Path paved for IP convergence

摘要

The Defense Department's move to Internet Protocol convergence has been well underway for several years, spurred, in part, by technologies that removed barriers to riding unified communication services over a common IP platform. Advances in silicon and transport technologies have basically eroded barriers that hampered IP hardware from being a ubiquitous platform upon which packet-based services meeting the needs of any mission or application could run, said William Lemons, director of federal systems engineering at Juniper Networks. Now the promise of using one common platform upon which to deliver unified communications services exists, he said. As a result, the DoD is pushing forward with efforts to implement unified capabilities to DoD components by fiscal 2016. Also described as the DoD's move to everything over IP, UC includes a broad set of voice-, video- and data-sharing capabilities that promise to foster joint collaboration among the military services, combatant commands and defense agencies.