him the ability to easily roll out wireless access points. “We tried to make the platform as flexible as possible,” he says.

Klein installed 700 TV sets in classrooms district-wide that are controlled over the IP-based network via a media retrieval system that allows for the uploading and broadcast of presentations and teaching tools. “The TVs are grouped by grade level and we can control changes in volume and channels over a central server system,” he says.

However, each school’s TV network remains an island. Extending this media retrieval system to the wide area is one step on the way to the advanced IP paradise Klein envisions. Once his vision is recognized, schools will be able to share broadcasts with each other. One obstacle to this goal, he says, is the need for special software at each client workstation – a cost he says is too steep.

Klein also has outfitted Saugus Union classrooms with VoIP capability – 700 IP phones have been placed throughout the district. “Our school sites didn’t have traditional phone service to all the classrooms so this is a big benefit,” he says.

The cost of a traditional PBX system to support the entire district vs. the cost of his 3Com VoIP network with features such as unified messaging wasn’t that much different, he says. “But the PBX system couldn’t touch the flexibility and performance you have with the voice over IP network. You can route all calls over the WAN links and that saves you money,” he says.

A big bonus he sees with VoIP and an all-IP network is the ability to quickly bring new sites online. “We are a growing district with lots of construction going on. We don’t have to call ‘Joe’s Cable Company’ to get new phone and television service up and running at each location; we can do it ourselves. That’s a big plus,” Klein says.

Eventually, Klein would like to blend VoIP and wireless for anywhere, anytime access. “Everyone would carry around their phones on their hips and be able to access the VoIP system over wireless,” he says. And that, no doubt, would be a paradise for many users.

Gittlen is an editor in Northboro, Mass. She can be reached at sgittlen@charter.net.

For IT directors, the new data center road map is clear: Head toward an all-IP network, complete with advanced IP applications such as real-time collaboration.

Already, companies are moving along the steppingstones to this all-IP place. Many have implemented voice and video over IP, and are turning out frame relay networks and other private links in favor of pure IP connections, such as provided via MPLS-based networks.

Two network leaders plotting their courses to the advanced IP paradise are Erik Durand, IT director for Costa Mesa, Calif., civil engineering firm Psomas, and Jim Klein, director of Information Services and Technology at Saugus Union School District in Saugus, Calif. Both were finalists in the Network World Renovator Awards earlier this year.

For Durand and Klein, the goal is to achieve real-time collaboration with advanced IP applications and an all-IP network.

Engineered for advanced IP

In a perfect world, Durand says, the CAD/CAM drawings his users rely upon would be available from anywhere at anytime. “Our engineers would be able to collaborate on construction projects using whiteboard applications and videoconferencing over wireless LAN, cellular or satellite connections from a remote office, an on-site trailer or even a dirt mound,” he says.

Today, he is laying the groundwork that will help him attain this network nirvana.

“As an engineering company, we work with large CAD files – 300M bytes to 500M bytes on average for each one,” he says. “This wasn’t a problem when we were a smaller company and everyone worked in the same office, but as we’ve grown – 20% per year over the last two years – we find we really need to share work across offices.”

Durand already has swapped out his frame relay network in favor of an MPLS-based, fully meshed, pure-IP topography.

“The advantage is that we can have every-office-to-every-office connections, where before we had to pass through a main hub. We’ve lessened the number of hops, which will speed access to data,” he says.

He also has consolidated file servers at the company’s locations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah to a handful of data centers equipped with Riverbed Technology’s Steelhead file services appliances. These appliances allow real-time access and sharing of centralized data over the wide area.

“We used to do offline file synchronizations overnight, but they were a day behind and were a nightmare to manage. Users would ask if they could share work across offices and we’d have to say ‘no.’ Now we can do it,” he says. Another benefit has been the ease of file restores, which are frequently required because of human error, he explains.

The move to a consolidated all-IP network also has enabled Psomas to open new offices quickly, without a lot of gear and staff. In fact, Durand’s 14-person staff has not increased even though the company has grown rapidly over the past two years to support 620 users.

“We can open new offices with minimal servers, a router, a switch, an appliance and a large pipe. We refer to it as an ‘office in a box.’ This means less real estate for a LAN room, less costs, and the ability to do remote management. This approach is enabling us to save money as a growing company,” he says.

As a next step, Durand is evaluating IP storage-area networks (SAN) to complement the file services appliances. “The chief benefit will be cost savings,” he says. IP SANs will allow Psomas to have less off-site storage. “Once we get the core system in place, then additional storage is cheap. We can do near-line backups and minimize the need for tapes. We’ll also only have to send tapes off-site once a month rather than once a week.”

While this vision of an all-IP paradise seems easy, Durand says obstacles stand in the way. He points to the high cost of Riverbed appliances – around $10,000 for a basic unit. “That’s cost-prohibitive to put in every project trailer,” he says.

The slow speeds of wireless cellular cards – a critical element of Durand’s anytime, anywhere access vision – also frustrate him. “We’ve demoed cellular IP cards with an overlay VPN and the overhead was painful,” he says. At 100K to 300K bit/sec, the cards were too slow for the company’s large files. He’s excited about the emerging EV-DO cards carriers are touting to have speeds up to 2M bit/sec, but is waiting for them to have a larger coverage area.

School daze

While Saugus Union’s Klein doesn’t need to provide advanced IP on dirt mounds like Durand wants to, he does want to deliver it to wherever the user might be.

“For us, collaboration means not having to gather all the students in a single room for a presentation – that’s a hassle, and it takes time,” Klein says. “With an advanced IP network and applications, we can broadcast a presentation to the whole school in their individual rooms. This saves time and opens us up to a larger pool of presenters.” Some speakers, he says, are more comfortable addressing smaller groups, such as a single class. In such cases, he can broadcast the presentation in real time to every room.

Klein also wants teachers to be able to communicate with each other and faculty without leaving the classroom.

To facilitate these and other collaborative opportunities, Klein has made great strides toward an all-IP network equipped with VoIP, wireless networks and video. He started two years ago by rewiring the district, which includes 16 elementary, middle and high schools, “for a next-generation network.” Power over Ethernet technology, for data centers, gives him the ability to easily roll out wireless access points. “We tried to make the platform as flexible as possible,” he says.

Klein installed 700 TV sets in classrooms district-wide that are controlled over the IP-based network via a media retrieval system that allows for the uploading and broadcast of presentations and teaching tools. “The TVs are grouped by grade level and we can control changes in volume and channels over a central server system,” he says.

However, each school’s TV network remains an island. Extending this media retrieval system to the wide area is one step on the way to the advanced IP paradise Klein envisions. Once his vision is recognized, schools will be able to share broadcasts with each other. One obstacle to this goal, he says, is the need for special software at each client workstation – a cost he says is too steep.

Klein also has outfitted Saugus Union classrooms with VoIP capability – 700 IP phones have been placed throughout the district. “Our school sites didn’t have traditional phone service to all the classrooms so this is a big benefit,” he says.

The cost of a traditional PBX system to support the entire district vs. the cost of his 3Com VoIP network with features such as unified messaging wasn’t that much different, he says. “But the PBX system couldn’t touch the flexibility and performance you have with the voice over IP network. You can route all calls over the WAN links and that saves you money,” he says.

A big bonus he sees with VoIP and an all-IP network is the ability to quickly bring new sites online. “We are a growing district with lots of construction going on. We don’t have to call ‘Joe’s Cable Company’ to get new phone and television service up and running at each location; we can do it ourselves. That’s a big plus,” Klein says.

Eventually, Klein would like to blend VoIP and wireless for anywhere, anytime access. “Everyone would carry around their phones on their hips and be able to access the VoIP system over wireless,” he says. And that, no doubt, would be a paradise for many users.

Gittlen is an editor in Northboro, Mass. She can be reached at sgittlen@charter.net.