Some recent technologies to support warriors on the road

Vishnu K. Mahmud, Contributor, Jakarta
vmahmud@yahoo.com

Imagine having to visit six different countries within two weeks. Going from client to client, meeting various people, conducting power lunches with different types of cuisine, all the while keeping in touch with your office to coordinate corporate activities worldwide.

Christian Hentschel doesn't dream about that anymore. He actually does it.

The director of business development for advanced technologies at Cisco Systems Asia Pacific is testimony to how traveling businesspeople can effectively keep in contact with their home offices despite being constantly on the move.

Armed with only a laptop, Hentschel can touch base with his Singapore office thanks to Internet Protocol (IP) technology. Once connected to the Internet, at his hotel or overseas office, he can immediately log on to his office network thanks to a VPN (Virtual Private Network) client which creates a secure communications tunnel within the chaos of the World Wide Web.

From there, he can send and answer e-mails as well as share files just as if he were physically at the office. With advances in Voice over IP (VoIP) technology, Hentschel can also pick up voice mail from his Singapore desk.

But is it secure?

"Security is very high on everyone's agenda," says Hentschel. "A few years ago, you could expect a computer 'attack' every eight hours. Now it's eight minutes."

That is only too true. The past few months have seen thousands of computers brought to their knees courtesy of two Internet worms. Beyond that, there are still the daily dosages of viruses that continue to wreak havoc on networks, forcing businesses to go offline, cutting them off from the digital arena.

Cisco Systems is known for its network switches that help power the Internet. But it also has an abundance of products and services that help companies secure their networks.

Although it already sells firewalls, intrusion detection systems (IDS) and VPN solutions, Hentschel says that Cisco offers end-to-end infrastructure services for business and companies to ensure the safety of their networks.

"We can simulate worm attacks to see if the design of the network is efficient. And our IDS software can also help IT administrators to understand the behavior of users and inquiries of (Internet) hosts, in order to identify if something has the potential to hurt the network or not."

Threats don't only come from external sources, but also from internal divisions. With IDS, businesses can, for example, quickly take note if a certain computer is using a lot of bandwidth to send files, or if an external "authorized" user is snooping around the network.

Thanks to the VPN connection and the integration of the phone system at Cisco with VoIP, Hentschel can even answer calls addressed to his Singapore number anywhere around the world, armed with a Bluetooth headset connected to his notebook.

"The system is set up to detect whenever I am on the network. It can then connect the voice mail and phone lines via my computer. Voice is just another application, nothing more," Hentschel said enthusiastically.

VoIP is said to be an efficient telecommunications medium, allowing companies to connect far-flung offices via the Internet, bypassing costly telecom charges. The regulations for public use of VoIP in Indonesia are rather murky but corporations are allowed to use it internally.

With the proliferation of WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) "hot spots" around Asia, network connections to the office are getting easier.

And everything is slowly converging. Businesses can set up their wireless networks, secured with VPN and firewalls, all the while keeping in contact with their road warriors via next generation IP telephony within public hot spots.

Considering all this technology, what else can we expect in the future?

"The biggest impact comes from the entertainment and the consumer market, which demand these facilities be made available on devices to make it easier for customers to use wherever they are," says Hentschel.

Some PDAs and practically all new notebook computers now support the 802.11 wireless protocols, allowing them to connect to the Internet via WiFi. In addition, future new consumer gadgets are expected to be WiFi ready.

Budding entrepreneurs could perhaps offer Internet access via a city-wide WiFi hot spot, while others sell sports or entertainment channels via this infrastructure, secured with a subscription password and VPN technology.

But for the moment, the technology to ensure that businesspeople can continuously keep in touch with their offices wherever they are continues to evolve, allowing companies to be more flexible and efficient in how they conduct business.

Those who fail to keep up with the IT curve may lose out to their competitors.