By Steve Harriman
NetQoS VP Steve Harriman is attending the Gartner Enterprise Networking Summit this week in Las Vegas. It’s the first time for the event since the industry downturn in 2001 and NetQoS is exhibiting there because we feel that the role of Networking has been elevated in importance to the point at which it warrants an executive focused event. And, Gartner events are always very educational and well-attended. It’s the right place to be.
In addition to Dr.
Malone’s keynote and NetQoS’s Solution Provider Session, I also went to a talk by Thomas Shelman on the second day of the Summit.
Shelman is CIO of Northrop Grumman Corporation, the second largest defense contractor in the world. As you might imagine, he runs a very large IT organization. Seven CIOs from different business units report to him.
He said his greatest challenge and most rewarding experience, although devastating too, was leading the organization to restore computing and networking infrastructure and services after Katrina pounded two key Northrop Grumman facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi.
The two NG data centers in La. and Miss. were fully configured for redundancy with hot fail-over between systems in both locations. To ensure both data centers would not be affected by “traditional” disasters, such as local power failures, flooding, accidents, etc., they were located 150 miles apart. Unfortunately, the destruction of Katrina was more than 150 miles wide and took both data centers out. (Northrop Grumman put out a
press
release describing the devastation they encountered.)
Shelman realized the potential disaster unfolding as he watched the NOAA radar projections a few hours before Katrina came on shore.
Phone calls from staff members describing the scope of the disaster began at 5 a.m. the next day. One of many conversations was with Northrup Grumman CEO Ronald D. Sugar, who told Shelman to "do whatever it takes to restore IT services and [save] employees’ lives – money is no object." NG ended up spending $30 million to fully restore the affected IT infrastructure and services.
Shelman said he learned several lessons from that experience:
- Don’t expect public infrastructure to be available (land line telephony, cell phones, power, etc.)
- Plan for people to be inaccessible
- Access to key employees is critical to recovery
- Leverage suppliers as a critical part of the recovery team
In his opinion, an effective national defense program requires tying all the intelligence databases, spying technologies, weapons systems, and people together. The network is the most literally "mission critical" element. It must be highly available and deliver information almost instantaneously.
When asked by an audience member how to convince a CIO of the value of the network and networking professionals, he replied, “I can’t imagine a valuable CIO who doesn’t value the network.”
NG has completed 17 acquisitions and, according to Shelman, integration of IT infrastructure, services and people played a major part in the success of those acquisitions. He listed 10 key elements of successful mergers and acquisitions for IT organizations:
- Involve IT up-front during due diligence
- Create a checklist
- Provide strong, dedicated leadership
- Engage a full-time project team
- Identify targets and measure how well you do
- Integrate the employees
- Protect and integrate the networks
- Create enterprise architecture and supporting road-maps
- Align the organization for success
- Pick the ‘best of the best’
The two points in bold, he said, are the most important.
He said one of IT’s greatest general challenges is communication. IT professionals, himself included, are typically introverted technologists, and
not particularly good at selling themselves or their value. His advice was, “If you aren’t able to successfully articulate the value of your IT organization to your internal and external stakeholders, hire someone who can.”
Steve Harriman is the VP of Marketing for NetQoS
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