Transcript Real Time Communications: An Enterprise View

Real Time Communications:
An Enterprise View
Rodger M. Will
Ford Motor Company
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Ford in A Nutshell
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Global Automotive Manufacturer founded in 1903 by Henry Ford
340,000 Employees World Wide
110 Manufacturing Plants in 26 Countries
3 Main Product Development Campuses (1 North America, 1 UK,
1 Germany), Smaller Campus in Australia
Product Development Hubs for Jaguar (Coventry), Land Rover
(Gaydon), Volvo (Gothenborg), and Mazda (Hiroshima)
Presence of Employees, Suppliers and Dealers in Nearly All
Time Zones of the Globe
Complex Supply Base Integrally Involved in the Product Creation
Process
Key Concerns: Product Creation Speed, and Quality
Technology Environment
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Ford’s Wide Area Network connects 947 sites in 56
countries.
Class A address on the Public Internet – 1 of 126
class A addresses in the world – 19.x.x.x
1,493 routers globally (224 in the major data centers
and 1,269 at Ford offices and plants).
More than 250,000 active TCP/IP devices on the
Ford network on an average business day.
Extremely complex Supply Chain connectivity
622+ Mbps Public Internet connectivity
Enterprise Vs. Academia
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Many Trade Secrets
Frequent Target of Hackers (Thieves)
Web of Partners that also Work with
Competition
Time Shifting – Geography
Regulation and Accountability Requirements
Wall Street Pressures
Intense Cost Cutting
Real Time Enterprise
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Product creation relies on Team Collaboration across the entire
Extended Enterprise. (Employees, Suppliers, Dealers, Consumers)
Culture of Meetings and Conference Calls (CC 40% of Voice)
Information Security is a Huge Concern
Relatively informal workteams form dynamically, and present many
challenges.
Fast product creation depends on easy to use, reliable, low latency
communications between the Supply Base and Employees
wherever they may be, and connected to a variety of Networks
Supply Base generally has limited Technical Resources
Product Creation is heavily dependent on Unix Workstations and
Supercomputing Resources
Key Enabler – Standards Based, Interoperable Collaboration Tools
The Ideal Collaboration
Platform
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A Secure, Integrated environment that is made up of Instant Messaging,
Teamware (Shared Workspaces), Threaded Discussions, Document
Repositories, Voice and Video Conferencing, and most importantly,
Cross Platform Application Sharing (Windows, Linux, Unix), with all
tools leveraging a common Rich Presence and Group Presence
infrastructure.
User Feedback: Presence and Availability awareness a breakthrough
Federated and Peer To Peer Authentication and Trust Models
The Toolset is componentized to allow integration with other developed
or purchased systems at the Web Service level.
All tools are Securely accessible from any network, NATed or Wireless
Engineered to resist Hackers and SPAM.
Leverages both Generic Computing Devices as well as Purpose Built
devices such as VoIP Phones and Wireless Devices
Based on Open Standards that permit Interoperability between multiple
vendor implementations
Gaps
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Standards are Immature (PBX Level SIP Telephony) and Competing
in Some Spaces
Roadmap to a Single Enterprise Rich Presence Infrastructure Not
Clearly Defined
Individual Tools are Immature - Lack Polish (Softphones, IM Clients)
Tools are Poorly Integrated – User Experience Unacceptable
Cross Platform Application Sharing a Technical Computing Niche –
Not Market Centric
Implementing Secure tools over Public Networks a great Challenge
Most Significantly: Managing the Cultural Implications of the
emerging “Always On” Enterprise, and defining usage Best
Practices. A Usage and Governance Model for Real Time
Communications, if you will.
THANK
YOU
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