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Introduction
Today's businesses are affected by new applications, and these applications are increasingly collaborative, distributed, real-time, media-rich, and bandwidth-intensive.
Companies are looking for innovative ways to make their business more agile to meet customer demand and remain competitive. As the global business world is increasingly connected, companies are relying on their networks more than ever before. Businesses of all sizes are using applications over the network to streamline operational efficiency and communicate more effectively with their customers, partners, and suppliers.
At the same time, corporate structures are flattening. An increasing number of employees are working in remote offices-according to recent survey data, in some industries more than 35 percent of the workforce is located in branch offices.(Ovum, 2007) These remote offices are expected to accelerate business growth and make localized decisions in order to achieve greater efficiencies, enhance productivity, and grow revenue. Companies seek to provide consistent application access and performance, transparently integrating the branch and headquarters across an intelligent network infrastructure, and these companies are reinvesting in their branch offices (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Factors that Affect the Business Branch Office
Historically, adding a new application and functions in the branch office has increased cost and complexity. Multiple devices at the branch to deliver networking functions, security, and application optimization have translated to increased operations and support costs and challenges in ensuring end-to-end compatibility and performance. An integrated services solution, on the other hand, allows branch office employees to take advantage of all applications and technologies regardless of location-in a compact, resilient solution that eases the deployment of converged voice, video, and data services.
The empowered branch is about providing fully integrated security, voice, video, wireless, and data solutions to give branch offices the same capabilities as headquarters. The Cisco® Empowered Branch Services solution enables the flexibility to add new technologies and services to keep the branch on par with the headquarters using the Cisco Integrated Services Router. This integrated solution enables unlimited business innovation and growth, while supporting business continuity and ultimate business efficiency.
Service providers can further enhance these solutions by developing a set of managed services tailored to the needs of the empowered branch office.
Managed Services for the Empowered Branch Office The Cisco Empowered Branch Services solution enables service providers to create new revenue streams with advanced managed services and to build long-term relationships with customers by helping them develop a network and service roadmap to optimize their use of branch resources.
An empowered branch managed service solution enables providers to increase their strategic relevance with customers, from transport provider to business partner. The results are increased revenue, greater competitor differentiation, higher margins, and reduced turnover of the customer base because of increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Roadmap of Managed Services for the Empowered Branch
The Cisco Empowered Branch Service solution is based on the proven, widely successful Integrated Services Routers, of which 5 million are deployed today. The solution includes capabilities such as 3G Wireless connectivity, Wide Area Application Services (WAAS), video surveillance, and the Cisco Application eXtension Platform (AXP) that help ensure access to the latest technology innovations. Cisco's new fixed-configuration 3G and Survivable Remote Site Telephony (SRST) routers enable affordable Empowered Branch Services for even the smallest office and business.
The managed services roadmap shown in Figure 2 helps customers to meet their near-term business needs while planning for the long term. Viewing the customer from a business evolution perspective can reveal opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling additional value-added services.
Figure 2. Managed Services Roadmap for the Empowered Branch
A series of managed services for the empowered branch can be aligned with critical phases of the branch evolution-beginning with foundational network services at the branch, progressing to incorporate convergence and enhanced security services, and evolving to include advanced network services to optimize the branch environment for greater productivity-enhancing solutions. Managed services on this continuum can be offered as incremental up-sell opportunities or be used to create solutions bundles targeting distinct market segments.
Foundational Network Services
Foundational services provide a fast, secure, and reliable network foundation for the empowered branch that enables connectivity to business applications, remote sites, and the Internet. Building a sound foundational service based on the Cisco Integrated Services Router allows service providers to create solutions that bundle network services with the managed services platform to deliver additional services to the branch without a complete equipment upgrade to meet evolving business needs. Upgrading network environments to enable quick response times from core business applications allows the empowered branch to operate more efficiently and lays the foundation for rich-media and collaboration applications.
Managed services in this category include managed routers, managed perimeter security such as firewall and intrusion detection, managed IP security (IPsec) site-to-site VPN for secure branch connectivity, and options for integrated managed LAN services to lay the foundation for future converged services support.
Enhanced Convergence and Security Services
Convergence capabilities on the Cisco Integrated Services Router securely deliver integrated data and voice services as well as new rich-media communication options such as video and messaging.
Businesses of all sizes are beginning to deliver IP communications services over the same IP network they use for data, attracted by productivity gains as well as cost savings. To avoid the capital and operational costs of separate IP communications and data networks, companies can add a managed IP communications service to their IP VPN to support telephony services as well as integrate additional rich-media communication options such as video.
Managed services in this category include managed IP communications tailored for the branch office, enhanced security options to secure content and endpoints, and secure remote access for mobile employees.
Advanced Managed Services
Advanced managed services provide secure data access and accelerate application and content delivery for the empowered branch to increase productivity while company assets remain protected.
Applications are the key to productivity. The network must be able to streamline and optimize the delivery of applications so that the application can be used as it was intended at the branch as well as at headquarters locations.
Advanced managed services are enabled by technologies such as Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS), integrated in the Cisco Integrated Service Routers. Service providers can deploy these advanced technologies with existing service capabilities, allowing providers to experience more cost efficiencies as they continue to launch more advanced managed services.
Managed services in this category include optimized branch access for application and file acceleration, managed security access to applications through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) VPN options, and managed mobility for branch offices based on integrated wireless LAN (WLAN) capabilities.
Summary
Service providers can tap into the growing service opportunity for the branch office by creating a portfolio of managed services designed to further empower branch office resources. An Empowered Branch managed services solution is tailored to meet the needs of the evolving network and application optimization requirements of the enterprise branch office, teleworkers, and remote call center agents. To successfully deliver managed services for the Empowered Branch, service providers need technology partners whose platforms deliver the scale, performance, and services innovation required at the branch. Cisco Integrated Services Routers not only enable a variety of managed services for the Empowered Branch, they also reduce the cost of delivering services by supporting remote provisioning, management, and enablement-providing options for service providers to reduce the cost of deploying new services and extending their portfolio to meet the needs of this growing segment of the market for managed solutions.
For More Information
To find more detailed information about Cisco Integrated Services Routers and how these integrated managed services can be deployed, please visit: