If you look at or listen to network operator presentations on next-gen networking, you’re struck by the sense that operators don’t trust vendors any more. They don’t come out and say that, but all the discussions about “open” approaches and “lock-in” demonstrate a healthy disdain for their suppliers’ trustworthiness, and just the fact that major…
There are a lot of network options out there, and while it’s fun to talk about them in technology terms there may be a more fundamental issue to address. Network services have always involved multiple layers, and it’s always been convenient to think of infrastructure as being either “connection” or “transport”. In the classic services…
We chase a lot of phantoms in the tech space, none as dangerous as the old “five-nines” paradigm. Everyone obsesses about getting reliability/availability up to the standards of TDM. That’s not going to happen unless we don’t do the kind of network transformation we’re talking about. Five-nines is too expensive to meet, and we don’t…
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…