Keeping IP in trim - [IT network speed]

IP management is no longer just a lubricant for the machinery of enterprise networks. It has become a core part of the platform for delivering applications and enabling new business models to emerge: consider the huge impact that unified communications is starting to make, bringing key components such as presence along with IP-based voice and video into sharp focus. At the same time the growth of virtualisation and cloud computing will need more sophisticated IP management to maintain the separation between applications and the underlying infrastructure. These developments all rely on the ability to manage both IP traffic and end devices including IP addresses on the basis of application and user level information. Unified communications (UC) depends on identifying users and locating devices to select the correct message type and destination, which ultimately determine how the underlying IP traffic should be routed and what quality of service (QOS) be allocated to it.