Network virtualisation is going to continue to have a major influence on the evolution of OSS. It’s going to be exciting to watch it all unfold.
“Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.” Ronald Reagan. Speaking with many of the large OSS vendors, it seems that the tier-one Telco and Utility market is still their prime sales and marketing focus, not to mention their product development focus. Interestingly, I wonder whether […]
“Software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) create new management challenges that can’t be addressed with current operations support systems (OSSs). SDN and particularly NFV – which is emerging as the larger, “umbrella” concept – are therefore encouraging new companies, with new network management approaches, to enter the market, while causing established players to […]
“The trouble with the future is that it usually arrives before we’re ready for it.” Anonymous. It strikes me that there are a lot of network experts in the world but there aren’t very many OSS experts, relatively. As such, OSS is a relatively more immature market in terms of the brainpower that has been […]
“The problems you’ve got left… are probably the difficult ones. We’d all like to find discount answers to our problems. Organizations, governments and individuals prefer to find the solution that’s guaranteed to work, takes little time and even less effort. Of course, the problems that lend themselves to bargain solutions have already been solved. What […]
“Network Virtualisation must…. De-couple Reproduce Automate“ Matt Berry in a presentation discussing VMware NSX. The link above takes you on a great presentation of network virtualisation in general, but VMware’s specific instantiation, NSX. The flexibility of these types of network changes will similarly impact the flexibility that your OSS will need to achieve. Can your […]
“IBM’s big January sale looks set to continue with the firm’s software-defined networking [SDN] business rumoured to be on the market for some $1 billion.” ITProPortal. This is a fascinating story if true. Given that I’m sure that network virtualisation, be it SDN or other, will become widespread in future years, it makes me ponder […]
“A strategic inflection point is a time in the life of business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end.” Andrew S. Grove, Only the Paranoid Survive. Let me start today by asking […]
“We deceive ourselves when we fancy that only weakness needs support. Strength needs it far more.” Anne Sophie Swetchine. We’ve been extolling the virtues of SDN for some time now. But how about possible weaknesses? In an earlier post entitled Carrier SDN we discussed the potential reduction in time to market (TTM) in a software […]
“The difference between extracting simplicity and mastering complexity is largely whether we focus on defining the right abstractions or creating new mechanisms.” Scott Shenker. The diagram below provides a slide taken from a speech by Scott Shenker on the principles behind SDN (Software Defined Networking). You can listen to the words surrounding this slide roughly […]
“Carriers could have a couple of different viewpoints [on SDN]. One is we’ve gotta do something on our equipment costs because they’re not going down as fast as traffic is going up. Others say I want to compete with the data centre operators, the cloud providers. Others say I just want greater service velocity. I […]
“We all live every day in virtual environments, defined by our ideas.” Michael Crichton. Thought you might be interested in this video showing the provisioning a network in software using NSX from VMware. Further info on the NSX suite can be found here: The interesting part about the second link is that Cisco is the […]
“Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) explicitly targets the two biggest problems facing network operators: bringing costs in line with revenue growth expectations and improving service velocity.” Rajeev Tiwari. Two helpful opinion pieces regarding NFV are shown below: Why Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)?? by Rajeev Tiwari WTF is… NFV by Tony Smith The network functions described by […]
“Wherever I see people doing something the way it’s always been done, the way it’s ‘supposed’ to be done, following the same old trends, well, that’s just a big red flag to me to go look somewhere else.” Mark Cuban. Has your OSS been SMAC-ed yet? Social Mobility Analytics (Big Data) Cloud (and Virtualisation) Have […]
“Scientists have been warning about global warming for decades. It’s too late to stop it now, but we can lessen its severity and impacts.” David Suzuki. We’ve all heard the stories of global warming leading to increasing occurrences of cataclysmic weather events. Further to yesterday’s blog about big data and the ever-increasing data flowing through […]
“Each year Gartner gives buzzwords a reality check by publishing its Hype Cycle report. The latest one focusing on big data shows that the industry is just reaching the peak of its hype right now, with vendors flocking to the market, customers getting anxious that they don’t yet fully understand the technology, and the expectations […]
“Innovation accelerates and compounds. Each point in front of you is bigger than anything that ever happened.” Marc Andreessen. Regular readers / subscribers of this blog have noticed that SDN / NFV (Software Defined Networking and Network Function Virtualisation) has been a regular topic of conversation because it has the potential to revolutionise not just […]
“Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 110 years ago today, the Wright Brothers made the first manned flight, a well known story. Not quite so well known is the story of Samuel Langley, […]
“A communications network forms the backbone of any successful organization. These networks transport a multitude of applications and data, including high-quality video and delay-sensitive data such as real-time voice. The bandwidth-intensive applications stretch network capabilities and resources, but also complement, add value, and enhance every business process. Networks must provide secure, predictable, measurable, and sometimes […]
“As consumers we are incredibly discerning. We sense where has been great care in the design, and when there is cynicism and greed.” Jonathan Ive. Over the years, I’ve created interface specifications for many devices, element managers and network managers (NE/EMS/NMS). Some have been very easy to figure out. Others have been highly complex. Today, […]
“Gold was discovered in California in of 1848. By May of 1848 reports were stating there is more gold in them there hills that all the people in California could take out in fifty years.” A man called Samuel Brannan opened his small store at John Sutter’s Fort, right in the heart of the gold […]
