Choosing a Technology Supplier? Consider Changing Your Selection Criteria

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Kruz 5/26/2015 | 2:03:15 PM

Re: GTO...3D @jbailo: I totally agree with your description on SDN and NFV.

But more importantly, and while you are on it, please print an additional GTO for me, I could use one :)

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jabailo 5/26/2015 | 11:51:10 AM

GTO...3D My dream car is the '68 Pontiac GTO.

But I expect that soon I will be able to 3D print the exact year and model I want, regardless of the current remaining stock of originals.

In some sense, with the world of SDN and NFV, Network Architects are in the same position.

Less sanding and machining, more sitting down and conceptualizing.

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janerygaard 5/20/2015 | 2:33:56 PM

We all need to change ... Building the network of the future will take something else than one of the past - so I think it is clear we as an industry need to change, independent of sitting in telco or IT today. As everything merges and we can utilize cloud technology starting with NFV and SDN, business models as well as the need for integration and interoperability will change for us all.

Can we live with less than 5 9s? I believe that depends on what the network is being used for, e.g. public safety services could be a problem. Can we accept other services to have more downtime, most likely. But can we afford to build more than one network, depending on the services it should serve?

I will leave out comments on integration and testing of network and services, in a world where standards are not given.

However a bigger challenge will be the mindset change, not only for how to plan, buy and launch networks and services, but also run them. So I am missing the 6. point about keeping the services alive in this landscape.

But no matter what - it all comes down to the customer/users/subscribers (or whatever we call them) experience of the services we consume. Because that is what the CSPs needs to provide - and therefore giving the criterias for what a supplier needs to supply. (and that will change again in a programmable world)

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mendyk 5/19/2015 | 3:27:10 PM

Re: Why IT matters It's true that mobile service has conditioned users to expect and tolerate less than five 9s reliability. But there are lots of essential operations that absolutely require something like five 9s, which equates to downtime of about 5 minutes a year.

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melao2 5/19/2015 | 2:42:29 PM

Re: Why IT matters We do not need 5 9s. We need a service with best effort SLA paid by advertisement, i.e., free for the end user. :)

Oh how i love the internet!

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brooks7 5/19/2015 | 12:59:49 PM

Re: Why IT matters Mitch,

The whole thing about 5 9s is the amount of downtime on an annual basis and the fines associated with them. The quality problems on the IT side of the shop tend to be different. Downtime is not really an issue. Failures are. How many times have you had a SaaS product "break" on a new release and not be up for hours to days?

I think the last time we talked about such a thing on the SP side was a Juniper software release or was it some Optical Gear where there were a number of line card failures?

seven

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Mitch Wagner 5/19/2015 | 11:39:45 AM

Re: Why IT matters Kevin Mitchell - For service providers, it's a question of which apps require those five 9s of reliability -- voice, as you say, is certainly one -- and which apps can be more forgiving in the name of innovation.

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Kevin Mitchell 5/19/2015 | 10:43:41 AM

Re: Why IT matters I get this sentiment with the fail fast mindset, but when it comes to voice, I'm not sure it's going to fly.

Reliability and quality are the two prime ways service providers win. I don't think they can sacrifice that in the NFV era.

Voice Apps, Video Not Wooing the Enterprise

Rather, reliability is still the top requirement. John Guillaume, vice president of product management and strategy at Comcast, said that customers are buying service from Comcast because of the value and ease of ownership through a self-managed web portal, not because of the bells and whistles.

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Mitch Wagner 5/18/2015 | 7:03:20 PM

Why IT matters

One reason for carriers to look to enterprise IT expertise is that these carriers are looking to provide managed enterprise IT services.

Reduced uptime was as theme at a couple of the conferences I attended recently. One speaker said five 9s is the enemy of innovation, because no new service ever achieves five 9s in its first iteration.

I'm just going to stare at that car for a while now.

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Kevin Mitchell 5/18/2015 | 4:54:53 PM

Danger of Decomposition Ah, decomposing your network. Sounds so appealing. It could mean getting to the simplest form or it could mean rotting, as in dead and not working.

IMS brought us The Great Decomposition of Voice. That's been a fun journey hasn't it? While standards bodies and vendors have been decomposing the technology, so too has the business case rotted for building these networks.

For the past several years Infonetics Research IMS surveys note that MONEY as the chief barrier to IMS (hint: CAPEX + fixed OPEX is not a good model for a flat-to-declining voice market).

Decomposition also brings about operational complexity. A basic IMS call could comprise 136 messages across 17 functional elements and involve six different protocols. NFV adds even more functions and more interactions. There are more moving parts and more chances that components can get out of synch. Upgrades and troubleshooting may be a nightmare.

There's service agility in there somewhere. Maybe some rotting parts too.

System integration to solve this is one approach. It at least solves the initial build, but not necessarily the ongoing complexity. Cloud sourcing technology and specific applications is an alternative approach that solves that complexity day one and going forward.

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