In a number of my past blogs, I’ve talked about the value of an event-driven model for cloud and NFV deployment. Since then I’ve gotten a few requests to explain just what the difference is between traditional and event-based models. It’s a challenge to do that without dipping deeply into programming details, but I’m going…
Is There a Practical Pathway to Fiber-to-the-Premises?
Despite all the hype around Google Fiber, the fact is that getting fiber to the premises (FTTP) is a major economic challenge. While everyone wants fast Internet, nobody really wants to pay for it, and with the Internet (unlike, say, the auto industry) there’s a deep-seated public perception that somehow what they want should be…
Does the Secret of the Cloud Lie in Lambdas?
Sometimes it’s useful to take an extreme case, a kind of end-game view, to gain insight into how a technology shift might be happening and what it might mean to the rest of the tech world. I’ve said several times in this blog that the cloud, to be truly revolutionary, had to be more than…
Making NaaS the Center of the Cloud
Yesterday, I suggested that the tech giant of the future had to be built around a virtual networking portfolio. I was aiming the comments at “tech giant” companies and specifically at how the companies should reorder their assets to match the needs of the cloud era. I’d like to dig a bit deeper into that…
What are the Right Product Elements for the Era of the Cloud?
I noted in an earlier blog that some of the tech giants seemed to be shedding parts of their businesses, parts that would at one time have been considered strongly symbiotic or even critical. Credit Suisse has just suggested that HPE would be worth more to shareholders if it broke itself up and sold off…
Unraveling What Might be Verizon’s Plan for Improved Profits
It should be clear by now that network operators are facing a profit-margin problem on basic connection services. Everyone has been happy to offer advice; vendors think operators should either accept declining margins or address them in some way that doesn’t impact capex. The media thinks the operators should elevate their revenues and practices, become…
Following Google’s Lead Could Launch the “Real Cloud” and NFV Too
I think most people would agree that there is a fusion between cloud computing, virtual networking, and NFV. I think it’s deeper than that. The future of both network infrastructure and computing depends on our harmonizing all that stuff into a single trend. Even Google, who is probably as far along as anyone on this…
The New Vision, and Players, of CORD Could Change the Transformation Game
The news that Google has joined the CORD (“Central Office Re-Architected as a Data Center”) project, and that the project is now independent under the Linux foundation, is good news for next-gen networks. I’ve always thought CORD was important because it describes what operators would face in an infrastructure transformation—a massive shift in data center…
How Huawei’s Growth Highlights an Industry Challenge
Huawei is certainly on a roll. It reported revenues up 40% in the latest quarter, up from a 30% gain the quarter before, and that’s certainly the best in the whole industry. At a time when rival Ericsson is shedding its CEO and rivals Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia are merging for efficiency, Huawei seems to be…
Can Verizon Make a Yahoo Deal Work?
Just a little short of a decade ago I opened a connection with Yahoo at the request of a group of big Tier Ones. They wanted to create a cooperation between Yahoo and operators to fend off the issues of OTT competition by essentially joining the enemy camp. Jerry Yang was running Yahoo at the…
