Unconverged skills hold back take-up
Rival suppliers seek to solve standalone skills problem by promoting common standards
Poor understanding of the different requirements for managing voice and data is inhibiting the widespread take-up of converged networking.
Along with fears over reliability and robustness, the shortage of converged management skills has become so serious that some of the industry's fiercest rivals are prepared to work together to find a solution. Last week more than 50 networking companies attended the first meeting of the Voice and Data Convergence Sector Interest Group, hosted by the Telecoms Industry Association.
Research conducted by Network News at last year's Networks Telecom event in Birmingham found that 62 per cent of network managers were responsible for voice and data, regardless of whether those networks had converged.
"That doesn't mean they have the skills to manage both, though," said Allan Scott, director of converged solutions at Avaya. "It is getting better, but customers have usually grown up in voice or data."
Kevin Hayns, general manager at BT Business Information Systems and vice-chairman of the group, said there was a lack of understanding at all levels. "Converged skills are a problem mainly for vendors, although customers suffer too. I manage about 1,000 people but I don't have many who feel comfortable in a converged world because they're either from a voice or data background," he said.
Avaya's Scott said many fears over Lan reliability were unfounded. "A lot of these fears are a question of perception," he said. "As an industry forum, we can agree some common network design goals that can overcome those QoS fears."Another problem the forum will tackle is confused information over migration strategies.
"Vendors in the voice arena have put out messages about a more evolutionary approach, while those from data are more revolutionary," said Hayns. "They're saying 'Rip out your PBX,' and this has made many customers want to wait and see." He said that there was room for both approaches.
Working together
A big concern for network managers is interoperability. There has been resistance to testing kit in parallel because of competitive concerns and intellectual property issues. BT BIS does not manufacture converged equipment and has offered to provide a neutral testing environment.
"We talked about interoperability, and I made the offer that BT might provide facilities for interoperability testing," said Hayns. "Let's say there might still be a little resistance to, say, Nortel sending kit to Cisco for testing."