Interview: Dan Pitt on Network Management

Ahead of the Network Management Show 2014, we've been interviewing our speakers to get their views on the hot topics.

This week we spoke to Dan Pitt, Executive Director, Open Networking Foundation, who will be discussing 'SDN: The key to consistent, unified management of diverse networks' on Day Two of the event.

Why is network management important in the telecom industry today?

For as long as the telecom industry has existed, the network has been its main investment and its main source of revenue. Network management is just the careful stewarding of this precious resource that represents the lifeblood of the business. When properly executed, network management enables the network operator to maximize revenue at minimal cost. In the Open Networking Foundation, we work to provide network operators with much more effective tools for network management and control. Our focus on software-defined networking (SDN) directly contributes to both the minimizing of costs and the maximizing of revenue.

Where do you see most innovation happening in the network today?

The most innovative development in the network today is the value shift from hardware to software. We all agree that hardware is often the optimal solution for moving traffic through the network, but enlightened operators understand that software under their control and not running in the network hardware provides them the most flexibility for service innovation and for reduction of both opex and capex.

Is how you manage your network an opportunity for differentiation for telecom operators?

The main opportunity for differentiation for telecom operators is in the creation and offering of novel services that generate revenue and attract customers. Creative service velocity relies on a combination of capabilities: flexible but basically generic hardware in the network, operator-unique software under the control of the operator that defines customer-facing services, and network management and control technologies for directing the network hardware to behave in a manner that implements the desired services. These technologies include network monitoring to gauge the state and condition of the network, analysis and orchestration software to translate service definitions into network behaviors, and network control protocols to direct the network hardware appropriately. ONF helps define these protocols.

How do you guarantee the customer experience?

For decades, telecom service providers focused on the sole metric of network availability, often expressed as .99999 (referred to as “five nines”). That worked fine when the only telecom service was telephony. Now that telecom operators offer a wide range of services, quality of experience is an increasingly important measure of service effectiveness. Assurance of quality of experience depends on several factors. An often overlooked one involves human factors and psychology, which are tied to subscriber expectations and are highly application-specific. Probably the operator’s greatest weapon in assuring the desired customer experience is the advancement of computer science, in particular multicore computing, distributed-systems software, and virtualization, as a much greater component of the customer experience takes place in servers rather than in the network than in even the recent past. Finally, the unrelenting surge in network traffic impels the operator to do everything possible to have bandwidth available where and when an application or a service needs it. Operators can no longer afford to overprovision every link in their network or in their data centers. Among their most effective tools to avoid overprovisioning are network virtualization and SDN.

Can operators look at trends such as SDN, Big Data, and network sharing in isolation or must they consider the wider Network Management perspective?

Disruptive technologies typically take time for their deployers to learn enough about them to deploy them effectively. SDN (and probably the other technologies mentioned) represents such a dramatic change in how to even think about networks that its ultimate impact will span much more than network management. Therefore, we recommend that network operators experiment with SDN on a small scale and (as they gain expertise) apply it to their most pressing problems. Different parts of a network operator’s business will undoubtedly have different ideas of how to exploit the new technologies. For the network management team, SDN, Big Data, and network sharing will all be tools to leverage, often together, but only after they are better understood. We recommend that network operators get started right away to explore the potential benefits of SDN, as the two dozen operators who are members of SDN are already doing.

If you are interested in attending The Network Management Show you can find out more here.

Interview: Douglas Loewe on Network Management

Ahead of the Network Management Show 2014, we've been interviewing our speakers to get their views on the hot topics.

 

This week we spoke to Douglas Loewe, Managing Director, Interxion, who will be speaking on Day 1 of the conference on the topic of 'Connectivity and Managing Data Centres: Making Smart Cities a Reality'. Read his thoughts below.  

Why is network management important in the telecom industry today? 

As a carrier neutral data centre, we don’t operate our own network, but we do work with over 500 carriers, so we have a pretty good understanding of what works for them and their customers.

 
One of things our customers say they look for when picking a carrier is the ability to ensure their high value applications have excellent response times for their end users. To deliver good response times you need to have good network management, so in my view good network management is absolutely crucial for the telecom industry.    

 

Where do you see most innovation happening in the network today? 

I think the key innovation has to be around flexibility through things like better speed of provisioning and dynamic bandwidth. Also I think application aware networking is really interesting and something that is changing the networking landscape.    

 

Is how you manage your network an opportunity for differentiation for telecom operators? 

Definitely.  When enterprises come to our data centre they tend to already know which carriers they want to use and the carriers that we hear the most are usually the ones that are well managed, offer flexibility and most importantly can deliver good response times.

 

How do you guarantee the customer experience? 

From what I see when working with carriers, is those that offer extra layers of resilience with good capacity to handle rapid traffic growth are usually the ones that continuously deliver on customer experience.  

 

Can operators look at trends such as SDN, Big Data, and network sharing in isolation or must they consider the wider Network Management perspective?

 

I don’t think any of these can be looked at in isolation. What we are seeing is that carrier-neutral data centres are the place where operators are introducing their SDN and Big Data products first and enterprises are selecting the carriers that can support all of these services and have a integrated approach on them.   

 

If you are interested in attending The Network Management Show you can find out more here.

Help operators navigate the network maze #NMS14

Could you explain one of the key aspects relating to management of today's complex networks to an audience of telecom operators and service providers? The Network Management Show is looking for content partners to help run the workshop sessions on areas such as:

- SDN & NFV
- leveraging Big Data
- network sharing and outsourcing
- automating networks
- delivering outstanding customer experience

If you are interested in the opportunity to be a content partner, download the information file or email sales@totaltele.com

18 Big Mobile Stories plus New opportunities in the mobile market - Total Telecom+

Post MWC, this months Total Telecom+ focuses on the new opportunities for the mobile market. You can download the issue as a PDF and it will shortly be available for your iPad or Android device via the App

In this issue:

> the mobile timeline - 18 big stories in the mobile space
> MVNO's - is it getting tougher to be an MVNO?
> The opportunities of the enterprise small cells market
> China's race for 4G customers

Plus contributed content including:
> SDN Savings - the findings of a survey of Total Telecom readers
> T Phone suggests new path for comms platforms
> Growing your own talent
> Tellabs Insight magazine

Download the PDF edition at http://goo.gl/9D0vNU

Speaking of mobile innovation.....
Find out more about the 2nd annual Total Telecom IPX Summit - visit www.totaltele.com/ipxsummit 

15 Huge Reasons Why Network Management Matters

Flick through this Slideshare presentation for some recent big stories from Total Telecom which show why the network management space is so exciting.

15 Huge Reasons Why Network Management Matters from Total Telecom

10 White Papers You Have Got to Read #Telecom

Here's 10 white papers currently available for free through Total Telecom that you should read. For more http://www.totaltele.com/whitepapers

insight of this type visit

Simply Flexible—NEC’s SDN for the Service Driven Network

Services-oriented Mobile Access Architecture Evolution

Everything On LTE

Enterprise Services: Show me the money

Leap of Faith: Total Telecom's SDN special edition

MBB monetization: For real this time

Business Benefits of the Total Customer Experience: Mapping NPS to Revenue

5G: A Technology Vision

LTE-TDD Proves a Game-changer for Carriers

Excel in Operation Transformation: Manged Services for Total Value of Ownership

Plus a webinar recording you shouldn't miss:

Unlocking the full potential of customer usage data

When will SDN be a reality?

Over hyped or a game changer? Coming this year, next or in 5 years time? Saving cost and driving revenue? What do you think about Software Defined Networking? We want to know, so take a couple of minutes to complete this quick Total Telecom survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H6HBHBF 

Thanks for your help!

LTE subscribers use 146% more data than 3G?

This was just one of the interesting facts brought out by our recent webinar on virtualised and software defined mobile backhaul networks [which is now available on demand] and was a great excuse for a nice picture of cascading water (Open the floodgates).

But more importantly, this event is illustrative of the vast amount of interest in software defined networking (SDN) at the moment. So here's just a few of the headlines from the last month or so:

Adtran unveils converged access architecture solution

RAD joins Cyan Blue Orbit SDN ecosystem

Transmode announces PCE-based SDN strategy

Virtualized and software-defined backhaul networks—enabling service-rich mobile broadband

A1, Coriant complete field trial using Space Division Multiplexing

Discover the 3 Steps to Transforming your Mobile Business

SDN narrows $9.2 bn mobile backhaul gap

SDN could save operators $4 billion in capex by 2017

Procera launches Virtualized PacketLogic solutions

If SDN matters to you, then perhaps you should get involved in our SDN Special Report, due out next month. Contact the sales team or download the prospectus.



 

Gather Round The Table

Shaking up the formats at the Network Management Show are our new roundtables. Held both afternoons after lunch, respected industry leaders will moderate discussions on a variety of key topics.

Seats will be allocated on a first come first serve basis, so Register Today to join in the debate.

There's lots of choice, which you can view on the event website, but here's a selection you might find interesting:

Software Defined Networking and Virtualisation: Revolutionising network architectures
Moderator: Gerry Feeney, Member, Open Networking Foundation
• It might transform network architecture – but what is the right definition of SDN and what roles do overlays, VPNs and APIs play?
• Closely tied to SDN is network virtualisation but how can it be achieved and how can the network functionalities be defined?
• Is SDN the only automation option or can other approaches be used that are just as effective?
• Is OpenFlow a key part of SDN?
• What are the application deployment issues related to SDNs?
• What kind of intelligence and management tools are required for SDNs?

Storage & Implementation: Getting the most from data centres
Moderator: Douglas Loewe, Managing Director, Interxion
• How to deploy next generation data centres
• Examining the benefits of consolidating or rationalising in the data centre
• Assessing the limits of data centre infrastructure
• Exploring the key network hardware requirements for software defined data centres

OSS: New system challenges and improvements
Moderator: Glen Ragoonanan, Lead Analyst, Analysys Mason
• How to identify operational support system requirements of new services and technology
• How to reduce the impact on customers and the network challenges of new systems
• How to use KPIs for OSS analysis and governance
• How to establish performance levels, areas of improvement and development

IPv6: Evaluating its adoption on mobile networks
Moderator: Latif Ladid, President, IPV6 Forum
• Exploring the challenges in implementing IPv6 on mobile devices, applications and networks
• Examining the various IPv6 mobile deployments and their technical choices
• Looking at the role of IPv6 in home networking and cloud

Telco Cloud: Business case advantages and getting over IT integration
Moderator: Darren Fields, Global Head of Sales, Global Cloud Services, Telefónica Digital
• Why telcos are moving into the cloud arena and what advantages do they have over other service providers?
• Why enterprises look for cloud providers that have complex IT skills and can integrate multiple systems, and why this is a major issue for carriers

Telco Big Data: ‘The oil to fuel operator growth’
Moderator: Terry Norman, Founder, Wireless Explorer
• How some operators are looking to transform themselves into companies that primarily manage data as well as providing communications services
• How big data can enable operators to make efficiency savings, increase cross-selling and improve the customer experience
• Do operators require partners, not vendors, to deliver strategic insight via improving, protecting and exploiting their big data?

Don't miss out, register today....

The Network Management Show is organised by Total Telecom and takes place in London on the 2 & 3 July 2013.