Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
• L
oosely coupled systems
: greater flexibility, increased implementation agility,
improved process efficiency, and a higher degree of automation.
• S
tandards-based end-to-end security
: greater interoperability; controlled expo-
sure of business functions to business partners; managing (and hiding) infra-
structure complexity; guaranteed compliance with higher-level enterprise poli-
cies including the implementation of
regulatory requirements
and ability to
prove compliance
with these.
VHE customers can select productised components from a menu of options, each
with its own service level (speed, capacity and/or availability) and pricing model.
Under the VHE, customers' demands are becoming more service-based and Service
Level Agreements and Guarantees (SLAs & SLGs), as well as Identity, Security and
Access policies, are more focused on business requirements. Instead of defining
network or application availability related guarantees, customers will require a
range of service level performance options based upon end user requirements and
business metrics.
12.3.3 Business Benefits in Other Market Sectors
Essentially, the VHE product is a network-centric Service Oriented Infrastructure
to be used by enterprise networks. Enterprise network scenarios range from defence
coalitions, to multi-site finance institutions, multi-party logistics support, and aggre-
gation of entertainment and media services. The VHE allows enterprises to expose
interfaces to internally-hosted services in such a way that they can be combined
easily and securely with services contributed by other business partners on demand.
The three main markets in priority are:
• Defence coalitions (e.g. coalitions between NATO members)
• Multi-provider VAS integration for entertainment and gaming (such as BT and
Sony's Go! Messenger offering (BT 2009a))
• Large-scale corporations with a multi-site IT infrastructure including those
arising from a series of mergers and acquisitions
One motive for emphasising large corporations and coalitions as early adopters
stems from the up-take of an SOA strategy in such organisations and the willing-
ness of some of these customers to make a substantial investment on innovation in
order to solve challenges in the Managed (IT) Infrastructure Services area. Once an
operational infrastructure is established, we expect it will also be particularly valu-
able for smaller companies who want to earn money out of innovative web services.
In the future, we envisage the enterprise networks using the VHE platform being
clusters of SMEs within a given market sector. However, in the short term, the VHE
offering is being driven by the needs and investment of large corporate customers
and government departments (especially defence).
