The future of networking probably depends on defining a futuristic architecture for networking. Traditionally, standards bodies have driven progress in network technology and services, as the example of the 3GPP and 5G shows. When we talk about software-defined networks, software-driven services, and automated (even AI) operations, we’re in a different world, a world of software…
I mentioned yesterday that Google had a new slant on being a competitive cloud provider, one that focused on combining open-source tools to create a true hybrid cloud platform. The move is important, maybe even critical, to both public cloud competition and cloud vendors, but it’s still a bit of a work in progress. I…
Recently Wall Street has been on a kind of cloud blitz, looking at both providers of cloud services and vendors whose fortunes will likely be impacted or even determined by the cloud. It’s always interesting to look at these stories, because it’s important to remember that companies are accountable to their shareholders, and investors are…
We may be heading for a solid white-box architecture, which is good. We may have two distinctly different paths that could get us there, which is both good and bad. It does seem clear that we’re setting up for a bit of competition among open-source giants in networking overall, and for the white-box stuff we…
SD-WAN remains a very hot topic, and say the enterprises I’ve chatted with, a very confusing one. The biggest source of the confusion is the fact that we use the single term “SD-WAN” to describe what are actually three different architectural models. Not only do those three models differ in capabilities and focus, they can…
AT&T shared their vision for an open-source, white-box, and 5G future in a blog post, and any time a major Tier One does that it’s worth a look. It’s fair to say that AT&T has been the most proactive of all the Tier One operators in the use of open technology to reduce network costs…
Last week at the Open Networking Summit, we got our first look at the concept of “Lean NFV”. This initiative is the brain-child of two California academics, and they have an organization, a website, and a white paper. Light Reading did a nice piece on it HERE, and in it they provide a longer list…
Intel’s “Data-Centric Innovation Day” announcements take specific aim at 5G and NFV, seemingly at a time when operators themselves are doubting whether they really want to deploy their own clouds for hosting features in either area. There is no question that Intel, server vendors, software vendors, and practically everyone else would love to see operators…
One of the truths about carrier cloud is that it might be more cloud than carrier. I noted in THIS blog the possibility that some network operators might prefer to have their carrier cloud hosted by one of the public cloud providers (IBM specifically in the referenced blog), and according to Light Reading, there’s a…
In yesterday’s blog, I opened two points that I think are particularly critical for lifecycle automation. The first is the notion of event coupling to processes via the service data model, something that came not from me but from the TMF’s NGOSS Contract work. The second is the notion of service/resource domain separation, which you…