Minimise the tentacles on the OctopOSS. Keep it simple
“An awful lot of successful technology companies ended up being in a slightly different market than they started out in. Microsoft started with programming tools, but came out with an operating system. Oracle started doing contracts for the CIA. AOL started out as an online video gaming network.” Marc Andreessen. There’s a reason tech companies […]
“I’m sure I learned a great deal at University, and I can probably even recall an equation or two, but I will never forget Professor Collins’ 3 Principles of Engineering: 1. F = ma (The take-away is this: you can’t ignore physics) 2. You can’t push on a rope (You can’t ignore the reality of […]
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” Charles Darwin. An interesting thing happened when looking up the quote for this blog. The quote I was going to use was never actually spoken/written by Charles Darwin, even though it is perhaps the quote […]
“Why do we have to end up processing packets in four or five different locations for different functions? That doesn’t make any sense at all. Connectem consolidates packet gateway functions to process each packet just once, which is much more efficient. This is going to be important as the world moves toward IoT because the […]
“Braess’s paradox is a proposed explanation for why a seeming improvement to a road network can impede traffic through it. It was exposed in 1968 by mathematician Dietrich Braess who noticed that adding a road to a congested road traffic network could increase overall journey time, and has been used to explain incidences of improved […]
“The details are not the details. They make the design.” Charles Eames. Gaining consensus on an OSS document across multiple stakeholders can be a painful exercise. As we all know, each reviewer will have their own biases, agenda, preferences, etc. This is great when the reviews are picking up vital points, but can be detrimental […]
Today’s blog is all about you (actually they all have you in mind collectively, but this one encourages you to voice your specific obstacles to progress). In the world of OSS (or perhaps even beyond), what value can I add that goes beyond the generalities of a blog and will help you get what you […]
“The CISO as a marketer and leader: The Chief Information Security Officer (CISO, or equivalent) will become less focused on technology and security tools, and become considerably more focused on marketing. This is not only focused ‘upwards’ to the Executive team and Board but also across the organisation to all staff and even involve end […]
“I demolish my bridges behind me – then there is no choice but forward.” Fridtjof Nansen. OSS are full of dilemmas aren’t they? We’ve spoken about many of them in the past haven’t we? Today we look at an interesting one in terms of product upgrades. For a vendor, their ideal situation is to have […]
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong..” H. L. Mencken. In yesterday’s blog, we discussed the law of cascading problems where if we have data accuracy levels as follows: Locations are 90% Pits are 95% Ducts are 90% Cables are 90% Joints are 85% Patch panels are 85% […]
“There are two questions to ask during the capex planning process that get to the heart of the issue. First, should a particular investment be made at all? The majority of operators have a long tail of marginally profitable—or downright unprofitable—products, networks, customers, channels and segments. A request for additional investment in such assets is […]
“In our company there’s still a bit of the ‘build and customers will come’ mentality, but those days are gone. If we build the wrong thing in the wrong place or at the wrong price, the customers won’t follow. So, rather than letting technology drive our capex decisions, we need to adopt a more commercial […]
“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!” Dr. Seuss. As OSS architects, we often find ourselves drawing network diagrams and customer service diagrams don’t we? When you draw such drawings, do you tend to draw the customer infrastructure on the […]
“Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.” Mike Tyson. The great thing about Engineers is the solution is always black and white. It has to be perfect or it’s not complete. Well, I’m a qualified Engineer, but I’m not qualified to be an Engineer by these generalisations. You’re probably sick of […]
“If you were able to shrink the Earth to the size of a billiard ball, it would be the smoothest sphere ever created. Hard to believe this if you live near the edge of the Grand Canyon.” Seth Godin here. Great analogy above from Seth. The same goes for data. We’re constantly hearing about Big […]
The Changing Landscape of Operational Support Systems (OSS): Technologies, Solutions, and Organizational Impacts I’m proud to announce that my latest publication has been released today. Click on the image (or here) to find out more about the document published in conjunction with Mind Commerce. Operational Support Systems (OSS) are the essential set of tools required […]
“A core component of Lean Startup methodology is the build-measure-learn feedback loop. The first step is figuring out the problem that needs to be solved and then developing a minimum viable product (MVP) to begin the process of learning as quickly as possible. Once the MVP is established, a startup can work on tuning the […]
“With more success comes greater problems along with greater ability to solve them.” Mark Victor Hansen. Paul Graham’s essays are a great read. There is something unique about the way he views his subject matter (usually startups) and then has the ability to break it down into highly insightful chunks of wisdom for his readers […]
“Today, the FBAR service [Facebook Auto-Remediation] is developed and maintained by two full time engineers, but according to the most recent metrics, it’s doing the work of approximately 200 full time system administrators. FBAR now manages more than 50% of the Facebook infrastructure and we’ve found that services have dramatic increases in reliability when they […]
“The airline industry is notoriously brutal. As Warren Buffett once wrote in a letter to shareholders, “[I]f a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.” Yet Southwest Airlines just recorded its 39th consecutive year of profitability—in a business sector where profits […]
