One of the issues that should be driving the fall operator planning cycle, carrier cloud, isn’t making a really strong appearance so far. Those of you who’ve read my blog on what is likely to be a big planning focus no doubt saw that carrier cloud wasn’t on the list. Many would find this a…
The ETSI NFV ISG is having a meeting, one of which’s goals is to explore a more cloud model of NFV. Obviously, I’d like to see that. The question is what such a model would look like, and whether it (in some form) could be achieved from where we are now, without starting another four-year…
What exactly is “service automation” and who does it? Those are the two questions that are top of the list for network operators and cloud providers today, and they’re ranking increasingly high on the list of enterprises as well. As the complexity of networks increases, as technology changes introduce hosted elements in addition to discrete…
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) has been a focus for operators for five years now. Anyone who’s following my blog knows I have disagreed with the approach the NFV ISG has taken, but it took it. The current model will never, in my view, be optimal, as I’ve said many times in past blogs and media…
Network operators generally do a fall technology plan to frame their following-year budget. The timing varies with geography and operator, but most are active between mid-September and mid-November. This year, a fair number of operators have done some pre-planning, and we can actually see the results in their quarterly earnings calls, as well as the…
What’s the thing (well, one of the things) I’m sick of hearing? It is that, as Michael Dell and others have said recently, “It’s definitely a multi-cloud world.” Why am I sick of it? Two reasons. First, because it’s never been anything else, and the fact that’s only now recognized is a sad commentary on…
Everyone loves to talk about APIs, so much so that you could be forgiven for thinking that they were the solution to all of the problems of the tech world. I did a straw poll, and wasn’t too surprised to find that only about 40% of network professionals had a good grasp of what APIs…
It’s always popular to talk about who’s going to lead the next big step in something. In networking these days, you might look to Cisco’s Robbins, for example. I have my own candidate, one many of you may never heard about. It’s Ajit Pai. Pai is the new Chairman of the FCC, and like all…
They say that Microsoft is acquiring CycleComputing for its high-performance computing (HPC) capabilities, combating Amazon and Google. They’re only half-right. It’s combating Amazon and Google, but not so much about HPC. It’s mostly about coordinating workflows in an event-driven world. Traditional computing is serial in nature; you run a program from start to finish. Even…
The Street report that ATT is considering the sale of its Digital Life division should have a lot of telco transformation people on edge. This is the division that handles consumer offerings like home security, long seen as the basis for any shift of a network operator into non-connection services. Is it not working? Worse,…