According to the company, Cloudflare wants to be the “fourth major public cloud”, but at the same time EU cloud providers are losing market share steadily to the current three US giants. OK, bold aspirations make good ink, but there do seem to be some significant barriers rising in the public cloud market. Is that…
A New ONF Spin-Out Could Transform Private 5G
I have to admit I was surprised when I read that the ONF was launching a private venture, Ananki, to bring its Aether 5G open-model network implementation to market. As you can see in the release, Ananki will target the “private 5G space” and will use the ONF’s Aether, SD-RAN, SD-Fabric and SD-Core technologies. The…
Will the CNF Concept Fix NFV?
Recently, I blogged that the transformation of NFV from VNFs (VM-centric) to CNFs (“cloud-native” or “containerized” network functions, depending on your level of cynicism) was unlikely to be successful. One long-time LinkedIn contact and fellow member of standards groups said “If CNF never makes it… then the whole story is doomed and it’s a bad…
Nokia, 5G Disruption, and 5G Realization
Some on Wall Street think Nokia is a disruptor in disguise, reinventing itself quietly to seize control of networking through 5G. I don’t agree with the article’s like that “5G is the Next Industrial Revolution” (hey, this is media, so do we expect hype or what?) but I do think that the article makes some…
Is Verizon’s MEC “Land Grab” Really Grabbing any Land?
Verizon thinks it’s out front in what it calls an enterprise “land grab” at the edge. Of course, everyone likes to say they’re in the lead of some race or another, and Verizon’s position in the edge is really set by a deal with Microsoft and Amazon. Does this mean that they’re just resellers and…
Why Not NFV?
I’ve blogged a lot about the relationship between 5G and edge computing. In most of my blogs I’ve focused on the importance of coming up with a common software model, a kind of PaaS, that would allow 5G deployment to pull through infrastructure that would support generalized edge computing. Most of those who have chatted…
What Can We Learn from O-RAN’s Success?
According to a Light Reading article on Open RAN, “The virtualized, modular RAN will be here sooner rather than later and vendors will be tripping over each other as they try to get on board.” I agree with that statement, and with much of the article too. That raises the question of just what the…
Is Cisco’s Software-Centric Strategy Really a Strategy?
Cisco’s Investor Day was all about their growing position in the software space. Software grew from 20% of revenues in 2017 to 30% in 2021, which is certainly a validation of their claim of software growth. What’s far less clear is whether Cisco’s avowed shift to software is offensive or defensive, and whether it can…
Juniper Dips Another Toe into 5G Metro (But Not the Whole Foot)
Juniper’s decision to harmonize its implementation of the Open RAN RIC (Radio/RAN Intelligent Controller) with Intel’s FlexRAN program raises again a question I’ve asked in prior blogs, which is whether a network vendor who isn’t a mobile-network incumbent can play in 5G, and by extension whether they could play at the edge. I believe that…
Why Are Security Problems So Hard to Solve?
Why are network, application, and data security problems so difficult to solve? As I’ve noted in previous blogs, many companies say they spend as much on security as on network equipment, and many also tell me that they don’t believe that they, or their vendors, really have a handle on the issue. “We’re adding layers…