In prior blogs, I’ve talked about the vCPE mission for NFV—why it’s gaining in importance and what models of vCPE might be favored. Some people have asked (reasonably) whether there were any technical issues on NFV implementation raised by the vCPE model. There are; some that are more exposed by vCPE than created by it,…
What’s the Best Path to Telco Open-Source Success?
Somebody asked me yesterday what I thought was the pathway to open-source success in the telco space. I got involved in open-source and telco applications thereof back in about 2008, working within the TMF and the IPsphere Forum. In both these bodies I was for a time the only non-telco representative in the group, and…
Some New Offerings in the vCPE Space: Will They Help?
If as I’ve suggested in the last week or so, vCPE is most likely to drive NFV adoption in 2016, then what happens with it is pretty important. It’s interesting then that we really aren’t saying much about vCPE models and issues. As we head for a major year of trials and testing, I think…
Optimizing the Cloud Opportunity in 2016
The cloud is surely a popular topic with the media and also with enterprises, but despite the agreement of these two groups that the cloud is interesting, they don’t agree much on what exactly is happening with the cloud. Perhaps even more significant is the fact that they don’t agree about the future of the…
Happy Holidays from CIMI Corporation
This year has brought the world and our industry many challenges and delivered some wonderful moments as well. We at CIMI Corporation wish all of you, and those you love, a Happy Holiday season, and we hope that 2016 will bring only joy to you, and to everyone worldwide. http://www.cimicorp.com/Holiday2015.jpg Tom Nolle, President Email and…
Top Network Issues for 2016: My Personal View
We’re closing in on 2016 and what will surely be a pivotal year in terms of network operator strategy. I’ve already blogged about the results of the operators’ fall planning cycle, and I think that offers a pretty clear view of their technology plans. Because even the best of plans can be contaminated by internal…
How the “Trial-Silo” NFV Strategy of Operators for 2016 Impacts Vendors
NFV trials are not exercises involving the same set of players, or reflecting the same issues or service goals. I noted in a blog earlier this week that operators had decided (often by default) that they would pursue evolving PoCs toward services even though it would likely result in silos based on the large difference…
What Can We Learn from the Light Reading NFV Tests?
Light Reading has published the first of what they promise will be a series of NFV tests, run in combination with EANTC, and the results are summarized HERE. I think there are some useful insights in the results, but I also think that there are fundamental limitations in the approach. I’m not going to berate…
The Relationship Between Content Delivery and SDN/NFV: It’s About Mobility
Operators have recognized from the first that video probably represents their largest incremental opportunity. There’s also been a lot of hype around the video market, particularly focusing on the notion that Internet OTT delivery of video would displace all other video forms. Like most popular notions, this is almost completely unsupported and even illogical, but…
APIs for NFV Operation: A High-Level Vision
There are a lot of technical questions raised by NFV and even the cloud, questions that we cannot yet answer and that are not even widely recognized. One of the most obvious is how the component elements are stitched together. In NFV, it’s called “service chaining”. Traditionally you’d link devices using communications services, but how…