Introduction

Intelligent Information Network

The Intelligent Information Network (IIN) offers companies an understanding of how the
role of the network is evolving to meet business needs. The IIN vision is essentially the
concept of network simplification through the alignment of technology and business
priorities. Beyond evolution, the role of the network is expanding as more and more services
become available network offerings. Cisco has established four technological roadmaps
specific to the individual business needs of its customers. Each of the four roadmaps defines
the IIN vision for a particular market segment or business type. These architectures are meant
to show businesses how to look forward three to five years in planning network expansion.
These four technological roadmaps are as follows:
■ Service-Oriented Network Architecture (SONA)
■ Service Provider Architecture (IP Next-Generation-Networks or IP-NGN)
■ Commercial Architecture
■ Consumer Architecture
Together these comprise the foundation of the IIN. The goal of the IIN is to build intelligence
across multiple protocols and infrastructure layers to allow the network to be more aware of
the needs of its users and respond efficiently to those needs by allocating needed resources
and/or applications regardless of the nature of the connected device. The network aligns itself
with the business priorities of an organization through services, availability, adaptivity, and
resilience. The Cisco vision of the IIN composition includes these features:
■ Network resource and information asset integration into the network—Includes video,
voice, and data integration into the network infrastructure
■ Cross-platform/cross-product intelligence spanning all layers of infrastructure—
Network-wide extension of that intelligence to permit end-to-end connectivity and a common
user experience regardless of access device or method
■ A network that actively participates in the delivery of services and applications—
Proactive allocation of network resources as needs demand for a particular application,
service, or user
IIN is beyond the traditional concept of basic network connectivity, bandwidth allocation,
and access to applications. A true IIN offers end-to-end functionality that adaptively shapes
the user experience on-the-fly and promotes true business transparency and agility.
The evolutionary approach of the IIN technology model consists of the following three
essential phases. In each phase, the opportunity exists to further augment the applications and
services available to meet the business need.
■ Integrated transport phase—The network is a common pathway for all traffic types. Each
traffic type is classified according to the identified business priorities and/or the nature and
sensitivity of the traffic to latency, jitter, and other assorted network conditions. This permits
the network architect to present a modular functionality that can be customized by
organizations or individual departments according to their individual needs. Network
convergence also lays the foundation for a new class of IP-enabled applications delivered
through Cisco IP Communications solutions.
■ Integrated services phase—With full network convergence, IT resources can be pooled and
personnel can be cross-trained and utilized more efficiently. This remedies the age-old issue
of having only one "go-to" person in IT. Each IT staff member becomes a "go-to" person.
Diverse resources required by individual organizations and personnel can be virtualized and
moved into the network so that a new degree of flexibility can become reality. This flexibility
comes into reality by using the network as the platform—a single resource capable of
providing common services to all applications. Rather than having hundreds or thousands of
mission-specific servers, the network becomes the platform. The servers are moved into the
network as virtual services, thereby providing immense savings in hardware, power
consumption, and real estate usage in the data center. Business continuity is also enhanced
because shared resources across the IIN provide services in the event of a local systems
failure.
■ Integrated applications phase—The third phase of the IIN evolution is known as
Application-Oriented Networking (AON). This is where the plans come to fruition. The
network reaches an "application-aware" state that allows it to optimize application
performance and more efficiently deliver networked applications to the end-user community.
Additional capabilities, such as content caching, load balancing, and application-level
security, allow the infrastructure to add intelligence through simplification of the overall
network infrastructure.
Of particular interest in this book is the technical roadmap focused on enterprise networks
known as SONA. SONA is the framework that provides the evolutionary path for an
enterprise network to become an IIN. While the remaining three architectures are critical for
their respective market segments, they are beyond the scope of this book. They are
mentioned here to illustrate that concepts similar to those discussed here are laid out for
service provider (SP), small/medium business (SMB), and small office/home office (SOHO)
networks.
SONA
The path of evolution for business services and applications is emerging into a more
efficient, flexible, and dynamic model. This is the IIN. The network is the platform.
Individual resources can be allocated dynamically, as needed by resource-hungry
applications or services. Resources such as CPU, memory, and storage can be added and/or
removed on-the-fly and without impact on other processes. Even better, the cost of such a
model is reduced through shared resource utilization. No longer are dedicated resources
needed for mission-specific applications. Instead, the network maintains resource pools that
provide dynamic allocation of resources on demand.
For enterprise networks, SONA provides the architectural framework necessary to build an
IIN. SONA leverages the network to allow interactive services to be added to it. This
provides the additional benefit of allowing loosely connected services and/or applications to
communicate, yet remain independent of each other. This collaborative capability permits
provisioning of a new level of service, allowing an enterprise to offer its user community the
same network experience, including applications, services, and capabilities, regardless of
their location or choice of network endpoint device.
As previously mentioned, the SONA vision is built around the enterprise network. The
architecture itself is further subdivided into layers so that each can be implemented properly
to support the next. SONA is the architectural framework that leads enterprise network
evolutionary processes, allowing a network to reach the IIN state in order to accelerate
applications, business processes, and, most importantly, profitability. Figure 1-1 illustrates
the breakdown of the SONA layers.

Figure 1-1 Cisco SONA

SONA makes extensive use of Cisco product lines and business partners to accomplish its
goal of providing secure, flexible, adaptive, and converged network infrastructures. To aid
the comprehension and to promote understanding of individual technology roles in the
architecture, a layered model was created. Unlike the OSI Model, the SONA layered model
consists only of three layers. As shown in Figure 1-1, these are as follows (from the bottom
up):
 ■ Networked Infrastructure Layer
■ Interactive Services Layer
■ Application Layer
Service integration is a key concept in the overall SONA picture. This allows common
services to be provided from a single point within the infrastructure. Keeping these services
in loosely coupled relationships with other services (for example, web services, XML, and so
on) allows a single service or resource to be shared among multiple applications. This
simplifies support, reduces maintenance costs, and potentially provides licensing savings on
some applications.
Each layer has its form and function in the construction of an IIN. The sections that follow
provide a brief discussion of that form and function at each layer.
The Service-Oriented Network Architecture (SONA) is one of the central models of Cisco
network design and management. The SONA network architecture contains three basic
layers:

 Network infrastructure layer: Contains the enterprise network architecture, which includes
switches, routers, communication links, and so on. This layer has redundancy built into it and
contains network layer security to enforce business policies as needed.
 Integrated service layer: Virtualizes services (or unties them from specific pieces of
hardware) to allow them to be provided over a dispersed or centralized network environment.
The following services are provided at this layer:
o Identity: Authentication services for user or device credentials, which can play a role for
network or application access.
o Mobility: Allowing access to network resources from any location. This may rely on wireless
technologies or a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
o Storage: Storage of important network data and replication or duplication of that data, over
the network, to remote locations for disaster recovery.
o Computing or processing: Servers represent the main element of this component, while
virtual servers allow for scaling and betting utilization of server processing power.
o Security: Security for your business is crucial, and the security level makes use of security
features at the network level, such as intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS and
IPS).
o Voice and collaboration: Voice services now run over the main corporate data network, and
have allowed for more options for users to communicate. These communication methods
include the traditional telephone, but also include instant messaging and collaboration
through websites, such as Microsoft’s SharePoint.
 Application layer: Carries the responsibility for providing the applications that users rely
on. These applications include the following product areas:
o Customer relationship management (CRM): Communication with clients, as well as all of
their pertinent data, can be found in CRM applications.
o Enterprise resource planning (ERP): Business data for your organization is found in your
ERP system. This is everything that would have been in a traditional accounting system, plus
 information on business processes and business logic, thereby allowing you to derive more
planning and statistical information from the accounting system.
o Procurement: Purchasing can sometimes be tracked as part of the overall corporate ERP
system, or can be a standalone system to manage purchasing from the request for a quote
through to the deployment of the purchased product to the end user.
o Supply chain management (SCM): Procurement systems can purchase items, but SCM
systems tell procurement what parts need to be purchased and when. In manufacturing and
service organizations, good SCM systems will provide you with “just in time” inventory
items right before you need those items.
o Instant messaging (IM): Instant messaging has come into businesses who now expect to be
able to instantly communicate within their network infrastructure. This assists in users on
your network in their collaboration goals.
o Unified messaging (UM): Unified messaging talks all of the forms in which users can
communicate and ties them together, allowing for unique situations, such as where an e-mail
can be relayed to office voicemail, and then forwarded to a cell phone as a text message.
Unified messaging takes control and integrates all communication and messaging formats
within an organization, either partially or completely.

Assignment:

1. List the four technological roadmaps designed by Cisco.

2. Expand & Explain IIN by discussing its importance.
3. How Cisco achieve IIN?
4. Expand SONA & diagrammatically explain its components.
5. Discuss Integrated Service layer of SONA briefly.
6. Explain Application layer & its components in detail with respect tp SONA.