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As service providers exploit broadband to do things like provide VOIP or video-on-demand and other complex, bandwidth-hungry services to an eager end-user population, it has become even more critical to manage that complexity. Thus service management is evolving rapidly, away from simply looking at the elements within the network's infrastructure and toward managing the actual delivery of the service from start to finish – always with a keen eye toward the ultimate goal: the end-user experience. Even OSS platforms are now integrating IT management capabilities, such as server management and storage infrastructure management. EMC is banking on its ability to model the entire carrier infrastructure, not only defining its elements, but doing network discovery, building a topology of the physical components, and mapping logical and even virtual relationships. The end result: a refined ability to understand problems and failures and their root causes based on actual or potential impacts to the desired user experience.
Service providers are building out capacity to handle the growing demands for more services, such as video and enterprise-class services. As a result, we're seeing a hasty move to 100G. The standards are largely in place, but as with any major movement to a standard like 100G, an array of component suppliers, equipment makers, and service providers must all come together and ensure seamless interoperability. The charter of the 100G Alliance is to acclerate the adoption of 100G by providing a framework for the ecosystem to work together, test implementations, and encourage complete solutions.
