Do you know what the word ossify means? If not, can you guess?
No, it’s not another of my made-up words to describe OSS in an obscure way.
For those of you who didn’t already know that it’s a real word and what it means, wait for it… it means to cease developing; to stagnate. It’s more commonly used in medical circles – to turn into bone, become bony, harden, solidify, stiffen, rigidify, petrify, fossilize.
Hopefully the name is not a portent of doom for the OSS industry. Some already believe that our OSS are stagnating and are looking for a new term and a correspondingly new and innovative approach to managing comms networks.
Naturally, I don’t believe we’re stagnant because I can see all the amazing work that’s being done around the globe to make our OSS bigger and better. And yet I do have the sense that we’re putting so much time into incremental change that we’re missing the bigger picture – the picture of the exponential growth that’s going on around us.
A “more of the same” approach means that we are ossifying in a relative sense. We’re still developing, yet losing ground.
For me, one of the most amazing stories in the Pixar phenomenon is that almost every movie (or every couple of movies) requires a complete overhaul of their hardware / software platforms. By contrast, many OSS are still heavily based around platforms from the nineties and early noughties. If Pixar can take that mindset, effectively an exponential thinking mindset to counter techonological half-life, then surely our equal dependence on technology requires a similar concept of complete regeneration to avoid ossification.
Making your OSS easy to use isn’t about adding more “easyness” – it’s about subtracting what sucks. “To make your stuff “easier to use” you
During my first forays into OSS, over a period of 6+ years, I averaged 85 hours a week whilst being paid for a 40 hour
The call came in at 5:43am. “The routers are acting up again down at 1313 Packetloss Lane” the night supervisor whispered, as if afraid the
Telco appears to be an increasingly tough industry. Demand for connectivity continues to soar, yet profitability and differentiation are becoming ever more difficult to achieve.
Here at Passionate About OSS, we are exactly that – Passionate About OSS (Operational Support Systems). We’re also passionate about BSS, NMS, or any other names you call the tools that help to operationalise your network.
One Response
If habits or ideas ossify, or if something ossifies them, they become fixed and unable to change. This is true with Telecommunication / IT. An ossified OSS will be a real “show-stopper”. Look at ECOMP (Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management & Policy) and NFV/SDN.