Cisco’s apparent reorganization and retargeting of its strategic initiatives is certainly newsworthy, given Cisco’s position both as the premier provider of IP technology and its UCS data center systems. It’s also newsworthy that Cisco is clearly emphasizing the cloud and IoT over traditional networking missions. The question is what these newsworthy events mean in the…
What exactly is the data center interconnect (DCI) opportunity, and how does it relate to cloud computing, SDN, NFV, and the cloud? That’s a question that should be asked, isn’t asked often, and might have a significant impact on the way we build the most important part of our network. Obviously it’s going to have…
“E Pluribus Unum” is the motto found on US coins and it means “From Many, One”. Will that work for NFV? We may have to find out, because it seems that instead of converging on specifications NFV is flying off in a bunch of different directions. Is that appearance reality, and if so what’s going…
Modeling is critical for both SDN and NFV, and I’ve blogged on the topic a number of times. In particular, I’ve been focusing on “intent models” as a general topic and on the OASIS TOSCA (Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications) in particular. The two, as we’ll see, have a relationship. A recent set…
If the biggest question asked by kids in a car is “Are we there yet”, it’s a question that could be applied with a small modification to our network transformation activity. My suggestion is “Are we going to get there?” The turn of the tide in publicity on NFV and even SDN is clear; we…
Any time a Tier One decides to open the kimono a bit on their planning for transformation it’s important. AT&T did that with its paper on ECOMP, which stands for “Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management, and Policy” and the topic makes the comments doubly important. As operators seem to be looking to take on more of…
Suppose that network operators and vendors accepted the notion that profitable “new” operator services had to be built in a network-integrated way, like IMS/EPC or CDN? What would the framework of these services then look like? How would they have to be offered and used? It’s time to dig deeper into a network-operator-centric view of…
The interest being shown in ONOS’s CORD architecture (see this Light Reading piece) isn’t a surprise to me (see my own blog on it here) but it’s an indication that CORD might be even more influential because of a singular fact—integration and “packaged solutions” are much more in CORD’s DNA. I don’t agree that it’s…
One of the questions that operators are asking in at the end of the first quarter is “Just how much real SDN and NFV do we need?” I pointed out in prior blogs that if you were to do a successful OSS/BSS modernization you could achieve more of the service agility and operations efficiency benefits…
An important question in the NFV space is also a simple and obvious one; “What is a good VNF?” This question is something like the rather plaintive question asked early in the NFV evolution; “Where do I start?” and it’s a close relative to the “What do I do next?” question that many vCPE pioneers…