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Please contact:
Jeff Claudino
Director of Sales, Insider Research Services
619-229-9940
or via email at:
claudino@lightreading.com |
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| more news |
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| A TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH SERVICE |
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| A CABLE/MSO SECTOR RESEARCH SERVICE |
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| A SILICON & SUBSYSTEM RESEARCH SERVICE |
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| A BUSINESS-CLASS VOICE APPLICATIONS RESEARCH SERVICE |
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| A WIRELESS INFRASTRUCTURE RESEARCH SERVICE |
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| REAL WORLD RESEARCH |
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| Infrastructure as a Service: Telcos Aim for the Cloud |
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Over the next five years, a world in which every company buys, owns, and operates a complete stack of network, servers, storage devices, operating systems, databases, and applications to support their business activities will begin to disappear. Instead, enterprises and consumers will buy at least some of their IT and network infrastructure as a utility available through an IP connection, when and where they need it.
The move to infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provided from the cloud is enabled by a key technology: virtualization. Virtualization "untethers" utility software and applications from physical equipment, so that there is no longer a one-to-one correspondence between them. Instead, many more virtual instances of applications, operating systems, databases, and other software tools can be supported by a single piece of equipment, reducing the number of hardware platforms needed to run a business. As virtualization provides a simulacrum of the physical infrastructure in software, the physical environment can be configured and managed like software, providing resources that can be "turned up or down" on demand.
Several enterprises have chosen to outsource the management of their networks, IT platforms, and/or applications to third parties to reduce cost and protect themselves against skill shortages. Outsourcers can squeeze economies of scale from hosting these platforms in their data centers and managing replications of the same infrastructure and applications for multiple customers.
Virtualization is a key ingredient of IaaS and an enabler of the IaaS revolution. It has crept into all aspects of the infrastructure, starting with networks and progressing into IT processing platforms and utility and application software. As is often the case with maturing technologies, virtualization started as a separate software layer overlaid on operating systems; now the hypervisor is being driven down into the OS itself as an integral feature, or becoming a "cloud" OS.
IaaS is an opportunity that operators are well-placed to exploit. In many ways, it can be regarded as "the new voice": IaaS must be delivered ubiquitously, must be always-on, must have dial-tone levels of reliability and QoS, and requires a telco's connectivity and skills. Telcos may have the infrastructure needed to support IaaS in abundance, but their legacy and siloed organizational structures can count against them, since IaaS is the ultimate "joined-up" service.
Infrastructure as a Service: Telcos Aim for the Cloud examines the development of IaaS, explores the opportunity it represents for telcos, and analyzes the key areas telcos still need to address – particularly around infrastructure management – if they are to participate in this emerging market. It also profiles ten leading providers of IaaS-enabling technologies.
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| Sample research data from the report is shown in the excerpts below: |
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 Table of Contents (ssi0609toc.pdf) |
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| IaaS is a very different proposition from traditional Web hosting, both for the companies that consume it and for the service providers that offer it. IaaS is a highly scaleable, high-volume, and potentially high-margin business where virtualization, automation, and standardization are needed to drive down cost, including headcount, and to reduce operational complexity. The following excerpt summarizes the core requirements for IaaS, as identified by service providers rolling out IaaS services, and the infrastructure capabilities that are needed to achieve them. |
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| [click on the image above for the full excerpt] |
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 Companies profiled in this report include: CA Inc. (Nasdaq: CA); Digital Fuel Technologies Inc.; Enomaly Inc.; Force10 Networks Inc.; IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM); Ixia (Nasdaq: XXIA); Ontology Systems; Reflex Systems Ltd.; Telcordia Technologies Inc.; and VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW). |
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| Total pages: 29 |
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| JULY 2009 |
 Service Creation Status Report |
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| SEPTEMBER 2009 |
| Network, Service, and Subscriber Intelligence |
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| NOVEMBER 2009 |
| Third-Party Management |
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| * Calendar subject to change |
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