Certification - January 2009 - (Page 25)

spreadsheet could connect the manager and the individual. No need to look up phone numbers or e-mail addresses or try a number of different devices or locations. This same capability could be used to interface with customers, partners, suppliers and even co-workers. Take it a step further and consider an application designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health care organizations. This solution tracks the whereabouts of medical staff, sorted by skill and specialty, so the network can respond to emergencies by automatically finding, linking and connecting — via conference bridge or video, for example — the most qualified medical staff who are closest to the patient’s location. In this sort of medical setting, minutes matter, and productivity and efficiency are measured not in dollars but in lives saved. Other potential applications include: • A “LiveContact” prototype that enables users to link their existing phones with any Web browser to create an integrated experience employing voice, video, IM, application sharing and co-browsing. • A “LoneWorker” solution that enables social workers in potentially hostile environments to keep in constant contact with their supervisors, increasing their safety and, if needed, the response time of emergency vehicles. • A “Collaboration” solution that uses spatial audio to allow users on a conference call to track each person’s audio stream, understand who is talking and engage in private sidebar conversations. The possibilities are seemingly endless when you can combine the capabilities of the network — location, presence, identity — and telecom systems — skills-based routing, personal agents, skills profiles, conferencing, dialing plans, multimodal messaging — with the new interfaces of social networking, soft clients, unified communications and any other application. Increasingly, communications companies such as Nortel are joining forces with IT companies such as IBM and Microsoft to bridge their historical divide. Together, telecom and IT companies are leveraging new technologies — including service-oriented architectures (SOAs), software frameworks and Web services — to bring the two worlds together. The benefits truly will be transformative, and IT professionals will need to be ready to deliver and support the new converged environment. However, convergence of real-time applications with data networking is new ground for many people, and there likely will be a skills gap. For this reason, Nortel Press recently released a new title, Real-Time Networking, which was created by a group of Nortel subject matter experts. Real-Time Networking is a self-study guide for engineers, designers and other professionals. The topics covered — quality of service; network planning; and building resilient topologies, applications and networks — will be foundational to delivering revolutionary user experiences, virtually all of which are going to require real-time networking capabilities. The guide outlines the technological underpinnings of real-time networking to help IT professionals transfer the philosophy and capabilities that telecom brings around resiliency, reliability, quality and availability to communications-enabled applications. Ultimately, the book helps individuals prepare for the Nortel Certified Technology Specialist (NCTS) – Real-Time Networking exam (920-108). If you think about the challenges facing us, you will find almost every new project involves a multidisciplinary convergence of technologies from different domains: wireline and wireless, enterprise and carrier, applications and infrastructure, and everything in between. In almost every case, there is an interactivity component to the converged system that brings with it requirements for real-time responsiveness from the network. Holding technology credentials demonstrates your grasp of the future of networking and convergence. Now is the time to add convergence knowledge and experience to your skill set. 8 Henrik Oberg is the leader of the Nortel Technology Solutions Academy Program and works actively with Nortel Press. He is located in Stockholm, Sweden, and can be reached at editor@certmag.com. The Power of Convergence Connecting the worlds of telecom and IT at first might sound like an easy task. It isn’t. At the heart of this challenge is the nature of enterprise IT’s evolution. A company’s application capabilities — including its business and workflow processes — have been introduced and developed independently from the company’s telecom network, largely due to circumstance. The technological capabilities to seamlessly bring these two domains together did not exist until now. January 2009 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE 2

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Certification - January 2009

Certification - January 2009 Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream Virtual Village Tech Careers Dear Techie Academic Connection Troubleshooting What We Like Look Ahead The New Convergence Formula Cybersecurity: Are You Safe? Interface Lead Applications Developer: The IT Ambassador Inside Certification Ad Index Endtag

Certification - January 2009

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