When OSS experts are wrong

When experts are wrong, it’s often because they’re experts on an earlier version of the world.”
Paul Graham.
 
OSS experts are often wrong. Not only because of the “earlier version of the world” paradigm mentioned above, but also the “parallel worlds” paradigm that’s not explicitly mentioned. That is, they may be experts on one organisation’s OSS (possibly from spending years working on it), but have relatively little transferable expertise on other OSS.
 
It would be nice if the OSS world view never changed and we could just get more and more expert at it, approaching an asymptote of expertise. Alas, it’s never going to be like that. Instead, we experience a world that’s changing across some of our most fundamental building blocks.
 
We are the sum total of our experiences.”
B.J. Neblett.
 
My earliest forays into OSS had a heavy focus on inventory. The tie-in between services, logical and physical inventory (and all use-cases around it) was probably core to me becoming passionate about OSS. I might even go as far as saying I’m “an Inventory guy.”
 
Those early forays occurred when there was a scarcity mindset in network resources. You provisioned what you needed and only expanded capacity within tight CAPEX envelopes. Managing inventory and optimising revenue using these scarce resources was important. We did that with the help of Inventory Management (IM) tools. Even end-users had a mindset of resource scarcity. 
 
But the world has changed. We now operate with a cloud-inspired abundance mindset. We over-provision physical resources so that we can just spin up logical / virtual resources whenever we wish. We have meshed, packet-switched networks rather than nailed up circuits. Generally speaking, cost per resource has fallen dramatically so we now buy a much higher port density, compute capacity, dollar per bit, etc. Customers of the cloud generation assume abundance of capacity that is even available in small consumption-based increments. In many parts of the world we can also assume ubiquitous connectivity.
 
So, as “an inventory guy,” I have to question whether the scarcity to abundance transformation might even fundamentally change my world-view on inventory management. Do I even need an inventory management solution or should I just ask the network for resources when I want to turn on new customers and assume the capacity team has ensured there’s surplus to call upon?
 
Is the enormous expense we allocate to building and reconciling a digital twin of the network (ie the data gathered and used by Inventory Management) justified? Could we circumvent many of the fallouts (and a multitude of other problems) that occur because the inventory data doesn’t accurately reflect the real network?
 
For example, in the old days I always loved how much easier it was to provision a customer’s mobile / cellular or IN (Intelligent Network) service than a fixed-line service. It was easier because fixed-line service needed a whole lot more inventory allocation and reservation logic and process. Mobile / IN services didn’t rely on inventory, only an availability of capacity (mostly). Perhaps the day has almost come where all services are that easy to provision?
 
Yes, we continue to need asset management and capacity planning. Yes, we still need inventory management for physical plant that has no programmatic interface (eg cables, patch-panels, joints, etc). Yes, we still need to carefully control the capacity build-out to CAPEX to revenue balance (even more so now in a lower-profitability operator environment). But do many of the other traditional Inventory Management and resource provisioning use cases go away in a world of abundance?
 

 

I’d love to hear your opinions, especially from all you other “inventory guys” (and gals)!! Are your world-views, expertise and experiences changing along these lines too or does the world remain unchanged from your viewing point?
 
Hat tip to Garry for the seed of this post!

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  1. “”do many of the other traditional Inventory Management and resource provisioning use cases go away in a world of abundance?”””

    Traditional maybe but all inventory management definitely Not. They just become entirely dynamic. So instead of a piece of inventory being Bought as a Capital purchase it merely exists ephemerally for a short while as a service under Opex. For example a firewall for a customer might simply exist virtually for a day or a month and then is disposed of.
    Being ephemeral and dynamic there is all the more need for Inventory Management else no-one would have any idea of what is going on. It’s just not Capital Assets any more.

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