Comments on: Networking predictions for the new year

Jon Oltsik offers up 10 technology areas to watch in 2009. Among them? That buzz phrase "unified communications."

[ckurowic]

Sounds good, this is the direction we seem to be heading where I am at.

[Penguinisto]

C'mon, Jon... #2 is a no-brainer. It's a helluva lot cheaper to have a managed provider set you up with a managed WAN line than to lease a T1 yourself.

As for #1? Not so sure. I have fiber strung all throughout my internal network that can carry up to 10gb/sec (bless the facility's former owners!) if I can ever get the powers-that-be to cough up for the switch-gear... Yep, it would be nice to have someone else set all that up and pop in when I need 'em, but that's an affordable prospect because once it's set up, there's not too much you have to do with it outside of the occasional teething trouble, expansion, or fix (and on networking gear, that last part is kinda rare).

On a slight tangent: Not so sure that critters like MPLS will continue to thrive, though... As someone who is currently trying to get rid of a contract for one, I can tell you that they've been more trouble than they're worth. Also, it's actually cheaper to get someone like, say, Integra to get your lines hammered in with a more flexible 'dial-a-pipe' 10/20mb arrangement for a WAN, than to pay the near-confiscatory rates that, say, AT&T charges for a puny 6mb/sec MPLS arrangement.

BTW - Cisco has been pimping the unholy crap out of #9 there... even claiming near-perfect integration with VMWare's built-in virtual switching (that could've been sales-critter over-bragging, though). 'course, they're also starting to downplay the ancient-but-damned-workable 6500 series in favor of their new 7000 series switch gear as well. And don't get me started on how they like to use the word "MARS" more than NASA does.

Ah well - guess I'd better stop grousing. Good article. :)

[BTRoundtable]

We share your belief that Managed Network Services will gain ground in 2009, and benefit from increased adoption -- as the selective out-tasking to an MSP continues to coexist with internal managed IT and networking solutions.

Furthermore, it appears that Managed TelePresence offerings will complement the introduction of new new low-end systems. Again, these solution scenarios will likely coexist in many environments -- as CIOs and IT managers selectively apply the best-fit solution for a given application, geography, budget, etc.

David, Business Technology Roundtable
http://business-technology-roundtable.blogspot.com

[Tom1Z]

I agree with you on most of your opinions. Managed network services did increase all the time.

As for #6, there are more and more applications and services in massive data centers running on top of virtual servers. Application acceleration and WAN optimization will be done during this year.

As for #9, Data center networking is very important right now. Big companies will do something on this during 2009.

As for #10, I think in many countries, there are already real Cisco competitors such as HP, Huawei.

Mike Lee
owner of <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.myhotcoupons.com" target="_newWindow">hot coupons</a>