New Technologies Increase Productivity and Revenue

In response to intense competition and time-to-market pressures, business executives are directing IT organizations to make one of two tactical decisions: either modernize their network infrastructure or implement strategic applications so the enterprise can meet new business demands. CIOs typically understand the need to adopt one or both of these strategies, but the complexity and inflexibility of the prevailing IT environment are constant challenges.

Better Response

The Cisco Service-Oriented Network Architecture, a services delivery platform, can help enterprises better respond to market pressures. With this architecture, companies can adapt their existing infrastructure into an intelligent network supporting new and evolving IT strategies, including:

• Web services
• Virtualization of applications such as: voice, video and presence.

The network is the ideal location to build in ubiquitous services based on standard interfaces and technologies because it connects with:

• Every part of the IT infrastructure
• Every user in an organization
• Most customer-facing applications and processes

The Cisco Service-Oriented Network Architecture centrally manages distributed applications and services over a common, unified platform. Creating an integrated foundation increases the availability of applications and services that benefit the network itself (such as integrated security or identity services).

High-Level Functions

With intelligence integrated in virtually every device, application, and service, the network can perform high-level monitoring and management functions on most layers of the infrastructure. The Cisco Service-Oriented Network Architecture performs these functions through two key concepts:

• Standardization on a single vendor, which: increases networked asset efficiency, optimizes application performance, simplifies management, and reduces operational costs
• Virtualization, so that: one physical device or resource can act as multiple physical versions of itself and employees can share this device across the network

Other virtualization strategies include:

• Load balancing
• Dynamic allocation
• Distribution
• Centralized policy management

Enterprises can virtualize services for security, identity, and collaboration only in a standardized infrastructure, however.

Increased Business Value
The Cisco Service-Oriented Network Architecture also helps enterprises gain business value across their entire organization by:

• Increasing efficiency while reducing costs: This architecture promotes more effective use of networked resources, improves workforce efficiency, and decreases capital costs and operating expenses
• Increasing resiliency and business agility: This architecture integrates voice, video, and data services across a converged platform that can scale throughout a distributed enterprise environment, for greater network availability and improved employee productivity
• Improving customer relationships: Employees have faster, more accurate, and more available access to corporate data, improving their ability to serve customers, partners, and suppliers.
• Increasing revenue and maximizing business opportunities: A centrally managed and unified architecture across a standardized platform allows employees to make better informed business decisions and bring products to market more quickly.

Using the Cisco Service-Oriented Network Architecture as a framework, enterprises can migrate to an intelligent network at their own pace with incremental infrastructure investments and therefore benefit from the network multiplier effect. Even as the network continues to require new equipment, services, and applications, costs decrease as the efficiency of network and asset use increases. With the resulting savings in operational expenses and maintenance costs, businesses can allocate additional resources for new applications and technology solutions.

Enterprises that seize these opportunities become better prepared for the business challenges that lie ahead.