ForeThought - RCV Innovations

I have been working for a new age service provider for over 3 years. Since last 2 years, I am part of the team responding to RFP's for modernizing major service provider networks including staging, testing and deployment of 4G/LTE services.I have been following the 4G/LTE trends at TMForum and other related information sources since then. History ======== In the mid-70's Telecom networks underwent a important change, they introduced the common channel signalling to break-away from physical network path to virtualizing the call setup. This was enabled by a relatively open standard called Signaling System No. 7 (SS7). According to Wikipedia - "SS7 is a set of telephony signaling protocols which are used to set up most of the world's public switched telephone network telephone calls. The main purpose is to set up and tear down telephone calls. Other uses include number translation, prepaid billing mechanisms, short message service (SMS), and a variety of other mass...

Our team had the good fortune of finishing the first vBlock deployment today as a Lab environment of a major Service Provider. Without Prior knowledge of Flexpod, we suggested adding dedicated Nexus Nexus 5500 based Access layer with L3 capability to vBlock for completeness of their Private Cloud Requirement. Incidentally the Launch of FlexPod today with integrated Nexus 5500/1010 along with UCS and Netapp 3000 Series came as a good surprise and Qualified our approach in terms of Bill of Material for Private cloud. We still donot see any L3 capabilities, Security and Application networking built-in. The Value of Private cloud deployments is the power of simplicity through stack standardization and while maitainting the performance, reliability and security of a vertically integrated infrastructure. Ideally intelligent non-it components such as switched pdu's, mini-VESDA and sensor networks need to be integrated in the hardware layer. The orchestration and management sta...

The Traditional Definition of information in the Enterprise is changing from simple unstructured and Structured ASCII Data to more broader binary formats. In the era where almost every business class mobile device is sensor-enabled, connected and Video capable. This popularity of embedding complex sensors, displays and end-effectors in to mobile devices is creating new and interesting Data collection and anlaysis use cases. The proliferation of sensor-enabled data-rich, video and voice capabilities into the business workflows is only a matter of time. Before too long we will see emergence of voice and video streaming functions becoming main stream information source. Transcribing and annotating audio/video streams enable easy indexing and search capabilities. The Data corellated from embedded sensors and sensor network will add a dimension to voice and video data to make it context and location aware. The Broadcast(like youTube), multi-cast(like netflix) and conference(webex) capabilit...

Cisco's Announcement to acquire Line sider is interesting to say least. The Approach of dynamically creating VLAN based on User Roles and tearing them down is a very interesting use case for Network Automation, this idea of very powerful when you look at the big picture of cloud workloads from virtual machine perspective. A better use case for Policy based Networks is to identify Virtual machine with a Certificate and Mac address on wakeup and by doing do the policy lookup/LDAP magic, the associated Nexus 1000v port can be configured to belong to the correct vlan. All in all it is nice story to follow... LineSider - Cisco Acquisition

The Cloud market places are emerging for buying and Selling Capacity of IaaS platforms. http://www.spotcloud.com/Technology.5.0.html I am impressed by AT&T Renewed focus on promoting vertical third party SaaS apps from its portal. Salesforce.com has strong ISV community on Force.com - PaaS and has started pitching for migration of Lotus, Sharepoint and other custom Apps into Force.com platform. This Cloud Marketplace trend is a welcome change in accelarating the adoption of cloud services.

Private Cloud is a secure, stable, scalable and simple shared services model deployed within enterprise network boundary adhering to cloud computing principles. Primary Goal of Migration to Private Cloud is Seamless transfer of Application Services from Current Data Center to the new facilities built using Shared Services Architecture for Private cloud. AppsCloud – A Methodology for migrating to Private Cloud The Emphasis of this methodology is on: Understanding application workload Behavior Ensure Security Leverage technology innovations Adherence to Cloud Computing Principles The Goal is to de-risk the datacenter migration, reduce disruption due to change and simplify the path to Private cloud adoption. Understanding Application Workloads Application Infrastructure in a large organization is inherently difficult to comprehend as a single entity due to diversity of Application workloads (Email, Database, Data warehousing, ERP, Analytics etc). D...

Cloud computing is loosely used to describe the convergence of servers, storage, network unified with a common automation framework. In order to create a sustainable and successful team, there is a need to invest into a SOLID cloud team with clear objectives of creating a SIMPLE, STABLE, NIMBLE and CAPABLE Engineering Leadership. Service Orchestration, Logistics, Infrastructure Design & Deployment (SOLID 2 ) Cloud Team Server Technology Automation & Build Lead Engineer (STABLE) Storage Infrastructure Management Practice Lead Engineer (SIMPLE) Network Infrastructure Management & Build Lead Engineer (NIMBLE) Capacity Availability Performance Automation & Build Lead Engineer (CAPABLE) This could be winning team.... on lighter vien...

The Management challenges, Eco-Consciousness and Escalating costs are driving the Technology providers to move from discrete solutions for Compute, Storage and networking to Unified Information Infrastructure. The Unified Information Infrastructure as a framework builds on Unified Compute, Unified Network, and Unified Storage. There is a need to incorporate the management and security services to complete the Data Center 3.0 requirements. The Advancements in network technologies and Standards (10 G Ethernet, FCoE, IPMI etc) are fuelling the Vision of a Unified Network. It is practical to unify the management traffic, inter-process (cluster)-communication- IPC, Storage area network (SAN) and Local area network-LAN traffic onto a single unified fabric. Some solutions are driving this to the realm of reality today. With the advent of in Blade server technology and Virtualization at the access network layer for these solutions, there is a clear shift toward Unifieds Compute. Unified Compu...

Cloud adopters should consider the following key elements when implementing Cloud service delivery frameworks: Leverage existing infrastructure within the prospective Cloud providers. Use a graduated adoption from semi-automated to fully automated processes. Balance between customization and standardization while making an effort to have differentiated services. In order to help cloud adopters realize the value of this approach, It is better to walk the talk....A Cloud Lab can be created and evolved in the same manner as a Production Cloud deployment. As a Physical Manifestion of a cloud, there are three critical components Core Network and Shared Data Center Workload Execution Engines Resource Pool Management, Securty, SLA Analytics and Automation Infrastructure (on-going development/enhancement roadmap) A Practical Deployment plan for Core Data Center Network Services is as follows: Core Network Services such as CRS, Nexus 7k Cat 6k Services complex with Service blades for Firewall/L...

It is nice go through the grind once again for this VCP certification... Now I am VSP, VTSP, VCP... Don't mean to be bragging here... :-) Quoting from Frost "Miles to go before I sleep"... Cisco UCS certification is on the horizon... Watch out...

We are installing UCS...It is probably the easiest blade system to bring it into the network In a UCS system - Upstream ---> UCS Manager/Fabric Interconnect ---> Fabric Extender in each Blade Chasis ---> Mez card on Server Blade Connect to the Interconnect through serial cable and configure Managment IP address by completing the setup steps... http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/cli/config/guide/b_CLI_Config_Guide.html We need to connect to Mgmt0 port - of the Fabric interconnect to Mgmgt net and access it throught the IP set to the Management port Once you are able to launch the gui... it is familiar territory http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/unified_computing/ucs/sw/gui/config/guide/GUI_Config_Guide.pdf The Rest of the setup can be very specific to your special needs... The simplicity of UCS is refreshing...

Ideas are are like channels on Radio/TV. They are on air 24/7. All you need is the sensitivity to tune in to them. Once in tune encourage the torch bearers. Walk with them for couple of rounds of execution. This is a story of innovation that impacts the bottom of the pyramid. Our team is proud to be part of simple yet critical innovation that continues to improve healthcare for millions of below poverty line patients. About One and half year ago...We had opportunity to work with a organization called aarogysri (www. aarogyasri.org). We had won a contract to provide a email platform for this initiative. Providing a email platform was nothing more than a product sale, however we started engaging with different stake holders and over casual conversations. We understood the Business Model where Aaroagyasri trust(funded by government) pays a contracted amount to third party insurance company on behalf of below poverty line family, each hospital provides services to pat...

One of my friends Karthik and I were talking about Cloud Marketplaces and his boss/my friend Raj Buyya (www.buyya.com) has written academic view on Cloud Market place. I had worldview that was grounded in reality of today's state of the art in cloud technology. In Today's Cloud Providers are very weak in providing B2b interfaces, there is no single window for: Uniform API's or Standards for Provisioning for SaaS, PaaS and IaaS Monitoring and Management frameworks Delegated Administration portals or mature Reseller Relationships Model for ISV relationships for Pay-per-use deployment of Applications Model for Engaging Consulting and SME' resources Model for Management platforms and Managed Service Providers Promotion and Adoption models - Monitization of Assets in Muliple Business Models(Free, Fremium, Ad-Supported, Premium, Concierage) Training and Certification Federated Identity Management Comprehensive Services Catalog A Practical approach is to Create a Cloud service...

The Cloud Announcement of Sify did not come as a big bang one shot deal...It has lot to do with the Sound strategy, Business acumen and Persistent Execution of our Business Team. At the the outset there is a lot of hardwork and confidence of various technical teams to pull it off...There are several things that were done on the technology camp(Network, Storage, Servers and Data Center teams) for over two years that culminated into facing this deployment with conviction, courage and grace... The Major emphasis in cloud computing environments on how to execute the key processes such as Fulfilment(order processing and Provisioning), Assurance(monitoring, managment & SLO/SLA's) and Billing (usage reporting and Billing) with as as much automation as possible. These process famework has been established with our early SaaS initiatives. The First forray in to building a SaaS platform came about somewhere around March 2007. This was just before I joined sify... the leadership saw the v...

Amozon EC2 is probably the most widely adopted User Centric API for cloud services. Google, SalesForce and other Providers expose api for transfer users and information into their own cloud platform. There are approaches such as simple cloud api from Zend to focus on helping the development of cloud native (php) applications using resources available in the public cloud. VMware created a comprehensive vCloud API to cover both user centric and provider centric functions of the cloud. vCloud API provides the necessary abstraction for automation of subscription/management activities by medium to large enterprises and forming inter-cloud relationships. The User centric API elements available in vCloud API include: Inventory Listing Catalog Management Provisioning Application Configuration In addition to the above, The API includes Service Provider activities for managing Organizations, Users, Roles and Product Catalogs. There is a need for open standards to evolve and cover S...

There are active Cloud computing initiatives by several service providers. This is article is an attempt to address the pains of jumpstarting, Ramping up up such initiatives along with providing a long term roadmap for sustainable management of large muti-site cloud computing infrastructures. Most of the Service Provider Environments have a well defined Business Support Systems-BSS(Customer Portal, Service Delivery and Rating/Billing Systems. The Operation Support systems-OSS for Service Resource Management/inventory/CMDB, Customer Account/Profile/Identity management and Equipment Provisioning Systems. These systems are generally optimized to handle Network services and Hosted Services.

The Service Provider Economics have been driven by RADIUS from the early days of Dialup internet services. Over the years, RADIUS gained prominence as vital standard supported almost every networking device for Authentication, Authorization and Audit. There are Many Successful deployments of RAIDUS as enabler of Billing and Reconciliation. Good RADIUS article

I had a chance to meet Senior Telcom Executives. There was a healthy discussion about the first/last mile challenges. The conversation lead to challenges faced by ISP's due to growth Video streaming and download traffic. The Problem statement: - Bandwidth consumption of on Conumer network due to video traffic both due to streaming and download Detailed Description: There was a discussion about how consumer business is negetively impacted due to the popularity of Online Video. Added to this, The Content providers are not willing to colocate the content with the SP. there are consumer who consume gigabytes of bandwidth from residential customers due video download services such as netflix. Technical background: HD Video takes anywhere between 1 to 20 Mbps bandwidth for streaming the video(MP4,MPEG2, SD, HD) . the current experience is jerky with wait times to accomadate for the download capability and congetion. The video rental sites have a different behevior due to the need to down...