As I’m sure regular readers of this blog know, I don’t really like where the NFV ISG is today. I do like some of the places it’s been. One place is the notion of a kind of modular virtual infrastructure. The concept of “virtual infrastructure” and its management (via, to no surprise, a VIM) has…
The first explicit example of how logical networking could change everything just came along. VMware announced its own approach to that goal with Virtual Cloud Network, and it also demonstrates that SDN can be a player in logical networking as much as SD-WAN. In fact, the speed at which VMware has jumped into the space…
Suppose we do see edge computing. What exactly do we end up seeing? Is edge hosting just like cloud hosting, does it perhaps tilt a bit toward feature hosting or event processing? If so, is the architecture needed, both hardware and software, likely to be different? These are important questions for vendors, but no less…
Everyone is fascinated by the relationship between 5G and edge computing. What’s perhaps the most fascinating thing about it is that we don’t really have much of a notion of how that relationship works, or even if it’s real. 5G is a technological evolution of wireless. Edge computing is a technological evolution of the cloud. …
What is the most important development in networking, not just technology but in the broadest sense? What’s going to change, shape the future? It’s the emergence of “logical networking” as what’s essentially a new OSI layer. That single force is going to reshape everything, decide the fate of the new technologies, and define the role…
Want to know the biggest technical problem in networking today? It’s the fact that we can’t seem to stop thinking “interfaces” when we need to be thinking “APIs”. Every day we see examples of this, and every day the industry seems to ignore the significance. We need to face it now, if we’re going to…
There were a lot of articles yesterday in Light Reading on various aspects of the telco cloud, perhaps leading up to a theme for their coming event. We had the “strategic imperative” piece, some more technical pieces, and the view that the cloud was essential for hosting NFV. Operators are in fact “wanting what they’ve…
Is zero-touch automation synchronized swimming or just playing in the pool? That’s a perhaps-less-than-elegant way of asking whether ZTA requires a unified orchestration model, or can be achieved while retaining the separation of network and service management. This is important because we don’t have unified standards or unified telco management across those two spaces, and…
The Netflix results suggest that OTT video is a big factor in broadband’s future. If that’s true, then what does it mean for the industry as a whole? Linear TV was at one point the credible profit engine for wireline broadband. What happens to that sector if the engine breaks down? What happens to vendors? …
We’ve had the SDN buzz and the NFV buzz and now we seem to be getting the automation buzz. It’s not quite hype yet, because everyone is trying to come to terms with just what “automation” is, but we’re surely headed there. Will it become reality? That depends on the benefits it can produce. I…