As an implementer of OSS, what's the single factor that makes it challenging for us to deliver on any of the three constraints of project delivery? Complexity. Or put another way, variants. The more variants, the less chance we have of delivering on time, cost or functionality. So let me ask you, is our next evolution simpler? No, actually. At least, it doesn't seem so to…
Read More »You all know I'm a fan of training operators in OSS sandpits (and as apprenticeships during the build phase) rather than a week or two of classroom training at the end of a project. To reduce the re-work in building a sandpit environment, which will probably be a dev/test environment rather than a production environment, I like to go all the way back to the vendor…
Read More »Have you noticed that OSS projects need to go through extensive review to get funding of business cases? That makes sense. They tend to be a big investment after all. Many OSS projects fail, so we want to make sure this one doesn't and we perform thorough planing / due-diligence. But I do find it interesting that we spend less time and effort on Post Implementation…
Read More »We all know that once installed, OSS tend to stay in place for many years. Too much effort to air-lift in. Too much effort to air-lift back out, especially if tightly integrated over time. The monolithic COTS (off-the-shelf) tools of the past would generally be commissioned and customised during the initial implementation project, with occasional integrations thereafter. That meant we needed to plan out what functionality…
Read More »ONF Hits The Ground Running with Execution of New Strategic Plan. Providing an update to its previously announced strategic plan aimed at creating a robust supply chain for open source solutions for operators, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) today announced key milestones achieved. The achievements include the formation of the Technical Leadership Team (TLT), finalization on the initial focus areas for Reference Designs (RDs) and that four key new…
Read More »Something curious dawned on me the other day - I wondered how many people / organisations actively manage alarms / alerts being generated by their lab equipment? At first glance, this would seem silly. Lab environments are in constant flux, in all sorts of semi-configured situations, and therefore likely to be alarming their heads off at different times. As such, it would seem even sillier to…
Read More »If I start talking about doomsday scenarios where the global OSS job industry is decimated, most people will immediately jump to the conclusion that I'm predicting an artificial intelligence (AI) takeover. AI could have a role to play, but is not a key facet of the scenario I'm most worried about. You'd think that OSS would be quite a niche industry, but there must be thousands…
Read More »Since the soccer World Cup is currently taking place in Russia, I thought I'd include reference to the MoSCoW technique in today's blog. It could be used as part of your vendor selection processes for the purpose of OSS requirement prioritisation. "The term MoSCoW itself is an acronym derived from the first letter of each of four prioritization categories (Must have, Should have, Could have, and…
Read More »"The dartboard, by contrast, is not remotely logical, but is somehow brilliant. The 20 sector sits between the dismal scores of five and one. Most players aim for the triple-20, because that's what professionals do. However, for all but the best darts players, this is a mistake. If you are not very good at darts, your best opening approach is not to aim at triple-20 at…
Read More »There's a lot of excitement about what machine-led decisioning can introduce into the world of network operations, and rightly so. Excitement about predictions, automation, efficiency, optimisation, zero-touch assurance, etc. There are so many use-cases that disruptors are proposing to solve using Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and the like. I might have even been guilty of proposing a few ideas here on the PAOSS blog…
Read More »It's an interesting season as we come up to the EOFY (end of financial year - on 30 June). Budget cycles are coming to an end. At organisations that don't carry un-spent budgets into the next financial year, the looming EOFY triggers a use-it-or-lose-it mindset. In some cases, organisations are almost forced to allocate funds on OSS investments even if they haven't always had the time…
Read More »When we have a big OSS transformation to undertake, we tend to start with the use cases / requirements, work our way through the technical solution and build up an implementation plan before delivering it (yes, I've heavily reduced the real number of steps there!). However, we sometimes overlook the organisational change management part. That's the process of getting the customer's organisation aligned to assist with…
Read More »Microsoft to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billion. Microsoft Corp. announced it has reached an agreement to acquire GitHub, the world’s leading software development platform where more than 28 million developers learn, share and collaborate to create the future. Together, the two companies will empower developers to achieve more at every stage of the development lifecycle, accelerate enterprise use of GitHub, and bring Microsoft’s developer tools and…
Read More »"The global Internet of Things (IoT) market will be worth $1.1 trillion in revenue by 2025 as market value shifts from connectivity to platforms, applications and services. By that point, there will be more than 25 billion IoT connections (cellular and non-cellular), driven largely by growth in the industrial IoT market. The Asia Pacific region is forecast to become the largest global IoT region in terms…
Read More »There are so many actions that could be automated by / with / in our OSS. It can be hard to know where to start can't it? One approach is to look at where the largest amounts of manual effort is being expended by operators. Another way is to employ the "paint the fence" analogy. When envisaging fulfilment workflows, it's easiest to picture actions that start…
Read More »"For more than a century, economies of scale made the corporation an ideal engine of business. But now, a flurry of important new technologies, accelerated by artificial intelligence (AI), is turning economies of scale inside out. Business in the century ahead will be driven by economies of unscale, in which the traditional competitive advantages of size are turned on their head. Economies of unscale are enabled…
Read More »"Many systems are moving beyond simple virtualization and are being run on dynamic private or even public clouds. CSPs will migrate many to hybrid clouds because of concerns about data security and regulations on where data are stored and processed. We believe that over the next 15 years, nearly all software systems will migrate to clouds provided by third parties and be whatever cloud native becomes…
Read More »“In the past, business-oriented groups have had ideas about what they want to do and then they come to us… Now, they want to know what technology can bring to the table and then they’ll work on the business plan. So there’s a big gap here. It’s a phenomenon that’s been happening in the last year and it’s an uncomfortable place for IT. We’re not used…
Read More »"In 1972, the Club of Rome in its report The Limits to Growth predicted a steadily increasing demand for material as both economies and populations grew. The report predicted that continually increasing resource demand would eventually lead to an abrupt economic collapse. Studies on material use and economic growth show instead that society is gaining the same economic growth with much less physical material required. Between…
Read More »"All over the world - from America's National Football League (NFL) to the National Basketball Association (NBA), from our own AFL to NRL - athletes and coaches are cultivating club cultures in which tales of personal hardship and woe are welcome, even desirable. All are clamouring to embrace the biggest buzzword in professional sport: vulnerability. The most publicised incarnation of this shift was the "Triple H"…
Read More »"Skills multiply labors by two, five, 10, 50, 100 times. You can chop a tree down with a hammer, but it takes about 30 days. That’s called labor. But if you trade the hammer in for an ax, you can chop the tree down in about 30 minutes. What's the difference in 30 days and 30 minutes? Skills—skills make the difference." Jim Rohn, here. OSS can…
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