Event
Summary
On May 31, 2000, Lucent Technologies' NetworkCare Professional Services
and IBM Global Services announced an alliance to help an emerging group
of service providers, called CyberCarriers, deliver next-generation network-based
services to enterprises and consumers.
The
alliance, combines IBM's expertise in integrated technology solutions,
especially data center planning, design, integration and technical support,
with Lucent's expertise in planning, design, integration and technical
support of complex, carrier-grade network infrastructures.
The
announcement is the first step in a CyberCarrier initiative by Lucent
Technologies to help ensure design and delivery of end-to-end network
and Internet data center solutions for CyberCarriers.
CyberCarriers
are service providers who offer a combination of high speed networking
and data center services, including servers, storage and network transport,
to Application Service Providers, Internet Service Providers, web hosting
companies and others. Those companies in turn sell services, such as hosted
e-mail or e-commerce to enterprise and residential customers.
Lucent
has also developed a CyberCarrier Reference Architecture which defines
the network and data center elements required to deliver services. The
architecture, a blueprint for building end-to-end CyberCarrier networks,
is the framework for the services alliance.
The
alliance will draw on the CyberCarrier Reference Architecture in developing
customer solutions. The companies will take advantage of multi-vendor
products to fulfill customer requirements. Offerings will include these
solution areas:
Business
Planning Solutions: develop business and technology strategic road
maps that help CyberCarriers enter and expand into new businesses, and
grow revenues
Platform
and Application Management: develop and support platforms and applications
that help ensure rapid expansion of markets such as e-commerce, unified
messaging and hosting
Engineering
Solutions: best practices for selecting and deploying high-performance,
high availability solutions in networking hardware, software and transport
services in order to speed network applications to market
Security
Solutions: security for continuous e-commerce applications, as well
as threat monitoring, intrusion detection, and firewall management through
7 x 24 remote security operations
Performance
Solutions: desktop-to-server performance assessment services and instrumentation
tools to tune data centers and networks to meet Quality of Service (QoS)
metrics, service level and application level commitments
Site
Operations and Facilities: build, operate and manage CyberCarrier
network operations centers, data centers, network facilities and local
or remote network maintenance centers to keep a network running at peak
performance
Solution
Integration: prime contractor project management covering all components
of a multi-vendor CyberCarrier solution
Market
Impact
Booz Allen & Hamilton, the management and technology consulting firm,
estimates CyberCarriers could spend $133 billion on data center and network
infrastructure improvements during the next three years, about half of
that for professional services.
The
IBM and Lucent alliance confirms the Telecom industry's endorsement of
the Application Service Provider model. The move to establish infrastructure
mechanisms to support data center and network offerings is not new. In
February, AT&T announced their "Ecosystem" (see our article: "AT&T's
Ecosystem") which offers companies a suite of solutions from AT&T,
Cisco, Sun, Hewlett-Packard, EMC and others. In May, MCI announced their
"generation d" initiative to help companies develop and enable their "e-capabilities."
(see our article: "MCIWorldcom:
It's not an age, it's an attitude"). With Lucent, AT&T and MCI offering
infrastructure initiatives CyberCarriers have more choices in this evolving
market.
User
Recommendations
As stated in our previous articles, these offerings are attractive. Each
carrier offers a unique mix of partnerships/alliances which include marketing
opportunities, hardware solutions and network architectures. Application
Service Providers (ASP) and Internet Service Providers (ISP) have more
choices.
Understanding
the needs of your organization and the offerings of each program is tantamount.
Most obvious is the need to identify your organization's relative strengths
and utilize one or more of these companies to bolster your service at
its weakest point.
In
an era where "web tone" (much like "dial-tone") reliability is a strict
requirement, these organizations have assembled unique offerings to support
many types of companies. We recommend identifying the specific needs of
your organization, determine how well each infrastructure offering satisfies
your entire solution then use the data to compare and contrast. While
one company may best fit your solution they may only satisfy a percentage
of your overall needs. Negotiate wisely.