Project sponsor obligations
“If the primary aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.” Thomas Aquinas. As we all know, OSS projects can be complex behemoths that have as many people-related issues as technically-related issues. More so than on most projects, OSS project sponsors need to be involved. They can’t […]
Ohh, and don’t forget the customer contracts
“I don’t understand this irony – valuable things like cars, gold, diamond are made up of hard materials but most valuable things like money, contracts and books are made up of soft paper.” Amit Kalantri. When planning out a new OSS project, I generally focus on three things first: People (who is involved, who will […]
The book is now available! Mastering your OSS
My OSS book, entitled “Mastering your OSS” is finally available to the market. Click on the image below to take a closer look. For the next two weeks only, I’m offering an extra US$10 off the purchase price to readers of this blog. Just send me an email or a note via the Contact Page […]
1,000 things to avoid a Frankenstein OSS
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have […]
Vendor selection reference checks
“Weaknesses seem to stick in my mind … I’d have to really think about any strengths” Actual reference check response. An past customer of mine recently asked for some guidance on what questions he (a representative of a CSP) should be asking his counterpart CSP that has already selected the OSS vendor that he’s evaluating. […]
The proven way to add value
“The proven way to add value. Do extremely difficult work. That seems obvious, right? If you do something that’s valued but scarce because it’s difficult, you’re more likely to be in demand and to be compensated fairly for what you do. The implication is stunning, though: When designing a project or developing a skill, seek […]
Clarity extends suspension on ASX
Clarity announces extension of suspension from the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). Clarity OSS Limited announced that it has extended the suspension of its shares until 5:00PM on Wed 21 May, 2014 (“Extension Period”). At Clarity’s request, on 14 May 2014, shares in Clarity were suspended until 5:00PM on 19 May 2014 when it was anticipated […]
MANO-a-MANO OSS DNA
“The king is dead, long live the king!” Management and Orchestration (MANO) is one of the key components of ETSI’s NFV specifications. Some believe it and other cloud management approaches will spell the death of OSS as we know it (although NFV topology diagrams show the NFV Orchestrator connecting to higher-order B/OSS). After all, it […]
A reader’s question – Implementation sequence
“I’d like to get your thoughts on how to execute an OSS transformation program. As the OSS (or the OctopOSS as you put it) is made up of Fulfillment, Assurance and Inventory as major pillars / building blocks, it would be quite a big task implementing all these all at once. Should the program start […]
The two lungs of next-gen OSS
“Here we have a baby. It is composed of a bald head and a pair of lungs.” Eugene Field. Many of you by now have seen the freight-train of network virtualisation (cloud, SDN, NFV) rapidly approaching the Telco space. Many in the communications technology world are salivating at the opportunity to leverage cloud-style concepts such […]
Cincinnati Bell and NetCracker Extend
Cincinnati Bell and NetCracker Extend Managed Service, Data Center Hosting, and Application Development Agreement Through 2020. NetCracker Technology announced that Cincinnati Bell will extend its professional service and data center hosting agreement with NetCracker through the year 2020 in order to ensure a steady cost structure for key processing, support functions and applications development for […]
Counter-intuitive OSS
“Cognitive psychology has shown that the mind best understands facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric, such as a narrative, mental map, or intuitive theory. Disconnected facts in the mind are like unlinked pages on the Web: They might as well not exist.” Steven Pinker. A number of colleagues and I attended a […]
Natural Language Processing
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” Nelson Mandela. In a post from over a year ago entitled “I/O, I/O, it’s off to work I go” I spoke about using advanced techniques for […]
SDN outliers
“What’s caused the biggest evolution in SDN is the realization that very few organizations really have the desire, skills and incentives to write a new class of applications to a published API to program the network. These users are outlying use cases compared to the vast majority of organizations just looking to automate IT tasks, […]
Exciting news
“I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you […]
Maintenance mode
“I’m high maintenance, but I’m worth it.” Lara Logan. Funny. Does this ring true for OSS too? 😀 Network and equipment maintenance causes quite a few dilemmas for OSS products and their operators too. Here are a few tips to consider: Performing maintenance or network topology change often causes an alarm storm for the operators […]
Double-byte characters
“A double-byte character set (DBCS) is a character encoding in which either all characters (including control characters) are encoded in two bytes, or merely every graphic character not representable by an accompanying single-byte character set (SBCS) is encoded in two bytes… A DBCS supports national languages that contain a large number of unique characters or […]
High-rise OSS
“Multi-tenancy is an architecture in which a single instance of a software application serves multiple customers. Each customer is called a tenant. Tenants may be given the ability to customize some parts of the application, such as color of the user interface ( UI) or business rules, but they cannot customize the application’s code.” WhatIs.com. […]
Single sign-on (SSO)
“I certainly am interested in accessibility, clarity, and immediacy.” Paul Muldoon. Single Sign-On (SSO) is a means of simplifying user access to a suite of different applications, such as the suite of tools that usually comprise a CSP’s OSS. It allows the user to authenticate once and credentials are propagated through other systems after the […]
Vivacom Selects NetCracker
Vivacom Selects NetCracker’s Real-time Transaction Platform to Monetize Quad-Play Services. NetCracker Technology announced that Vivacom, Bulgaria’s leading quad-play service provider, has agreed to upgrade to its real-time, converged BSS platform , including a five-year extension and professional services agreement. As a result of this upgrade, Vivacom will enable real-time transaction capabilities for its mobile, fixed-line, […]