Reality IT: Making the Peer-to-Peer Connection

IM4U2

Richard and Melvin spent a good deal of time doing research and developing a pilot-program recommendation that would work for both companies. They also obtained input from online newsgroups and peers at other firms. The two companies shared knowledge on the technology and jointly worked out many implementation issues for the proposed system. After reviewing the plan, John and I agreed on three priorities for the project: management, usability and security. However, our companies each had a different IM policy--Splockets was blocking IM traffic at the firewall, but ACME had decided not to regulate IM until a corporate solution could be put in place.

On the management front, we wanted to ensure that the IM system would not add unnecessary complexity to our networks--or too many administrative tasks for our staffs. We weren't too worried about bandwidth, because the addition of IM, fortunately, would not stretch the network resources at either company.

For both organizations, usability was a key factor. We wanted a simple IM client--emoticons, fancy fonts and colors were not required. And we didn't want our employees to have to remember another user name and password to yet another system.

Both ACME and Splockets wanted security products that would work with our directory services for authentication. Only products that provided encryption were considered. For external access, we'd only allow remote users to run the IM client within our current thin-client remote-access solution. No file transfer would be allowed. We wanted a product that could do logging and auditing for records retention and accountability tracking. And the product had to fit with our existing IT and security policies.Pilot Light

After the plan was approved, we launched an IM pilot that involved individuals in several departments at both companies, as well as our respective IT staffs. ACME and Splockets had their own systems for the pilot. After we looked at the feedback and made some adjustments, John and I gave the OK to move ahead into formal planning for implementation.

Both ACME and Splockets have been running corporate IM in production mode since last year, and both companies consider it successful. We've since collaborated on a few other projects, and have even compared IT planning notes during our annual budget periods.

If you haven't been tapping your peers for help with your IT projects, give it some thought. No matter what you're working on, there's a good chance somebody in another IT group has already done it and would be willing to share some of his or her experiences. And if you can share some of your knowledge as well, a joint project can be technically rewarding. In IT, unlike many other professions, you don't have to go it alone.

Hunter Metatek is an enterprise IT director with 15 years' experience in network engineering and management. The events chronicled in this column are based in fact--only the names are fiction. Write to the author at [email protected].0