By Mae Kowalke

Enterprises often tend to think that the network is one area with a lot of potential for cost savings—and they’re right. The trick is figuring out how to achieve the savings without negatively impacting network capabilities or going down a rabbit hole of upgrades with long-term ROI but significant short-term investment.

The key is something called convergence. A converged network saves the enterprise money and can actually make money too.

Converged networks offer eight specific advantages: they’re simpler to maintain, increase productivity, make more efficient use of real estate, align with eco-friendly initiatives, increase the mobility of workers, enhance user experience, make possible deployment of more robust applications, and can fully automate certain functions.

“Enterprises are forced to cut their spending budgets by reducing travel and minimizing expenses of all types,” noted Alcatel-Lucent in a recently published white paper. “To sustain financial viability and future growth, enterprises must also make money by seeking new and innovative business opportunities. “It is now feasible to implement multiple applications (such as voice, video, and data), increase speed of execution, and minimize costs with the implementation of a single converged network infrastructure.”

The reason a converged network is so advantageous is that is does away with complex, cumbersome infrastructures that have developed over time as enterprises added capabilities like video conferencing and data sharing, which typically require separate overlay networks built on top of older architecture.

“A converged network eliminates the complexity of multiple overlays, reduces the required CAPEX and OPEX, and increases employee productivity,” Alcatel-Lucent noted in its white paper. “Convergence is a necessary step to achieve significant cost savings in an enterprise network."

The IP networking solutions that make convergence possible have some distinct characteristics and capabilities. Using this technology, enterprises can build a converged, secure, ‘green’ network that’s highly available, cost effective and future-proofed, interoperable, and easily managed.

Such a network fits nicely into the goal of corporate social responsibility—a business imperative for many enterprises that goes beyond a set of policies; instead, it’s a key component of the company’s business strategy.