12 July 2019
Why outsource elements of your enterprise technology?
It’s a question that many organisations and network managers specifically are continuously grappling with.
The drivers that business leaders rightly cite include the need to draw on expertise and experience that is unavailable in-house, the desire to streamline management and therefore reduce costs and complexity, and the wish to free up internal resource to focus on strategy and innovation.
Nevertheless, it is important to remember that outsourcing elements of a technology infrastructure does not automatically absolve an organisation from responsibility for managing that infrastructure. Consider communications technology.
When an organisation has outsourced elements of communications infrastructure – or even the entire infrastructure – it still remains the ultimate port of call for customers, partners or other key stakeholders if something goes wrong – and that means that they need to retain some element of accountability.
Preparing for all occasions We’re already familiar with this concept when it comes to other aspects of infrastructure in the UK.
Organisations such as hospitals, for example, have long had emergency backup power generators in place, so that if a massive failure should hit their mains electricity supplier, they can still ensure the delivery of enough power to manage their lifesaving equipment and processes.
This isn’t about a refusal to trust the mains suppliers – it is about having a sensible insurance policy in place should the worst happen.
Hospitals rightly recognise that their electricity supply is a truly mission-critical part of their infrastructure – after all, a power cut affecting a ventilator could genuinely be a matter of life or death.
The same model, then, should apply to other mission-critical aspects of organisations’ technology infrastructure – such as critical communications.
Which are mission-critical?
It is easy to imagine that ‘mission-critical’ only applies in a few select communications contexts, such as public safety and emergency services, who run their own private communication systems precisely because they are so dependent on them.
But the reality is that for the vast majority of network managers, a problem with their communications infrastructure could have a dramatic impact on operations, revenue and reputation.
Consider, for example, the UK’s airports which rely on fast, effective lines of communication between safety and security personnel.
If those lines of communication fail, even for a short period, hundreds or thousands of flights could be postponed or cancelled.
The knock-on effect in terms of disruption, lost income and reputational damage could be enormous.
Consider, also, any organisation with a remote or mobile workforce, from industrial and utilities firms sending field service operatives out to carry repairs and maintenance, to transport organisations with fleets of vehicles to manage.
All such organisations need clear lines of communication between those moving workforces and their central management.
Lives might not be at risk if those lines of communication fail – but the life of the business might be.
Public mobile operators’ role
Mission-critical communications, then, are more common than you might think.
And so too are cases of organisations outsourcing elements of their communications infrastructures to third parties.
For example, more and more organisations are choosing to use cellular networks to underpin their communications.
The best example of this in the UK is the Emergency Services Network (ESN) project, which will replace the existing Airwave TETRA network used by the emergency services with a 4G network delivered by EE.
As other commercial rollouts of cellular networks gather pace and we enter the LTE era, there are powerful motivations for network managers to use LTE for their core communications, even if this isn’t a specially designed network, as is the case with ESN, and instead simply relies on public cellular networks.
Such networks promise faster speeds, lower latency and greater data capacity than ever before – perfect for data-rich applications and rapid exchange of information.
These benefits are undoubtedly real and should be embraced by organisations across multiple sectors – but they come with a caveat.
Should the mobile cellular provider in question suffer an outage or service failure or be required to switch off the network in an emergency situation such as a terrorist incident then that downtime will be passed on to organisations relying on said network for their communications.
And if those communications are truly mission-critical, then the consequences could be severe.
Think of the airport example outlined above, where the airline has used an LTE network from a public mobile provider to underpin the communications between security staff.
Airlines cannot simply blame its communications provider in the case of that provider experiencing a service outage – it has to handle a massive fallout.
Managing the risk
This is why network managers for critical communications system always need to retain an element of private network ownership, even if outsourced providers are used for the core infrastructure.
Day-to-day responsibility for critical communications can be outsourced to great effect, generating all of the benefits outlined at the beginning of this article– but ultimate accountability has to remain in-house.
In practice, this means a hybrid approach to mission-critical communications networks, where next-generation LTE networks are integrated with in-house technology.