Without doubt some of the most interesting, not to say complex, developments are going on in the area of networking. More and more computer power is shifting to the desktop and on into our hands. But to make the most of all this distributed power you need fast, flexible, clever networks. Moreover, you need them to tie in with exactly what your business wants to do.

Speed, flexibility and intelligence is being built into networks at a rapid pace and in a bewildering number of ways. There are many different routes open to you. Take the right one and your business will enjoy all the competitive advantages that come from being able to exchange information and capture knowledge - fast. Advantages such as more streamlined processes; shorter times to market; new ways of working more productively; a leaner, fitter organisation; a better understanding of customer requirements and how to meet them. Take a wrong turning, and you're headed for disappointment, or worse.

At HP, we plan, implement, operate and manage complex networks day in, day out. Drawing on this first hand experience, we have put together some guidelines for the networking revolution. We hope you find them illuminating.

"We have seen computers move out of giant air-conditioned rooms into closets, then onto desktops, and now into our laps and pockets. But this is not the end. Early in the next millennium your right and left cuff links or earrings may communicate with each other by low-orbiting satellites and have more computing power than your present PC. Your telephone won't ring indiscriminately; it will receive, sort and perhaps respond to your incoming calls like a well-trained English butler."

If there's one overriding preoccupation in the world of networking it is the need for speed. Today's businesses are increasingly flatter, looser, more dispersed organisations but all too often the distributed networks that mirror and serve them fail to match up. Businesses want to be able to use and exchange richer, more interesting forms of information: video, 3D images and the like. Yet data hungry applications such as videoconferencing eat up bandwidth. The power is on our desktops; the bottlenecks lurk between.

Speed isn't everything

More bandwidth is certainly on the way but speed should not be pursued for speed's sake alone. You can make networks faster. At a price. Can you afford it? More importantly, do you need it? The best approach is to put potential multimegabits per second to one side and start by taking a long hard look at what your business needs to do. If you have high speed workgroups they'll need high speed technology. If, on the other hand, parts of your organisation only shift relatively small amounts of data, slower technology will more than suffice.

The importance of structure

You might think cabling is only bits of wire, and not very expensive bits at that.

But the cabling infrastructure is probably the single most important part of your whole network. It is certainly the most difficult and disruptive to change - if you're ripping up floors it's not going to be easy for you to get down to business.

Unless you get the cabling infrastructure right you are in danger of investing a considerable amount of money in the proverbial castle in the sand. But if you do get it right you will have solid foundations upon which to build whatever network your business needs - and to keep on changing it as your business evolves.

Upfront investment; long term pay-off

At Amen Corner, HP was one of the first businesses in the UK to plan, implement operate and manage a structured cabling solution. The upfront investment has paid considerable dividends. The business has moved from proprietary systems to a mixed client/server environment; network speeds have increased from 10Mb/s to 100Mb/s. The cabling has stayed the same.

As well as coping with dramatic changes in technology the infrastructure has made it very cheap and easy to move people around within the organisation. At Amen Corner, it costs an average of between £200 and £350 compared with the industry average of £656.

Because of its obvious advantages, the structured cabling approach is now accepted as the smartest way to lay network foundations. But what should sit on top of the structure? The short answer is network technology, applications and services that boost your business performance. To give you a more detailed reply, in the following pages we explore some of the burning issues surrounding networking.

Sound advice

• Let the business drive your network.
• Invest in getting the structure right.
• Be selective and pragmatic.

There are a number of existing technologies to consider...

Ethernet

Ethernet dates back to the 60s, to the days when computers had 16K memory, a database was a big box of cards, and 1Mb/s was very fast indeed. Does Ethernet still have a role to play in today's multimegabit world, let alone tomorrow's information superhighway? The answer is yes, but...

Switched Ethernet, fast Ethernet (100Base-T), switched fast Ethernet - there are a number of ways Ethernet is being pushed beyond the current 10Mb/s standard. A lot of companies are making the transition in stages, perhaps connecting their servers to 100Mb/s Ethernet switches surrounded by clusters of clients using the standard 10Mb/s. But the drawback of all these variations is the inherent drawback of Ethernet technology: it is collision based and hence prone to network bottlenecks.

Token Ring

Not so widely deployed as Ethernet but nevertheless with a fair chunk of the market and a loyal customer base, Token Ring technology shows every sign of staying on the networking scene. As with Ethernet, there now are a number of switching products for Token Ring that increase its speed beyond the two standard options: 4Mb/s and 16Mb/s.

100VG AnyLAN

Invented by HP at its Bristol laboratories, 100VG AnyLAN is compatible with Ethernet and other LAN technologies yet it has a number of qualities that make it stand out. First, it is not collision based; it uses a demand priority protocol which allows for much better data traffic control. Second, it can deliver 100Mb/s over category 3 (voice grade) cable. And third, it is scalable - 100Mb/s is the current standard but HP is working on increasing this to more than 500Mb/s and of course switching further boosts the speed.

Fast, cost-effective and clever, 100VG AnyLAN is perhaps the best example of how existing LAN technologies are being pushed as far as they can go. To put this in an everyday context, take a client/server music video application. When you run it over standard Ethernet, this happens: with one client, it's OK; with two, it's jerky; with three, forget it. Run the same application over 100VG AnyLAN and with 25 clients it's still perfect.

ATM to the desk?

Alongside existing LAN technologies is ATM, the so called universal transport mechanism for voice, data and images - the tarmac for the information highway. Yet just how much ATM tarmac will be laid, and where, is still unclear. There are standards, but only in draft form. There is speed, but with significant costs attached. And there is LAN capability, but only through LAN emulation.

The probability is that ATM will provide the backbone with LAN technologies hanging off it. It might run through a building but will rarely pop up on the desktop.

Inter LAN

It's vital to take the right LAN planning, implementation, operation and management decisions. But an equally pressing issue is how best to join these LAN islands together into a fast and effective enterprise wide network. After all, there's little point in colleagues in the same building holding a video conference, but when these people are separated by thousands of miles it's a whole different ball game.

There are a number of positive factors helping to realise what The Economist has called the death of distance. As well as technological developments such as ATM, downward pressure is being exerted on the cost of wide area communications. With cable companies competing against traditional telecommunications providers and new specialist LAN interconnection companies emerging, tying together LANs now involves less money and more choice.

Internet

Alongside private wide area networks sits the public Internet and its star attraction the World Wide Web. The explosion of the Net has made a lot of businesses aware that they can get a lot of business value out of networking outside their organisations. But just how reliable, secure and fast is it?

Built to withstand a nuclear attack, Net technology is undoubtedly robust. To build on its inherent technical strengths, work is being done to increase security and reliability. The real problem with the net is not its technology, it is its popularity. With current conservative estimates of Net users running at more than 30 million people, sheer weight of traffic creates congestion. Hence, for most businesses the Net will continue to be a valuable part but by no means the whole of their networking solution.

Intranet

While the Internet has grabbed headlines, it's the Intranet that has turned the heads of many businesses. Intranets take Internet technology and apply it to private enterprise wide networks. Via a company wide web people can log onto sites, transfer files and download information in the same way that they would on the World Wide Web. The difference is an instant response rather than the all too familiar delays experienced on the Net.

Sound advice:

• Existing technologies are extending their functionality and speed. So think very carefully before moving over to new technologies.
• Evolution generally works better than revolution.
• Explore all the possible LAN interconnection avenues.
• Be selective in how you use the Internet.
• Consider how best to apply Internet technology to your private network.

Fibre to the desk

Technically, fibre is the most effective way to deliver data at very high speeds to the desk and in some specialist areas it is certainly appropriate. But it is also costly. The costs of the fibre itself are coming down; the termination costs, on the other hand, are always going to be comparatively high - precision alignment of light signals is not the same as terminating a piece of wire. Typically, it costs £50 to £100 to terminate fibre, whereas with UTP it's a matter of pence. The other area of additional cost with fibre is that you have to convert from light signals to electrical signals.

Between, rather than in, buildings

Where fibre often comes into its own is in making the connections between buildings rather than within them. As speeds of 100Mb/s to the desktop are becoming more common, the pressure on the backbone inevitably builds up. The relationship isn't a straight multiple - a lot of data traffic remains within four walls - but nevertheless speeds of a Gigabit or more between buildings will soon be called for. It's a challenging target, given that multi-mode fibre is currently limited to 100Mb/s over 2km.

As Steve Wright, Manager, HP Network Technology, says: "There is always a trade-off between cost, complexity and pragmatism. We're looking for a pragmatic solution that will allow us to increase the speed." Hence HP is working hard on multi-mode fibre systems in order to squeeze more performance out of them. HP is also working on Gigabits of data throughput on fibre in the laboratory environment. These are just a couple of examples of how HP is building up its knowledge of existing solutions to extend the use and value of what businesses already have.

Just how cordless will it be?

The concept of the cordless office is a highly attractive one: who wouldn't appreciate being able to move freely within a building while still staying in contact and exchanging information? Cordless phone systems are now fairly well established. But cutting the cord on more bandwidth hungry data communications is not so easy.

No matter which cordless technology you use, whether radio or infrared, there is a trade-off between bandwidth and range. As a result, there are limits to how much and how far data can be carried without wires. HP is working to push these limits as far as they can go. But, as Rod Eggleton, HP Network Integration Services, points out: "The chances are that the cordless office of the future will still be extremely corded."

The virtual plug

Structured cabling will remain as the foundation. What will disappear is the need to permanently attach your PC and peripherals to a socket via a wire. In its place, a virtual wireless plug will connect you from wherever you are to the grid of wires beneath your feet, around the walls and in the ceiling void.

Structured cabling has already made it a lot easier and cheaper to move people from location to location - from data socket to data socket. By doing away with the data sockets but keeping the wires under the floors, you can give people complete flexibility to move throughout the building and stay on-line.

Information devices of the future, today...OmniGo 700LX

Moving around and staying on-line is fine, so long as you're not weighed down by what you take with you. Thankfully, the trend is for ever smaller, more powerful and versatile computing. As an example, the latest version of Omnigo, HP's palmtop PC can neatly accommodate a Nokia GSM phone - data and voice communications in the palm of your hand.

Sound advice:

• Use fibre only when fibre is called for.
• Don't throw out all the wires when going wireless.
• Segment your high bandwidth, high availability users.
• Consider convergence technologies and services.

"With this technology we can have organisations where everybody is fully informed and constantly in touch with each other."

• Tom Peters
• Liberation Management

The limits of today's networking technologies are being steadily extended; new technologies are emerging. Interesting times indeed. Yet, whether old or new and no matter how exciting, the technologies are nothing on their own. Their role, as with every other area of IT, is to better serve businesses and people.

To make your network work hard for your business, you first need to know what you want it to do. Only then can you carry out the necessary network planning, implementation, operation and management. To make the most of tomorrow's networks, informed business driven decisions are the order of the day.

If you would like to know more about any of the issues raised in this guide, or to discuss your networking plans, we'd like to help.