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A new planning primer July 10, 2000 By David Willis 
Dig out your box of old networking textbooks. Dust off the weighty tomes on traffic engineering, settle into a comfy chair by the fireplace and...burn 'em. For all the academic emphasis on planning rigor, network engineering is now more art than science--and at that, more Pollock than Escher, more intuition than precision. It might be different if you had perfect information about applications, user locations and usage patterns. Maybe then you could build out networks the "right" way. But in the real world, networkers never have adequate information about the applications they support. Apps are hurled over the wall for the network and operations staff to get running on short notice. No wonder we overprovision our capacity and manage bandwidth only where necessary. I'm not saying infrastructure planning is a foolish effort, but the nature of planning must change. Leading network architects are emphasizing flexibility over management and control. Instead of naively attempting to stem the tide of new applications, you should plan for adaptability in the infrastructure. Start by differentiating the strategic and reusable architectures, technologies and products from those that are tactical and one-off. By emphasizing infrastructure reuse, planners have discovered that problems usually cluster around consistent application infrastructure patterns--letting new initiatives be serviced in well-known ways. Organizational upheaval may be necessary to make the shift from building networks fast to building them right. In fact, the best time to restructure planning efforts may be after a reorganization or when the business itself is fundamentally changing. Nothing changes a business like a merger or acquisition. Most mergers are akin to two people becoming Siamese twins: "Surely four hands and feet are better than two! And we can survive with just one head!" What follows is a gruesome battlefield operation involving rusty saw blades and lots of blood. Early details of these major changes are often sketchy, and infrastructure people may be among the last to know. The most adaptive IT organizations have a blueprint for organizational changes--before they happen. Plans must be generic enough to fit any scenario, but comprehensive enough so nothing's forgotten in the incendiary political climate of a corporate coup d'etat. We can break the merger blueprint into four stages: a beachhead, an information-gathering stage, an interim integration stage and, finally, full integration. During the first post-merger week (the beachhead stage), the network integration team must establish the basic survival needs of the organization: physical connectivity between key locations, integration of essential applications, such as e-mail, and the early deployment of support staff to major facilities. In the information-gathering stage, focus on a detailed inventory of each organization's assets, in physical equipment and software, contracts and personnel. Technology standards, if they exist, should be collected (resolving standards conflicts should occur in a later phase). Also, collect data about ongoing and future infrastructure projects. During the interim integration stage, resolve simple problems and attack big problems that can't be ignored. Directory integration, voice equipment consolidation, remote-site connectivity and gluing address spaces together through NAT fall under the "easy" category. Interim staffing and organization, strategic planning and contract benchmarking are more difficult but essential in this stage. In the final phase of integration, match existing architectures to fundamental infrastructure patterns. Every component must be rationalized, with attention to long-term reuse--of the voice and data platforms, a common address space, a consolidated directory and common telecommunications contracts. This is as close to a clean slate as most organizations will ever get--making it the perfect time to change the way infrastructure is built. Send your comments on this column to David Willis at dwillis@nwc.com.
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