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Setting the Stage19aware of a virus or other disruptive event that could affect the campusnetwork.”In fact, this scenario occurred shortly after network conversion: Aburst water pipe in the building that housed the main server roomthreatened to flood the basement, a condition which would have resultedin the loss of the entire campus network because the servers were alldown there. IT was able to send out a campuswide message, tellingeveryone that they had precisely 5 minutes to save the files they wereworking on and log off before the system was shut down to be movedabove the water line. It worked.Implementing ConvergenceConvergence typically occurs in three phases: network convergence, ITinfrastructure convergence, and the deployment of a set of applicationsspecifically designed to take advantage of the converged infrastructure.Convergence is a series of technological and managerial interdependenciesthat result in a “perfect marriage” between the underlying technologyinfrastructure and the “overlying” process of running thebusiness. In the case of Champlain College, the issue to be dealt with wasimproving the school’s ability to communicate with its student body,staff, and faculty. In the first phase, Dusini, Videtto, and their staff hadto determine the nature of the problem they needed to fix. Second, theyhad to address the physical changes to the network that would have totake place if their conversion effort was to be successful. Third, they hadto take a hard, emotionless look at the software and hardware tools theschool required to do its job as well as it could be done. And finally, oncethey had addressed each of those issues, they turned their attention tothe application set.This four-layer structure (see Figure 1-14) is typical of a well-run ITorganization. “We had vendors coming out of our ears, telling us abouttheir one-of-a-kind solution,” laughs Dusini, shaking his head. “The problemwas that they couldn’t tell us what our business issue was. It wouldirritate them when I asked them to describe our problem and how theirunique solution would uniquely fix it. Typically, they couldn’t describewhat we were facing in more than the vaguest terms. And what botheredus most about that was that our problems are far from unique—in fact,with a few minor exceptions, our challenges are pretty typical.”