It is becoming clear that the future of networking, the cloud, and IT in general lies in abstraction. We have an increasing number of choices in network technology, equipment vendors, servers, operating systems (and distros), middleware…you get the picture. We have open-source software and open hardware initiatives, and of course open standards. With this multiplicity…
Even in an industry, a world, committed to hype, reality always wins in the end. Cloud computing is an example of this tenant, and what’s interesting is less the validity of the central point than the way that cloud reality is reshaping the industry. Most interesting of all is the relationship between the cloud and…
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) has generated a lot of buzz, but it became pretty clear last year that the bloom was off the rose in terms of coverage and operator commitment. Does this mean that NFV was a bad idea? Is all the work that was done irrelevant, or about to become so? Are vendor…
If you’re a tech analyst, you just have to do a blog on what to expect in the coming year, no matter how overdone the topic might be. OK, here’s mine. What I want to do is look at the most significant trends and issues, the ones that will shape the market for years to…
I blog about a lot of things, but the topic that seems to generate the most interest is service lifecycle automation. The centerpiece of almost every approach is a model, a structure that represents the service as a collection of components. The industry overall has tended to look at modeling as a conflict of modeling…
What do Juniper and Nokia have in common, besides the obvious fact that both are network equipment providers? The answer may be that the two are both trying to gain traction by making generalized SDN products more mission-specific. “Laser focus?” Juniper has announced a multi-cloud application mission for Contrail, and Nokia’s Nuage SDN product is…
Verizon is reportedly abandoning its streaming video platform, says multiple online technology sources. That, if true, raises some very significant questions because it could mean that Verizon has abandoned streaming as a delivery strategy for FiOS TV. If that’s true, then what does it mean for the 5G/FTTN hybrid model of broadband that Verizon has…
Network operators obviously buy a lot of network gear, but so do enterprises. In my past blogs I’ve tended to focus on the operator side, largely because my own practice involves more operators and their vendors than it does enterprises. To get good enterprise data, I have to survey explicitly, which is too time-consuming to…
I continue to get responses from operators on the results of their fall planning cycle, on my analysis of those results, and on their planning for 2018. The interesting thing at this point is that we’re in the period when technology planning, the focus of the fall cycle, collides with the business oversight processes that…
There is no question that the video space and its players are undergoing major changes. It’s not clear where those are leading us, at least not yet. For decades, channelized TV has been the mainstay of wireline service profit, and yet it’s more threatened today than ever before. Where video goes, does wireline go? What…