Author: Tom Nolle

There are a lot of ways to get to the network of the future, but I think they all share one common concept.  Services are in the eye of the beholder, meaning buyer, and so all services should be viewed as abstractions that define the connectivity and SLA they offer but are realized based on…

IoT could well go down in tech history as the most transformational concept of all time.  It will certainly go down as the most hyped concept.  The question for IoT, in fact, is whether its potential will be destroyed by the overwhelming flood of misinformation and illogic that it’s generated.  SDN and NFV have been…

I was talking yesterday with an old friend from the network operator space, a long-standing member of the NFV elite, and one of our topics was just what could pull through SDN and NFV.  Two specific notions came up, one the Internet-of-Things opportunity I mentioned a number of times in my blogs (yesterday, for example)…

I’ve pointed out in a number of my past blogs that of all the things needed from an SDN or NFV implementation to make the business case, none tops an effective service management automation approach.  I’ve also noted that the NFV ISG initially put end-to-end management out of scope, and that they also ignored the…

I got a laugh at a conference back in the past when I commented that to the media, any new technology had to be either the single-handed savior of western culture, or the last bastion of international communism.  Anything in between wasn’t going to generate clicks on the pieces, and it was too complicated to…

Light Reading posted an interesting article on the commitment of network operators to NFV despite uncertainty about how they’d be expected to integrate with OSS/BSS.  There are some parallels between the comments made and my own interactions with the operators, but I’ve also had some discussions about the issue at greater depth, and I want…

There is no doubt that virtual CPE is the most populist of the NFV applications.  There are more vendors who support it than any other NFV application, and more users who could potentially be touched by it.  vCPE is also arguably the most successful NFV application, measured by the number of operators who have actually…

Verizon’s entry into the IoT space, via its “ThingSpace” API offering, has been covered by Light Reading and also released directly by Verizon.  The company is also opening its analytics engine for IoT use and making some network and pricing changes to accommodate IoT.  Verizon’s launch presentation on IoT properly characterizes IoT as a “Tower…

Before I took off on my vacation (just completed), I asked a bunch of my CFO contacts to review a document I prepared that outlined potential sources of NFV (or SDN) benefits.  They came back with some suggested changes and additions, and the result was a document with about 20 categories.  I’d also outlined some…

You all probably know how I love blog topics that present a contrast, and today we have a nice opportunity for one with the quarterly results from IBM and Juniper.  The former disappointed the Street and the latter made them happy.  The former has touted transition and the latter seems to be staying the course. …