There is no question that videoconferencing tools have saved companies from a pandemic lockdown crisis. There’s little question that familiarity with the tools will promote their use in the future, even when there’s no pandemic to drive change. They may indeed replace voice calls for many business interactions, even those involving only two parties. We’ve…
Why Would Google Want To Be Your Babysitter?
Google wants to be your babysitter? That’s a pretty interesting tag line, and one that Protocol has offered us. According to their piece, parent Alphabet has filed a patent in the space. “Not that many of us are leaving home much, but in that distant future when the world returns to normal, Google wants to…
Can Microsoft Make the Most of Metaswitch?
A tale of two announcements; that’s a nice literary play on my blog topic. Cisco announced its earnings, and it’s always a useful barometer on telco spending trends. In addition, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Metaswitch, and that seems to me to decide the question of how its recent Azure Edge Zone stuff should be…
What’s Holding Back Open-Model Networking?
Openness is good, right? We need open-source software. We need open APIs, open standards, and open-model networking. OK, let’s agree to agree on those points. The question is how exactly does openness come about, and particularly in the network space. A collateral question is whether there are degrees of success, and if there is, the…
Using Models to Mediate Lifecycle Behavior in Networks
Lifecycle automation is all about handling events with automated processes. Event interpretation has to be contextual, which means that this process of event-handling needs to include a recognition of specific contexts or states, so that events are properly interpreted. There are advantages of state/event tables over policies in controlling event-handling in lifecycle automation, at least…
What Might Apple Have in Mind for a Cloud?
Why is Apple seemingly behind in the cloud? This isn’t a new question (I’ve pointed out their lagging position for a decade), but it’s perhaps a serious issue now that it’s clear that the cloud is playing a growing role in IT. Not only that, the cloud is impacting application development. One could argue that…
Is There an Application Design Dimension to Cloud Optimization?
The cloud seems to be a clear winner in a pandemic world, but it’s often true that winning, placing, and showing (as they say in horseraces) are separated by a whisker. The cloud trends, during and after the pandemic, are far from simple. I blogged earlier about the need for a new way of providing…
IBM and Red Hat Take on the Edge
The carrier cloud and edge computing stories just never seem to end. Just yesterday, I noted the trend in edge computing that promised a bit of action in the edge, relating to 5G and carrier cloud. It looked like public cloud players might be seizing the 5G edge. Now, IBM and Red Hat have thrown…
New Battle Lines Emerge at the Edge
We may be seeing some clarity in the edge space, arising perhaps surprisingly from some increased confusion. There are more players emerging, more theories promulgating, and more value propositions being tested, to be sure. What’s interesting is that some trends are emerging. The biggest question in edge computing is just who has the edge, so…
Maximizing the Shift to Public Cloud
Cloud computing is going to grow because of the pandemic and lockdown. There’s no question of that, but how much it might grow and what it might grow into are harder to assess. The issues that impact those questions range from security/compliance to simple cost, and enterprise planners are grappling with how to come to…