Webinar: Secure and Scale the Gi-LAN at 80% Lower TCO

Mobile network traffic is expected to increase 45% annually with video representing 60% of all mobile traffic. To meet the demand, networks will need to be intelligently and cost effectively scaled for secure services delivery, especially the Gi-LAN. As volumes grow, the number of concurrent users, connection rates, and throughput will all need to scale together. But how can operators evolve their architectures to support this growth while lowering TCO?

Join F5‘s Misbah Mahmoodi, and ACG’s Paul Parker-Johnson and register for this webinar to learn about:

• The market and business challenges IoT devices, applications and the growing number of users are placing on mobile networks.
• The key criteria to use when architecting for massive scale in application delivery infrastructures.
• Three TCO sizing models you can reference to dimension our network performance needs.

Paul Parker-Johnson

pparkerjohnson@acgcc.com 

www.acgcc.com

The Business Value of Agility

Infrastucture and service agility require the right tools, and one important tool is operations support system, which allows CSPs to reduce time-to-market and lower the cost of new service creation and deployment, operating in a hybrid infrastructure (traditional and virtualized) during CSP’s business transformation. The focus on this paper is on quantifying the impact of being agile. The paper first provides the definition of agility and then quantifies the time-to-market, service creation and revenue generation advantages of being able to create new services quicker and taking them to market faster. Robert Haim of ACG has determined that there is a 77% savings in labor cost, 13% differential in revenue generation per service launched based on a faster time-to-market advantage and a 47% increase in revenue level based on increased number of services that can be launched.

Click to download Economics of Agility_ACG.

Click for more information about ACG’s business case analysis services or contact sales@acgcc.com.

 
         Robert Haim
     rhaim@acgcc.com
       www.acgcc.com

Business Case Analysis: Ericsson Router 8801 Distributed Subscriber Management

OTT traffic places huge demands on the backbone network. Three major trends are contributing to this: 1. Content moving towards 4K media streaming and requiring seven-times the bandwidth for each individual stream; 2. Increase in subscriber scale with the explosion of connected devices; 3. End users’ expectation of 24x7 connectivity with a high quality of experience to all of their favorite content from any location or device.

To address these trends, service providers must be able to satisfy consumers’ expectations and offer personalized services in a dynamic manner. To prepare the network to handle the relentless growth, service providers are reassessing their network and system architectures and building their content distribution networks based on a distributed network deployment model and disaggregated system architecture.

This paper will primarily focus on the shift in service providers’ requirements for the subscriber management function. It also discusses the disaggregation of functions in relation to subscriber management and distributed cloud-based networking.

Robert Haim of ACG Research conducted an analysis of Router 8801 deployment in a distributed subscriber management network architecture. The scenario compares Router 8801 to a leading second best alternative offering. The study found Router 8801 return on investment (ROI) levels of 299% for a single stack (IPv4 or IPv6 addresses) and 335% in a dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6 addressing) mode over seven years. Total cost of ownership savings levels of 65% (single stack) and 66% (dual stack) were found during the same period.

Read more: ACG Ericsson Router 8801 Business Case.

Contact sales@acgcc.com for more information about developing your business case.


         Robert Haim
     rhaim@acgcc.com
       www.acgcc.com

Juniper Analyst Day Report

Juniper Networks’ full commitment to virtualization of the network was clear at the NXTWORK 2015. Juniper introduced Cloud CPE, a fully automated end-to-end NFV solution to enable its customers to implement a smooth migration strategy for their existing purpose-built networks to a virtualized, more efficient infrastructure. 

Key Findings

• Juniper’s Cloud CPE solution includes Contrail Service Orchestration, an important feature for both service creation and automation, that can greatly benefit their customers to gain competitive advantage in service introduction with faster time to market.

• Juniper’s Cloud CPE solution is the first of many NFV use cases that blends both physical and virtual network services together to simplify the service creation process and automate the entire service delivery process.

• Junos disaggregation is a good move by Juniper to decouple its software and hardware and place more value on Junos rather it hardware.

• Juniper’s competitors are also working on similar solutions. Juniper’s professional services becomes a major team to ensure its customer can roll out their virtualized infrastructure in a predictable time frame.

Click to download the Market Impact.

Click for more information about ACG’s business case analysis services or contact sales@acgcc.com.

 
         Robert Haim
     rhaim@acgcc.com
       www.acgcc.com

ACG Research Talks Capex and Opex Challenges for NFV and SDN Deployments

ACG's Robert Haim business case analyst, talks with RCR Wireless News about  the telecom industry continues push towards increased reliance on software solutions using virtualization technologies such as network functions virtualization, software-defined networking and cloud platforms, questions surrounding the financial implications of the move remain.

Robert discusses a recent ACG report that shines a more critical light on the financial implications of NFV, SDN and cloud deployments. Haim talks about how telecom operators should view the capex/opex trade off in terms of NFV/SDN deployments; the importance of service innovation gains in terms of the view on costs associated with virtualization platform deployments; and the potential impact “double opex” cost issue might have on how telecom operators approach their NFV and SDN plans.

Click to read more and listen to Robert's interview.

Click for more information about ACG’s business case analysis services or contact information@acgcc.com.

 
         Robert Haim
     rhaim@acgcc.com
       www.acgcc.com

Regardless of Technology, SPs’ Requirement Fundamentals Don’t Change

A basic tenet for infrastructure deployment for service providers and operators is to avoid introducing any platform, system or software that could potentially destabilize their network operation. For a consistent and smooth network operation, service providers demand platforms that offer 99.999 percent availability for a down time of no longer than five minutes per year. It has been demonstrated that network outages that last 10 minutes to several hours can and will have a direct negative impact on a service provider’s business. The cost of long down times can be quantified by SLA penalty clauses, as well as to an inherent opportunity cost in terms of higher customer churn rate and a poor image in the industry.

NFV and Virtualized Network Functions have complicated this issue further. While the promise of a lower TCO is naturally tempting, service providers’ fundamentals in their requirements do not change. VNF or not, they demand carrier-grade, highly available (5 9s or better) systems to ensure that mission-critical applications are protected.

Techniques to ensure high availability there should be redundancy at the network (a shadow network), system (for example, a backup router), hardware (for example, a backup control plane card), processors or other chips. For an NFV based solution, any virtualized function that happens to perform network- and application-critical functions must also offer 5 9s availability.

Examples are:

1. Network protocols that handle the control planes (routing, signaling)

2. Network services (application delivery controllers, for example, DPI, CDN, firewall, load balancers)

3. Packet core SGSN-MME, S/P gateways

4. Subscriber/Business connectivity (PPP, DHCP, GTP connections and tunnels)

The advantage of SDN/VNF based software is in its capability to scale out programmatically based on a priori set of rules. However, to ensure that a connection is not lost or the network does not have to go through a major re-convergence of resources, for example, routes, the time frame for scale out must be of O (milliseconds). This could be challenging to address via scale-outs only. It is better to assign virtual machines that back up critical parts of the network operation. The VMs must reside on a different board and preferably on different servers to protect the network from software crashes that could bring a board or the entire system down. Naturally, the active VM and the stateful backup VM will communicate via some sort of “hello” protocol to be aware of each other’s state, and share updated database of resources, for example, routing tables. The backup VM could be a standby or preferably an active one for load balancing. Of course, an efficient design would include only those software entities that need protection and are afforded a separate backup VM. For example, the control plane of a router needs 1+1 backup whereas the forwarding plane can afford an N+1 backup scheme.

ETSI NFV Expert Group on Availability and Resiliency stipulated its requirement in its specification: [paraphrasing] Single point of failures for the VNFs must be prevented by deployment of “independent” NFVI domains. The implementation of NFV should consider a geographically redundant deployment to introduce high availability to VNFs.

Vendors have followed this directive, and there are some novel and viable approaches that can implement it. Two examples are Wind River’s Titanium server, which introduces both hardware redundancy and software resiliency to the VNF that run on it. Another novel approach has been taken by Stratus Computers with its Software Defined Availability, which moves downtime prevention and recovery from the hardware or the OS to an “automated” software layer. When a failure occurs, a previously paired VM is brought back up, leveraging the cloud to run the application under protection. Stratus claims that with their SDA “any application with any availability need can be run in the cloud with application transparency.” The novel design stems from the company’s claim that no application code changes are required to benefit from SDA. Pairs of VMs are created between servers and the state of VMs is captured regularly and asynchronously, offering a stateful operational mode.

Clearly, the industry is on the right track for ensuring protection of VNFs that need it. The approach that is taken by vendors can be leveraged as a competitive advantage if they can demonstrate 5 9s simultaneously with efficient use of resources.

Click for more information about Robert Haim.


         Robert Haim
     rhaim@acgcc.com
       www.acgcc.com

Total Cost of Ownership Study:Network Packet Brokers

This study compares the total cost of ownership of hardware-based first generation network visibility solutions with Brocade’s next generation network visibility architecture. 

For information about ACG's business case analysis services, contact information@acgcc.com.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Business Case for a Common NFV Platform

The potential of NFV to improve service agility and reduce total cost of ownership requires an approach that allocates hardware, software, and human resources to meet the requirements for all services in an on-demand approach. ACG Research has written a whitepaper, sponsored by VMWare and Affirmed Networks, that explores two emerging models of NFV deployment: 1) custom software stacks that aim to integrate as much of the model as possible into a single solution by a vendor and 2) a modular approach based on the deployment of a common virtualization platform where multiple VNFs and other NFV components are provided independently. The analysis evaluates each approach by comparing its TCO to the TCO of the traditional (appliance-based) approach where all approaches are serving identical functional requirements demand. The analysis determines that only one of these approaches will result in sustainable benefits to the operator.

Download ACG’s Business Case for a Common NFV Platform.

To read more about NFV click here.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

SDN/NFV: Gold Rush or Fool’s Gold?

Another gold rush has brought a high level of excitement to the network infrastructure producers and consumers alike. The mad dash to SDN/NFV feels like déjà vu, for example, mid 1990s for ATM and late 1990s for MPLS. See Paul Parker Johnson’s “How SDN (Today) Is Like MPLS Was (Then).” There are huge expectations from all stakeholders to offer and implement infrastructures that reduce both capital and operational expenditures, in addition to opening new doors for rapid deployment of innovative and lucrative business services.

Intuitively, the SDN/NFV combination should reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO), both capex (COTS versus purpose-built hardware) and opex (cost of provisioning and network maintenance). In evaluating TCO, there are other costs that could favor one approach versus the other.

Most often, capex savings are only discussed in terms of COTS hardware versus physical or purpose-built hardware. Basically, capex includes any upfront nonrecurring cost; that includes the cost of “network roll-out” (NRO), which is the cost of integration, testing and verification of the incremental hardware into the existing infrastructure. Unlike the cost of hardware, this cost component is not usually depreciable unless the NRO is done by the hardware vendor, and the cost is negotiated in advance. Other capex costs can include the cost of the underlying transmission network (in some countries this is leased). For NFV, the transmission network (and eventually the hardware maintenance) can be leased from the owner of the data center, which turns this cost into an opex component as it becomes a recurring cost.

A major advantage of SDN/NFV is in its opex, which gives the operators the ability to rapidly provision new services. Service roll-out is reduced by an order of magnitude of months to days. Moreover, with fast service roll-out, a new service can be tested with a limited set of customers first, and then upon favorable feedback it can be introduced to the entire target market. This can save a lot of headache (and money) later if the service turns out to be not as well received as it was expected.

Today, most infrastructures that are built on purpose-built hardware are going to stay in operation for a while and in many cases even after they are fully depreciated. Therefore, while migration to function virtualization is moving forward, operators will face a period of a “double opex” cost factor. This is not lost on anyone, and it can become a factor in delaying the decision to virtualization.

The move to virtualization requires a close study of the intermediate and long-term goals of the organization: customer needs, market penetration goals, and service offering to name a few. Although cost containment is a big factor, the revenue side of the equation must be given a much higher weight to remain competitive. After all, costs cannot go below zero, but the sky is the proverbial limit for revenue generation! And this is where SDN/NFV based infrastructures shine: rapid deployment of new and potentially lucrative services.

Click for more information about Robert Haim.

 
         Robert Haim
     rhaim@acgcc.com
       www.acgcc.com

The Time Is Now for NFV

Traditional network architectures based upon purpose-built network appliances and the resulting complex manual and proprietary systems interfaces used to support a rapidly increasing diversity of network appliances have been identified as the root causes of high-cost, poor capacity scaling, and long deployment and innovation cycles. This is affecting the sustainability of network operators’ business models. As a result, network operators have launched their NFV initiatives to overcome the limitations of traditional network architecture. NFV is explicitly designed to reduce cost, and increase network scalability and agility. 

ACG’s whitepaper shows that the common platform approach is uniquely able to support a sustainable business model through implementation of NFV and that appliance-based and NFV custom vertical software stack approaches are likely to fail.

Click to download the TCO “Visualizing the Mobile Core.”

Click for more information about ACG's business case analysis consulting research service.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Business Case for Open Data Center Architecture in Enterprise Private Cloud

Dr. Michael Kennedy analyzed the transition costs from state-of-the-art switching infrastructure to elastic and agile infrastructure that enables private enterprise cloud for a medium-sized enterprise data center. The Juniper Networks’ open data center infrastructure architecture was compared to a proprietary programmable architecture that requires simultaneous investment in a centralized controller and application-aware switch combination. The proprietary architecture requires parallel operation of the existing switching equipment and the new application-aware switches until all applications are moved to the new switches. This is a multiple-year effort for most enterprises. In contrast, the open architecture does not require any change in the existing infrastructure base. The study found that the open architecture provides full asset protection; the proprietary architecture destroys 88 percent of the value of the original switching investment in the first year of the transition period.

Click to download ACG’s Juniper Business Case for Open DC Architecture.

What is your best route to the cloud?

Click for more information about ACG’s business case analysis services or contact sales@acgcc.com.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgcc.com
www.acgcc.com

Forecast of Mobile Broadband Bandwidth Requirements

The consumption of video content is creating a shift from use in the home to mobile devices. This is driving exponential increases in mobile bandwidth demand. ACG Research projects most likely peak period bandwidth requirements to increase at 52 percent compound annual growth rate through 2018.

Dr. Michael Kennedy uses the forecast to model engineered backhaul capacity requirements for a 1,200 square kilometer metro area with a population of 2.5 million. This case study finds that the cell site backhaul bandwidth requirement will range between 0.4 Gbps and 2.5 Gbps in 2018. The odds favor the high end of this range. 10 Gbps Ethernet links in the access network and 10 Gbps rings will be needed to meet the demand requirement, support growth, and maximize load sharing. Agile network architectures will reduce the cost of supporting the expected rapid and volatile increases in mobile bandwidth demand.

Click here to download the business case "Forecast of Mobile Broadband Bandwidth Requirements."

Click for more information about ACG’s business case analysis services or contact sales@acgcc.com.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgcc.com
www.acgcc.com

Business Process Redesign Is Essential to NFV/SDN Success

Leading telecom operators began the network function virtualization initiative several years ago in recognition of the need to reduce cost increases and increase revenue growth rates to sustain profitability. While much technical process on NFV and related SDN technology has been made, I believe business process redesign is needed to change the organization and people's jobs if the financial benefits are to be realized. 

Read more in Business Process Redesign Is Essential to NFV/SDN Success by Michael Kennedy.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Internet of Things Makes a Showing at the CES 2015

Invited by the IEEE-SA to participate on a panel called the “IEEE IoT Soiree,” I recently had the pleasure of attending my first CES show. Our panel critiqued a few startups in the IoT space (http://ces.ieeesa-events.org/). A key take-away from this event was that investors are really actively not investing in IoT, but investors seem to be looking for companies that will change the way people do things and enhance their lives. The products must have a strong lifestyle changing effect. The startups that were presented centered on edge devices, but some may be service provider worthy and turned into a viable service business. Cisco panelist Maciej Kranz said that the industrial IoT is where the money is, but enterprises are still fearful of taking the leap because of unknown security issues and unsubstantiated return on investments. Although true, there are sustainable IoT designed to show sustainable IoT scenarios and businesses that service providers can leverage. Another take-away centered on how to stimulate enterprises to embrace IoT and use the solutions for their own benefits.

 

After the event I began my exploration. This was the first time I attended the CES event and it was impressive. However my first impression was “crowded”! Why? This year the convention—the largest CES to date with more exhibition space than last year—hosted 170,000 people and about 3,600 exhibitors. The event was distributed between two convention centers and hotels throughout the Las Vegas strip.  However, it was organized with themed areas, for example, fitness, wearables, privacy, home security, and branded aisles showcasing French, Israeli, Korean and Chinese technology. The exhibit locations were itemized into product categories such as 3D printing, digital Imaging/Photography, online media and wireless devices and services.

There were plenty of commercial products with IoT solutions or marketing touting “connected” devices as well as wearable watches and fitbit-like devices. Mind control products, using the frontal lobe, were quite intriguing.  3D video experiences were also popular (via TV, glasses for gaming, etc.). I was particularly interested in the health, biotech and wearables areas, promising for service providers (thank goodness they were close together!). See forecast (link to press release). One example of cutting-edge connect solution development was exhibited by Jeff Li, vice president of iHealth, http://community.ihealthlabs.com/Protals/Home.aspx, who mentioned that it is now building out a cloud service aimed at service providers . 

The event although overwhelming, it did reinforce that IoT can be a viable service business once providers figure out how to address the market, security issues and prove return on investments. But if you plan to go to CES 2016 my advice is to invest in good, comfortable shoes because you will be walking for miles!

For more information about ACG's IoT services contact sales@acgcc.com.

Dennis Ward

dward@acgresearch.net

acgcc.com

Kick-Start Your Move to a Network-Centric Business with Managed Network Services

The benefits of a network-centric business go beyond just economics. With managed network services you can outsource day-to-day operations, freeing time, money and staff to concentrate on changing, growing and managing your business.

Businesses are always looking for opportunities to create a broad ecosystem of customers, partners and suppliers that accelerate their processes and innovation and give them the competitive edge. Managed network services (MNS) can provide you with that boost to move to a network-centric business. With managed network services you can immediately minimize the day-to-day network management issues that are robbing you of the time you need to initiate fundamental changes in your business. For example, managed router service (MRS) that is bundled with Ethernet service offers an end-to-end solution to support multi-location businesses. Other versions of the service are available to provide managed Internet and security service providing a reliable and secure solution for a centralized or single site Internet connection. But to make a successful transition you and your teams have to first rethink your business processes and develop strategies to minimize the risks that are intrinsically linked to the things that make a network-centric business so attractive.

Although a network centric business brings everyone together into a broad ecosystem, a word of caution is necessary: it also increases exposure to security risks, capacity management challenges and performance management issues; and always-on services place additional burdens on your staff. Midsize businesses also are being attacked and suffering outages. The consequence of these breaches is severe; within hours they can threaten or destroy the trust and goodwill that took you and your staff years to build. And let’s not forget the legal issues: in some industries government regulations also include the threat of criminal liability. Loss of the network and downtime will cripple a network-centric business and not addressing these issues is betting your business—with the odds against you. To find out why, click to down load the article.

For more information about ACG's business case analysis services, contact sales@acgcc.com.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

ACG Announces Managed Router Services TCO Calculator

Businesses are turning to managed router services to simplify network management, enhance performance, free-up resources and reduce costs.

What are the benefits of MRS for your business? Find out by running the numbers with the total cost of ownership calculator, developed by ACG in conjunction with Time Warner Cable Business Class. In just a few minutes you can determine:

• Approximate TCO savings for an MRS Ethernet or Internet and security solution.
• Key costs and staffing impact for deploying, managing and monitoring hardware, software, upgrades and providing training and support.
• Important business and operational benefits associated with off-loading many day-to-day network management duties.

Try the MRS TCO Calculator today to stay ahead of the IT cost curve.

For more information about Michael Kennedy, click here. Click here for information about ACG’s business case analysis services.

For more information about the calculator project contact sales@acgcc.com.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Forecast of Residential Fixed Broadband and Subscription Video Requirements

Residential fixed broadband usage has evolved from static search and information retrieval to multimedia content delivery on a wide variety of devices. The move from broadcast service, which is multicast across the metro network, to broadband video service, which is unicast, and the use of many more devices in each household will have a massive impact on the required bandwidth capacity of the metro network.

ACG Research presents a five-year projection of average household bandwidth requirements. Average household bandwidth requirements are estimated to be 2.5 Mbps in 2014 and will grow at a five-year CAGR in a range from 19 percent to 44 percent with a most likely value of 31 percent. 

Read more in Forecast of Residential Fixed Broadband Requirements.

For more information on Michael Kennedy, click here.

Contact sales@acgcc.com for more information about ACG's business case analysis services.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Business Case for Virtual Managed Services

Cisco Evolved Services Platform provides automated, optimized, and personalized services via orchestrating virtualized network functions running on cloud data center technology. It allows fast introduction of new services and reduces the TCO of managed services sales and service delivery processes. Virtual managed services provided via ESP reduce costs and increase operational efficiency to the point where service providers can now profitably sell to smaller businesses.

ACG Research compared the total cost of ownership of the present mode of operations with the virtual managed service solution for two managed services offerings: 1) Cloud VPN service, and 2) Security service. It found that operation expenses (opex) were about 78 percent less for virtual managed service for both offers and that return on investment (ROI) for both virtual managed services offerings was more than 200 percent over a five-year planning period. The three largest sources of reduced opex are elimination of most truck rolls, many onsite maintenance and installation activities, and minimization of the costs to support onsite software.

Download the whitepaper.

Click for more information about ACG's business case analysis services.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Enlarging the Managed Network Services Opportunity through Virtual CPE

Virtual business CPE has the potential to create a win-win situation for small and midsize businesses and network operators. Small and midsize businesses are trying to develop network-centric business models, but networks present challenges that are beyond these businesses’ managerial and technical capabilities. Read more.

Click for more information about Michael Kennedy.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Business Case for NFV/SDN Programmable Networks

ACG Research analyzes three programmable High-IQ network use cases that were created by Juniper Networks. The analyses show the benefits derived from the deployment of programmable networks for service providers. A cloud customer premise equipment and virtual firewall (vCPE) use case replaces physical CPE with a simple on-premise Ethernet device and moves IP virtual private network  and firewall functions to the cloud. This produces a 36 percent five-year net present value increase as compared to the physical CPE solution. A real-time network self-optimization use case replaces manual traffic engineering processes. This produces a 27 percent five-year total cost of ownership  savings compared to the manual processes. An elastic traffic engineering use case for a national all IP core network demonstrates the advantages of an SDN solution as compared to the present mode of operations. The SDN solution reduces bandwidth and associated link capital expenses by 35 percent while maintaining all network service level agreements.

Click to download the whitepaper.

For more information about ACG's business case analysis services, contact sales@acgresearch.net.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch