Could the future of metro networks lie somewhere other than the interconnection of central offices or 4G/5G infrastructure? Could shared hosting facilities play a role in the future of the cloud, as shared towers have in mobile networking? All this is possible, if there’s going to be a lot of edge data centers in our…
If operators want open-model networking, it’s inescapable that they need an open model. We know from past experience that simply insisting on white boxes and open-source software doesn’t secure the benefits operators expect; there’s too much cutting and fitting required in building a cooperative system. That raises two questions; what exactly is in an “open…
Do network operators have to earn a profit on their networks? That seems a simple question, but if we consider that operators have reported a decade of decline in profit per bit consumed, we also have to consider whether at some point they’ll be unwilling or unable to continue to expand network reach and capacity. …
You can’t build a network with a single element, or at least not a useful one. As soon as you have multiple elements, though, you have the problem of getting them all to work together. If those multiple elements are themselves made up of a set of layered software components, then is the problem of…
IBM just had a major cloud outage, and it certainly won’t help the company’s efforts to become the “cloud provider to the corporate giants” or maximize the value of its Red Hat acquisition. It also raises questions about whether there are complexity issues in cloud-building, and in cloud networking, that we may have glossed over….
What exactly is a PaaS in function hosting? I mentioned the term and concept in my Thursday blog (https://blog.cimicorp.com/?p=4162) and I got some questions from my contacts and clients. What I’d like to do here is summarize the notion of PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) in function hosting, in part to prepare for what I hope will be…
Could the cable industry be trying to do function virtualization the right way? Light Reading reports some insight on that issue HERE, and references an Altran open-source project in support of the industry’s efforts. One thing that strikes me immediately on reviewing some of the detail is that CableLabs is apparently starting off with something…
We’ve stamped out paid prioritization and settlement on the Internet, right? Well, the Internet is not our only consumeristic IP network. In fact, more and more traffic we think of as “Internet” traffic is carried on something else, something I’ll call the “Undernet”. Is this development good or bad, a threat to us or a…
Ciena beat earnings estimates and revenues for the quarter, which certainly earns the company some Street creds. It also says a lot about network infrastructure directions, network equipment vendors, and even Ciena’s own future. What’s impressive about Ciena’s quarter is that it actually did better than usual in earnings, and nearly matched past high quarters…
It may be time to take a new look at the impact of coronavirus and the lockdown, since it appears (we all hope and pray) that things are starting to open up. I’ve been gathering information and running my models, and there are some interesting results. My data is US-centric, so unless I comment otherwise,…