What the heck is an NGOSS? I’ve used the term a lot, relating to the “NGOSS Contract”, but for those not familiar with the OSS/BSS space or the TMF, it may be mysterious. Tata Consultancy Services, a large and active professional services firm, recently did a paper on “reimagining” the OSS/BSS, a TMF paper asking…
Did Juniper pay too much for 128 Technology? That’s a question that’s been raised by some financial analysts, by some who hold Juniper stock, and by at least one industry pundit, HERE. It’s not unusual for some to question the value of an acquisition like this, particularly in an industry that’s not been a dazzling…
Should prey help predators by cooperating with them in the hunt? A Light Reading story on the Broadband World Forum conference highlights the view that operators want the telecom equipment vendors to “get more involved in open source projects instead of sitting on the sidelines.” Sorry, but that sure sounds to me like proposing a…
Should we be thinking about a Satellite Internet of Things? The emerging battle between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos for low-earth-orbit satellite broadband raises the question, not because satellite broadband is a universal option, but because it’s an option where other options don’t exist, and likely won’t for decades. That could be a killer IoT…
Juniper Networks has announced its intention to acquire 128 Technology, the company I’ve always said was the drop-dead leader in SD-WAN and virtual network technology. 128T will apparently be integrated with Juniper’s Mist AI at some point, and the combination of the technologies opens up a whole series of options for service creation and automation,…
I was very pleased and interested when Don Clarke, an old friend from the days of NFV, posted a link on a “code of conduct” to “boost innovation and increase vendor diversity”. He asked me to comment on the paper, and I’m going to give it the consideration it deserves by posting a blog on…
The ONF may just have done something very smart. It’s been clear for at least a decade that operators want to buy products rather than just endorsing standards, but how do the products develop in an open-source world where no single player fields a total solution? The ONF says that the answer to that is…
Could we be missing something fundamental in IT and network design? Everyone knows that the focus of good design is creating good outcomes, but should at least equal attention to preventing bad outcomes? A LinkedIn contact of mine who’s contributed some highly useful (and exceptionally thoughtful) comments sent me a reference on “Design for Prevention”…
How would a separate control plane for IP work? What would it facilitate? It’s pretty obvious that if you were to separate the control and data planes of IP, you could tune the implementation of each of these independently, creating the basis for a disaggregated model of routing versus the traditional node-centric IP approach, but…
Cisco is facing a revolution that would totally change their business model, a revolution that will devalue traditional routers. They’re already seeing the signs of a business revolution, in fact. Thus, the question isn’t whether they’ll respond (they must) but how they’ll respond, and where that response might lead the rest of the industry. To…