Harnessing the power of the infrastructure

May 10, 2001 —

AS IT INFRASTRUCTURE has risen to new prominence in the age of the Internet, so too has the role of the Chief Technology Officer at network consulting companies. In his role as CTO of Callisma, George Orlov helps define strategy for customers who are grappling with issues of bandwidth, security, directories, and convergence. In an interview with InfoWorld Editor in Chief Michael Vizard, Orlov discusses these four networking trends and the impact they will have on the enterprise.

InfoWorld: What's the biggest trend in the networking segment of the industry?

Orlov: Everyone is moving to optical. It's a disruptive technology that allows you to provide pure, raw data bit-rates for 1/100th the price of your current T1, T3, DS3, or OC3 line. If you invest in this new technology, you are able to substantially undercut the competition. If you're an existing customer or existing service provider [and] you don't enable your network to provide these vastly larger data transport rates at a vastly lower cost, you will get decimated.

InfoWorld: How will this affect customers, as opposed to service providers, at the enterprise level?

George Orlov -- Callisma

Age: 43

Title: CTO

Biggest success: Building high-performance IT management teams that are passionate to build great systems

Key challenges: Focusing businesses on what should be done with technology, rather than what can be done.

Favorite escapes: Bicycling; summering at his cottage in Chautauqua, N.Y.

Orlov: Most enterprises don't have private networks, although it's getting to the point where if they're in a campus environment it's cheaper to lay their own fiber than to continue to buy point-to-points from the existing service providers.

InfoWorld: How well are most people dealing with security and networking issues?

Orlov: No one's shop is as secure as they want it to be, nor is security as far up on their radar screen as it needs to be. It's like earthquake insurance or earthquake preparedness. You never really think about [being insured or prepared] until the earthquake happens, and then everyone is scrambling around saying, 'Why didn't we prepare?'

InfoWorld: Do most customers adopt a hide-in-plain-sight security strategy and then hope for the best?

Orlov: No one overtly says, 'We're going to hide in plain sight.' But security is much more complex than buying a firewall and plugging it in. Many people say, 'I've got a firewall, now I'm safe.' Well, 75 percent or so of breaches come from insiders, and a firewall doesn't help you [in those instances] at all. It's layers of policy, process, and other things -- long before you buy the hardware or the intrusion-detection systems or the managed services -- that are important.

InfoWorld: Is the real threat the enemy within?

Orlov: There are people who get upset for whatever reason and take advantage of data resources, and they do an immense amount of damage. Most of that damage is done inside, and much of it is malicious in nature.

InfoWorld: Why is security so complex?

Orlov: With complex rule sets, you need to understand in detail the applications and the network layer. It's incredibly complex because there's not just an IP port. It's about which ports, which applications use which ports, and which other ports [are] across your different security zones within your organization. You want to keep those segmented, because if you hack into one, you get all of them. The tools for [managing] this are arcane and complex.

InfoWorld: Why not simply outsource this function?

Orlov: I think that for some segment of companies outsourcing your security and bandwidth management makes sense. There will always [be] companies whose technology and capability are both sources of their strength and of their competitive advantage. They need to be nimbble with that technology so that they can get in the contractual arrangement.

InfoWorld: How important are directories?

Orlov: I think the big challenge for the adoption of Active Directory on Windows 2000 is that most people who have existing NT 4.0 applications are going to find that Windows 2000 is not an enhancement of NT 4.0. It is totally different. The security model is different, and the migration from NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 from the server side is extremely complex and challenging. I think people will go to Windows 2000, and I think they will go to Active Directory. The time frame when you will see that uptake will be longer than we had hoped.

InfoWorld: Why is this the case?

Orlov: Microsoft has always designed their directory systems and their operating systems for enterprises that aren't as big as many [of the larger] enterprises out there. They still don't sell and target their solutions to the really big enterprises. Unless your network is designed incredibly well and you understand that Active Directory sits on top and is fully integrated with DNS, I don't believe that the toolsets, ... planning, or design expertise that Microsoft gives you in their white papers fully prepares you for what you're really going to find. It's a complete redesign.

InfoWorld: What's your take on Novell?

Orlov: It is great technology [and] works really well, but [it has] insignificant market share.

InfoWorld: Are any other major trends in play?

Orlov: There's a big drive for convergence. What you've seen over the past two years is the stalling of old-style telephony systems in anticipation of things to come. There will be a time in the not too distant future when you no longer have two sets of wiring plans and two sets of provision circuits. There's no IT shop that doesn't have two departments -- voice and data -- but those people don't know how to talk to each other.

InfoWorld: What's the holdup?

Orlov: The hardest thing is the datacom guys think they're going to do convergence with the telecom guys. But in order to really do convergence well, the datacom guys have to fully understand what SS7 switches [for managing telephone calls] do. Meanwhile, the telecom guys don't want to learn the datacom side because they're a little older and they've become entrenched. They don't necessarily think that they need to learn.

InfoWorld: So competition among the telephone companies isn't going to accelerate this process?

Orlov: Many of the RBOCs [regional Bell operating companies] roll out DSL only because they see competition from the CLECs [competitive local exchange carriers]. But by the way, any CLEC that rolls it out still has to pay the RBOC, so it's not that much competition. Most of those DSL CLECs are losing money and the RBOCs are still making money hand over fist. This is because CLECs haven't been able to provide anything but data services over [DSL]. If they could provide voice and video and a bunch of other things over the DSL stream, they would start making some money off of it. The competition on data is going to get just incredible eventually, but it still costs a ton of money to dig a hole down the street and lay fiber up to your building.

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