Traditional commercial integrators don’t always speak the same language as the IT directors that are so often their clients point-person on products. That’s not a good thing if the mis-communication leads to an integrated network that doesn’t do what the clients wants it to do.

I like this quote from frequent CI Forum contributor Mark Coxon of Orange ProAV. It came during an interview for our upcoming CI State of the Industry coverage:

Speaking about the intricacies involved with working with IT directors ... “If navigated properly they can be great allies. If handled incorrectly, they make IT your worst enemy to actually getting the job. IT people are very territorial in my experience. They are protective of their network, have definite opinions on technology, and can see A/V integrators as someone trying to do their job. Positioning ourselves as a part of their team, and proactively ‘involving’ them in A/V decisions can go a long way to help.”

Please offer your thoughts on how integrators can best work with IT directors and vice versa.

Thanks Tom.

I am writing a multi part post on this subject here. . .

http://mandarintheater.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/the-it-chronicles-why-av-firms-are-losing-the-battle-for-convergent-systems/

I definitely recommend reading Mark’s article. He had some colorful quotes on the topic in CI’s State of the Industry report ...

http://www.commercialintegrator.com/article/state_of_the_industry_2011

As a National Field Deployment Engineer and Owner of a consulting firm I see it from both sides.  In both new construction and engineering phases of construction often times the disciplines have not spoken with one another until its too late.  The architect, the engineering firm and the owner together blew the budget.  At times IT and Integration of AV discussions have to be reopened or revisited during construction in a huge way, therein being an after thought.

This seems to happen alot with midsize churches and apartment complexes.

Even worse, I have seen it where the Electronic Architect specified things that arrogantly got cut out of the budget by the owner, and therein created a nightmare for the A/v firm, the service provider and the IT guy.

Frustrations arise out of the disciplines fending for time and dollars when they have neither.

I look forward to more IT/ A/V integrations in the future being just as important as the look and feel of new constructions.

I am frustrated with how our industry loves to say in trade journals how they did it “on a budget” and then they proceed to show some multimillion dollar signage gig and Line array speakers and video walls with touch screens.  I promise you, somewhere in that success story the IT guy got the brunt and so did the guy pricing the cable and the TV’s.  Oh and they didn’t tell you that the Line Array was done at the expense of the Acoustical treatment or the Office backbone to support the Crestron.  AAAAAAnd for some reason we all got the brunt of realizing that the airhandler would not adequately cool our 19inch racks of servers and amplifiers. 

We all realize how important it will be in A/V to accept the fact that a Copper UTP and Fiber will continue to connect our stuff to a GUI remotely, so we might as well try to befriend the considerations of the Network.  As An tangible player in infrastructure and design of networks a reserve of strands and ports and a larger Pipe on the LAN and WAN and better QoS for support of Security Cams and IPTV considerations will help ease the pain we as IT guys feel.

Purpledog,

Thanks for the detailed and informative response.  I think I speak for all AV Integrators here that having someone in the IT field relate their largest concerns about our industry is a great help in overcoming them.

Maybe we will work on a project together in the future!

Best and God Bless,

Mark C

Mark,

Not to go to out too much on a tangent, but Security Cams over IP provide a valuable integration concern for AV guys and IT guys allot. 

I had a huge apartment complex in MS - Garden Style 16 buildings. 
I built the network using Duplex Single mode fiber. to support common service carriers and integrations.  The proprietary network for Data is designed to support Internet services up to 100 mbps/per client connection and Commercial Wifi. 

In theory the network can support this type of a concern locally at each leg of the distribution,  but what if the integrator wants to do 100 cameras on this property on The primary LAN to save money? 

Here is the potential pitfall in this discussion.  While fiber will support this at 5-10gig per strand.  The Switches won’t.  The IT considerations were made before the Cameras were.

The engineering and consideration is in the Backbone support and engineering.  The switching is designed to support endusers on a LAN to Wan Connectivity basis with limited Qos Concerns. 

Now as an integrator - I like to say sure it will cost $80k to land this package IF you the client can provide me a network back bone to support this.  What the integrator is not thinking about is the other $50K in switch upgrades it will take to support Qos of these cameras in real time back through the LAN to the common camera server.  Nor have they typically done the Math on this concern. 

This is acid on the IT guy’s skin, cause the burden is going back to the IT guy to make the network run despite this major game changer.  I don’t know about you, but IT guys don’t often have the $50k in their budget just to please the Camera Guy and the Property Owner.

Its an interesting discussion…..  IPTV is rapidly eating up network backbones.  Digital TV standards allow us to transmit into the LANs now, But now the network has to catch up. 

Who is then responsible for the performance of the Network in an instance like this?
And if the Network is not sufficient, how is that going to make the integrator or the product look?

When the integrator and the IT guy get together, there needs to be some time set apart to have these types of planning discussions.  in this case, the Property Owner says to me “Can it be done”  I said “Yes, of Course”  (cause I am an integrator at heart and I love this stuff), But I never got to share the Caveat to the “Yes” which is a “BUT!!!”  “But I need to qualify the IT concerns to make this project is a home-run for you so don’t finalize your budget yet!” 

Before I could have this discussion - The Integrator is on the phone a week later calling me for Network Provisioning and My NOC is ready to kill me cause they have to build a network for these concerns.

These Guys aren’t just handing out IP addresses for MAC’s These guys are allotting server space for monitoring and logging if something goes down or adding switching and servers, Checking if upstream connectivity is going to support it; the list goes on.  Ultimately if something happens with the cameras on the network, who is going to get the call in the middle of the night?

So now we come full circle… to this discussion. 
In my Opinion the Integrator should be unto himself to do what he does best, but the IT guy has got to be enabled to do what he does best.  And the guy financing this has got to be realize we are not always able to do this in 24hours time.  In the IT world it is as complex as it is in the Integration realm. 

Again, I digress, cause I am not living in one camp or the other.  I am the guy who plugs technology in to networks that I build.  I am a Sound Guy, who wants to Mix a concert on a cruise ship from a Nashville recording Studio!!  And see it in 3D while I am doing it like the people I am producing it for. 

In theory of course, Or are we actually doing this right now?

-PD

Purple Dog,

Great stuff.  We see concerns like this all the time.

It reminds me of a managed office suite in AZ where at aother firm, we did a backbone for a managed telephone system and data network.  The backbone had to be designed to work with modular interior walls that could be repositioned to meet the needs of the various tenants and their proposed layouts. 

We also helped the property owner provision the telecom and internet services, so that a tenant received a phone, voicemail, routing trees, efax, and internet as part of their monthly fee, and they were connected the day of move in, rather than waiting days for the ISP to come out and get them online.

We designed the system for basic office use.  Web browsing, downloads, and the phones were on their own PRI (not VOIP).
In the first 3 months, when the building was at maybe 50% occupancy, problems started arising.  Tenants started having timeouts on their data.

Upon investigating, multiple tenants in the lower floor were watching the Master’s stream in HD.  One tenant was an avid internet radio streamer, and also had a Vonage system setup within their office for phone instead of using the PRI based Shoretel system installed.  Others placed routers within their own suites instead of paying monthly for extra PC locations from the property manager. 

What we found was that the network was being used very differently than anticipated, and the cumulative effect was there became a need for more bandwidth, 2x faster than planned.  It threw the upgrade and the pricing model out the window.  Since the tenants were only promised a 1Mbps internet speed, we had to go in and VLAN each port, giving them a 1Mbps ceiling.  This meant that if they had their own router in the suite, now every PC on that router was sharing a cumulative 1Mbps given to that switch.  If they needed more bandwidth, they could buy more, or buy access to another port, to get another 1Mbps.

I see 100% how IP CCTV, etc can be real nightmares if not planned and coordinated properly with the building owner, ISP, TSP, IT Director Electrician, HVAC contractor and AV firm.  As you said, this doesn’t happen quickly, but it is a must.

Especially if a firm like yours “might be” streaming 3D content via a satellite uplink from a cruise ship back to your TN based location for real time support.  If that is what you alluded to .  Talk about having to know IT and bandwidth limitations!

Good Luck!

I look forward to future insights.

Best

Mark C

AV Inegrators tend to lack the experiential, and at times practical knowledge that IT Managers and Leaders would expect us to have as technology VARs.  They come from an industry where their partners have meaningful certifications and are truly experts at what they do.
The AV industry has long been a rogue industry where education and certification are rarely if ever a barrier of entry.  In what other industry can you call yourself an engineer without a degree or some type of extensive certification? 
While I do see strides toward improving the cast of characters in this industry, it has been and will continue to be a long fight to overcome this. Although our industry regulates things via Infocomm and other trade associations, the AV industry has so little visibility to our clients that the certifications don’t have any meaning to them.  I can’t think of an instance where an “End Customer” has demanded a CTS in order to work on a project.  Consultants may demand this, but never do the customers.
Hence, until we drive best practices, standardization, and education to the top of the list, the AV industry will continue to take a backseat to IT.  Further, if the aforementioned improvements do not migrate “AV Engineers” toward fluency in IT Infrastructure, we risk extinction.

Daniel,

I agree with you. 

The “Grass Roots”  of that remains the same however.  The A/V guy is going to continue to use the college bar and (forgive me), the small church install, or small corporate conference room, to ignite their passion.  So I wouldn’t totally worry about the extinction. 

We all thrive on the immersive experience that Integrators can offer, but there is a level of creativity which is tangible, that you don’t often see in the world of IT.  The most cost effective way to deliver commonly used A/V solutions and the control it requires happens to use common Data standards and existing infrastructure.  How many Panasonic products, for example, now have an RJ-45 jack on them or any other brand for that matter?  How many audio manufacturers use a network backbone to run a mix engine. or carry signal to the amps? 

I am excited about offering some real world personally, along with furthering my education in what I consider to be a sort of collaborative sciences movement.  It appears, that Organizational standards and best practices in both industries will help us to draw some of these perceived rifts closer together.

Again, if you live in both camps, where I do at times, you want to really jump in with both feet, cause you know how good it can be if the IT and AVL can get it together.  The territory is fertile.

I will be at infocomm this year, if for nothing else than to keep tabs on the integrations and the discussions around the ITguys and the Integrator.  On the other hand, I will be hanging out with the Sound and Light Guys who tend to be a rowdier bunch.

-PD

All,

Since the last post, I have used my blog to layout some ways for the CI community to effectively relate to IT Managers.

http://mandarintheater.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/the-it-chronicles-putting-it-all-together/

Anyone who would like to comment is welcome to do it on the blog site.  I appreciate any feedback, positive or negative.

Best and God Bless,

Mark C

This is a very informative thread by the way. Just joined but really learning a lot here.