International Finalists:
JOHN DUNNE and TOM FARRELL, Intune Networks
FOLLOWING EUROPEAN project research at UCD, John Dunne and Tom Farrell founded Intune Networks in Dublin in 1999.
Both had been working with US, European and Japanese technology companies on a new type of laser, when they realised they could “beat them” at developing a practical way to calibrate and control such technology.
Entrepreneurial from the outset, the UCD pair formed Intune to create an innovative business around their ideas.
From 1999 until 2005, Intune had fewer than 20 employees and worked hard to survive the telecoms crash in 2001 by managing to shift its technology application into the sensor market for oil and gas. In 2006, its longevity in the optical space paid off as the emergence of YouTube, Facebook, Google and mobile networks offered it a new opportunity. The firm was ready to develop a killer solution for the industry.
Success in designing the world’s first optical packet switch and transport system has achieved global recognition and acclaim. It has won a number of awards, including The Irish Times Innovation Award 2011.
In 2010, the company reported turnover of €10 million. As a Silicon Valley-style company, backed by VC firms to the tune of €50 million to date, Intune has the potential to become “Ireland’s Nokia” due to the scale of the problem it solves throughout today’s global network and internet infrastructure.
The business has survived the largest-ever sector collapse in telecoms and the world’s economic crisis of 2008, while retaining 100 per cent of its core staff, 45 per cent of whom have PhDs. Today, it employs almost 200 – 155 are permanent employees – and has two RD facilities in Ireland, one in Dublin and one in Belfast.
Products
A range of technologies based on tuneable lasers, which has led to the development of the world’s first optical packet switch and transport system . This solves a 30-year-old architectural problem in world networks.
Customers
Intune’s first customer for its new product line is the Government. It was selected to deliver the technology behind the Exemplar Network facility in 2010 and unveiled the full, commercial version of the technology in May. It plans to announce its first customers shortly as trial deployments are rolled out globally.
What were your biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
“Converting technology ‘speak’ into business value is the most challenging aspect of our business. Once you have business value you can attract customers and investors.”
...
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Monday, June 27, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Intune Networks - from tunable lasers to carrier-class packet switching and transport... - Optical Keyhole
Interview with John Dunne, founder and CTO
Introduction
Intune Networks, founded in 1999 by John Dunne and Tom Farrell and based in Dublin, Ireland, is focused on developing a carrier-class optical packet switch. The company now has approximately 155 full-time staff, with design centres in Dublin and Belfast and sales offices in the UK and the U.S.
Intune has developed technology, termed Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST), designed to address the challenges for service providers of handling the rapidly increasing and unpredictable traffic on their networks.
The company has raised two rounds of funding from venture capital firms, including a Euro 13.5 million Series A round and Euro 29 million in Series B. Intune is currently seeking further funding in a Series C placement of Euro 30 million.
Early background
Intune's founders started out in 1994 performing research on tunable lasers primarily through involvement in European research projects while at University College Dublin. After establishing Intune in 1999 the company was initially engaged in calibrating and developing technology for controlling other vendor's lasers at its lab in Dublin before embarking on building control systems for laser suppliers.
Mr. Dunne noted that at the time there were more than thirty companies building tunable lasers, representing a decent market for Intune's first products - now there are far fewer.
Intune subsequently won a contract to supply products to JDS Uniphase for its Eindhoven site in the Netherlands, formerly a Philips operation. However, this facility was shut down in 2001 and Intune was then forced to seek alternative markets for its technology.
Meanwhile, companies in the oil industry required a swept laser source for optical
sensing applications and Intune started developing and offering products for this market.
At the time Intune was also engaged in a project funded by the European Space Agency and another similar program with DARPA in the U.S. to develop an optical backplane utilising fast tuning lasers. Both projects were seeking to address the challenges presented by the problem of situating a large Cisco router in a satellite or high-altitude airship where weight and power consumption are key issues.
Birth of the optical packet switch
By 2005, Intune had developed its own optical switch design and spent the next two years on refinements. This necessitated raising funding to enable the company to bring the switch to market. In 2006, Tim Fritzley, a member of the technical advisory board, was appointed as CEO to help raise the first round of funding.
Prior to joining Intune, Tim Fritzley was running Microsoft's IPTV division and before that served with Tellabs. At Microsoft he realised that the existing network architecture was not suitable for handling traffic generated by sites such as Youtube and Facebook that had launched around 2003/4.
That network architecture, comprising a static optical layer with fixed lasers and Layer 2/3 switches and routers, remains fundamentally unchanged today.
Under this established network architecture, processes are centralised at the routers, which have had to grow ever larger as network traffic and the demands upon them increase, while the pipes that feed the routers have to carry greater loads and so are now being upgraded to 40 and 100 Gbit/s capacity.
Tim Fritzley saw that Intune's product could offer a solution to the problem facing carriers, which presently is inhibiting the development of new services such as cloud computing and interactive low-latency services. The carriers are also evaluating how to advance their metro infrastructure to enable efficient delivery of services such as virtual desktop and bandwidth on demand.
To address this market the Intune optical switch needed to be carrier-class. In 2007, Flextronics acquired Nortel's European design team for 10 Gbit/s systems in Belfast, but subsequently closed down the site, at which time Intune recruited approximately 45 of the staff to work on the optical switch.
Manufacturing services companies Flextronics and Celestica make the carrier-class package and also helped with its design.
Intune launched a commercial carrier-class product under the Verisma name on May 23, 2011 at the TM World Forum.
Verisma Platform
Describing the Verisma product, Mr. Dunne said the first commercial model is a carrier-class optical packet switch distributed around a fibre ring. In the future, different versions will be offered to address different end markets.
At the 2011 TM Forum Intune debuted and demonstrated the Verisma solution in collaboration with BT, Openet and Amartus, showing how a user can improve the quality of a video service on-demand by requesting extra bandwidth in real-time.
Intune has made the optical layer packet-responsive through the use of tunable lasers, thereby enabling increased utilisation of fibre capacity. Mr. Dunne explained that the product also enables operators to reduce the number of router ports required, so lowering costs, and employs web services software for control of the switch by an end-user:
"As Facebook has a programming interface whereby any programmer can join and develop an application - and the same goes for iPhone and Android - Intune offers an application interface for the network that is embedded in the switch. A user can thus set up an application for a web services portal that will call up bandwidth on demand from the network. For example, a user could provide a network for a social network on Facebook which would only be paid for when used".
The Intune solution means that operators can allow their customers to create new services on the network, effectively allowing business customers to create any service they need.
Financing market entry
The three main investors participating in Intune's Series A funding - Balderton Capital / Benchmark Capital Europe, Amadeus of London and Park Ventures in Boston - recognised from the start that this would be a long-term commitment since the length of time required to win business with large carries is a major issue for a small start-up company with limited funding.
In 2009 the company raised Series B funding from its existing and new investors, although the round took 13 months to complete due to the economic crisis. Mr. Dunne believes this was the largest private investment in the optical networking space to close during 2009.
Intune is currently seeking to raise Series C financing of Euro 30 million to support the company through the go-to-market phase of its development and into breakeven or profitability.
With respect to revenue, Intune generated sales of Euro 11 million in 2010 and expects to increase this to around Euro 20 million in 2011, including projects with the Irish government, before it finally begins to see revenue from carriers in 2012.
Mr. Dunne emphasised that Intune is already engaged with major carriers, having worked with BT since 2006 and with Telefonica in European projects since 2002.
The optical switch product was shipped in beta to carriers in 2009 and is now available in a carrier-class package that must be trialled with customers for a minimum of six months. Therefore it will be 2012 before Intune sees commercial deployments with existing carrier partners and trials with additional carriers.
Intune is currently involved with carriers in network modelling demonstrating that even with less than five percent of traffic deriving from cloud services a new approach is required to handle the traffic effectively.
Partnerships
Intune addresses the metro network space, specifically the optical transport and switching sector. Within this market each carrier has its own upgrade cycle, with some due to upgrade their networks towards the end of 2012 and Mr. Dunne said this is the window that Intune is targeting with its new carrier-class solution.
The company does not plan to sell direct to carriers and is engaged in developing partnerships with systems integrators used by the large carriers. While Intune recognises that as a small company it cannot address such customers directly, it is also aware that it needs to present the value proposition of its technology to carriers if it is to avoid being blocked by their existing equipment vendors.
Mr. Dunne feels that a current problem, particularly in the optical networking space, is that the established vendors are not innovating, and while the carriers wish to reduce the number of router ports they have to buy and to transition to a new network architecture there is nothing available from the major vendors at present:
"Ultimately it is down to the carriers to adopt new technology and help it to succeed in the market - the equipment vendors cannot create a market for their products. This means that at some level the carriers need to support small companies developing new technology or it will never reach market. For example, carriers are now becoming desperate for an alternative to the way they have been operating their networks for the past twenty years because they know they are not able to support emerging services such as cloud computing".
To date, Intune has focused on Europe due to limited resources, although it does now have an office in the U.S. and is engaging with Tier 1 carriers there. The company is also involved in projects in India and Africa via partners. The new funding round is intended to be used to help with expansion into additional geographic markets.
Mr. Dunne explained that if a carrier decides it requires a product from a supplier such as Intune it will instruct its integrator partner to work with the company to enable deployment of the equipment in its network.
The systems integrators for large carriers are the major global companies such as Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent, which deploy carrier solutions based on their own equipment and products from third party suppliers.
Intune anticipates being in a position to announce systems integrator partners, along with carrier customers, before the end of 2011.
Competition
Mr. Dunne cited Matisse Networks, a developer of optical packet transport solutions, as a former competitor that ceased operations at the end of 2009 after being unable to raise new funding. The company had been planning to upgrade its enterprise-class product to a carrier-class solution when it ran out of cash. Matisse is believed to have been the only other start-up company working in the optical burst switching space.
However, it was noted that Huawei announced an optical burst product at OFC in 2011 and other large equipment vendors are working on similar technology that may or may not be productised at some time in the future.
The interest from major vendors in the technology Intune has commercialised is seen as helping build credibility with large carriers, which are aware that something needs to be done at the optical layer and can see evidence that suppliers apart from Intune are working on this.
Path to growth
Mr. Dunne expects Intune to increase the number of employees to around 600 from the current nearly 200 full-time and contract staff over the next two years as the company expands its customer base and addressable market through partnerships.
The additional staff, he noted, would be needed to support integrator partners as well as to meet the demands of a wider geographic reach, aside from the as many as several hundred engineers that will be required to develop the company's technology and provide optical integration expertise:
"From that point Intune could opt to acquire another company or assets as a path to continued growth, or it could decide to launch an IPO, it will be up to the company's board to decide how best to develop the company once it has established its technology and a position in the carrier market".
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Introduction
Intune Networks, founded in 1999 by John Dunne and Tom Farrell and based in Dublin, Ireland, is focused on developing a carrier-class optical packet switch. The company now has approximately 155 full-time staff, with design centres in Dublin and Belfast and sales offices in the UK and the U.S.
Intune has developed technology, termed Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST), designed to address the challenges for service providers of handling the rapidly increasing and unpredictable traffic on their networks.
The company has raised two rounds of funding from venture capital firms, including a Euro 13.5 million Series A round and Euro 29 million in Series B. Intune is currently seeking further funding in a Series C placement of Euro 30 million.
Early background
Intune's founders started out in 1994 performing research on tunable lasers primarily through involvement in European research projects while at University College Dublin. After establishing Intune in 1999 the company was initially engaged in calibrating and developing technology for controlling other vendor's lasers at its lab in Dublin before embarking on building control systems for laser suppliers.
Mr. Dunne noted that at the time there were more than thirty companies building tunable lasers, representing a decent market for Intune's first products - now there are far fewer.
Intune subsequently won a contract to supply products to JDS Uniphase for its Eindhoven site in the Netherlands, formerly a Philips operation. However, this facility was shut down in 2001 and Intune was then forced to seek alternative markets for its technology.
Meanwhile, companies in the oil industry required a swept laser source for optical
sensing applications and Intune started developing and offering products for this market.
At the time Intune was also engaged in a project funded by the European Space Agency and another similar program with DARPA in the U.S. to develop an optical backplane utilising fast tuning lasers. Both projects were seeking to address the challenges presented by the problem of situating a large Cisco router in a satellite or high-altitude airship where weight and power consumption are key issues.
Birth of the optical packet switch
By 2005, Intune had developed its own optical switch design and spent the next two years on refinements. This necessitated raising funding to enable the company to bring the switch to market. In 2006, Tim Fritzley, a member of the technical advisory board, was appointed as CEO to help raise the first round of funding.
Prior to joining Intune, Tim Fritzley was running Microsoft's IPTV division and before that served with Tellabs. At Microsoft he realised that the existing network architecture was not suitable for handling traffic generated by sites such as Youtube and Facebook that had launched around 2003/4.
That network architecture, comprising a static optical layer with fixed lasers and Layer 2/3 switches and routers, remains fundamentally unchanged today.
Under this established network architecture, processes are centralised at the routers, which have had to grow ever larger as network traffic and the demands upon them increase, while the pipes that feed the routers have to carry greater loads and so are now being upgraded to 40 and 100 Gbit/s capacity.
Tim Fritzley saw that Intune's product could offer a solution to the problem facing carriers, which presently is inhibiting the development of new services such as cloud computing and interactive low-latency services. The carriers are also evaluating how to advance their metro infrastructure to enable efficient delivery of services such as virtual desktop and bandwidth on demand.
To address this market the Intune optical switch needed to be carrier-class. In 2007, Flextronics acquired Nortel's European design team for 10 Gbit/s systems in Belfast, but subsequently closed down the site, at which time Intune recruited approximately 45 of the staff to work on the optical switch.
Manufacturing services companies Flextronics and Celestica make the carrier-class package and also helped with its design.
Intune launched a commercial carrier-class product under the Verisma name on May 23, 2011 at the TM World Forum.
Verisma Platform
Describing the Verisma product, Mr. Dunne said the first commercial model is a carrier-class optical packet switch distributed around a fibre ring. In the future, different versions will be offered to address different end markets.
At the 2011 TM Forum Intune debuted and demonstrated the Verisma solution in collaboration with BT, Openet and Amartus, showing how a user can improve the quality of a video service on-demand by requesting extra bandwidth in real-time.
Intune has made the optical layer packet-responsive through the use of tunable lasers, thereby enabling increased utilisation of fibre capacity. Mr. Dunne explained that the product also enables operators to reduce the number of router ports required, so lowering costs, and employs web services software for control of the switch by an end-user:
"As Facebook has a programming interface whereby any programmer can join and develop an application - and the same goes for iPhone and Android - Intune offers an application interface for the network that is embedded in the switch. A user can thus set up an application for a web services portal that will call up bandwidth on demand from the network. For example, a user could provide a network for a social network on Facebook which would only be paid for when used".
The Intune solution means that operators can allow their customers to create new services on the network, effectively allowing business customers to create any service they need.
Financing market entry
The three main investors participating in Intune's Series A funding - Balderton Capital / Benchmark Capital Europe, Amadeus of London and Park Ventures in Boston - recognised from the start that this would be a long-term commitment since the length of time required to win business with large carries is a major issue for a small start-up company with limited funding.
In 2009 the company raised Series B funding from its existing and new investors, although the round took 13 months to complete due to the economic crisis. Mr. Dunne believes this was the largest private investment in the optical networking space to close during 2009.
Intune is currently seeking to raise Series C financing of Euro 30 million to support the company through the go-to-market phase of its development and into breakeven or profitability.
With respect to revenue, Intune generated sales of Euro 11 million in 2010 and expects to increase this to around Euro 20 million in 2011, including projects with the Irish government, before it finally begins to see revenue from carriers in 2012.
Mr. Dunne emphasised that Intune is already engaged with major carriers, having worked with BT since 2006 and with Telefonica in European projects since 2002.
The optical switch product was shipped in beta to carriers in 2009 and is now available in a carrier-class package that must be trialled with customers for a minimum of six months. Therefore it will be 2012 before Intune sees commercial deployments with existing carrier partners and trials with additional carriers.
Intune is currently involved with carriers in network modelling demonstrating that even with less than five percent of traffic deriving from cloud services a new approach is required to handle the traffic effectively.
Partnerships
Intune addresses the metro network space, specifically the optical transport and switching sector. Within this market each carrier has its own upgrade cycle, with some due to upgrade their networks towards the end of 2012 and Mr. Dunne said this is the window that Intune is targeting with its new carrier-class solution.
The company does not plan to sell direct to carriers and is engaged in developing partnerships with systems integrators used by the large carriers. While Intune recognises that as a small company it cannot address such customers directly, it is also aware that it needs to present the value proposition of its technology to carriers if it is to avoid being blocked by their existing equipment vendors.
Mr. Dunne feels that a current problem, particularly in the optical networking space, is that the established vendors are not innovating, and while the carriers wish to reduce the number of router ports they have to buy and to transition to a new network architecture there is nothing available from the major vendors at present:
"Ultimately it is down to the carriers to adopt new technology and help it to succeed in the market - the equipment vendors cannot create a market for their products. This means that at some level the carriers need to support small companies developing new technology or it will never reach market. For example, carriers are now becoming desperate for an alternative to the way they have been operating their networks for the past twenty years because they know they are not able to support emerging services such as cloud computing".
To date, Intune has focused on Europe due to limited resources, although it does now have an office in the U.S. and is engaging with Tier 1 carriers there. The company is also involved in projects in India and Africa via partners. The new funding round is intended to be used to help with expansion into additional geographic markets.
Mr. Dunne explained that if a carrier decides it requires a product from a supplier such as Intune it will instruct its integrator partner to work with the company to enable deployment of the equipment in its network.
The systems integrators for large carriers are the major global companies such as Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent, which deploy carrier solutions based on their own equipment and products from third party suppliers.
Intune anticipates being in a position to announce systems integrator partners, along with carrier customers, before the end of 2011.
Competition
Mr. Dunne cited Matisse Networks, a developer of optical packet transport solutions, as a former competitor that ceased operations at the end of 2009 after being unable to raise new funding. The company had been planning to upgrade its enterprise-class product to a carrier-class solution when it ran out of cash. Matisse is believed to have been the only other start-up company working in the optical burst switching space.
However, it was noted that Huawei announced an optical burst product at OFC in 2011 and other large equipment vendors are working on similar technology that may or may not be productised at some time in the future.
The interest from major vendors in the technology Intune has commercialised is seen as helping build credibility with large carriers, which are aware that something needs to be done at the optical layer and can see evidence that suppliers apart from Intune are working on this.
Path to growth
Mr. Dunne expects Intune to increase the number of employees to around 600 from the current nearly 200 full-time and contract staff over the next two years as the company expands its customer base and addressable market through partnerships.
The additional staff, he noted, would be needed to support integrator partners as well as to meet the demands of a wider geographic reach, aside from the as many as several hundred engineers that will be required to develop the company's technology and provide optical integration expertise:
"From that point Intune could opt to acquire another company or assets as a path to continued growth, or it could decide to launch an IPO, it will be up to the company's board to decide how best to develop the company once it has established its technology and a position in the carrier market".
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Friday, June 3, 2011
TM Forum Highlight: Optical Network bursts onto scene... - Telecom Engine
In one of the highlights of the TM Forum Management World event in Dublin last week, the Irish government showed off its Exemplar project, a “metro ring” carrier network in Dublin that is said to be the first to incorporate optical burst switching, a technology that could have broad implications in greatly improving the efficiency and capacity of carrier networks.
The Exemplar network is part of the MAINS project, led by Telefonica I+D's research branch, and with participation from a number of Dublin-based technology providers, including Intune Networks, which provided the unique switching technology, as well Amartus and Openet, which provided OSS and subscriber optimization software, respectively.
At the heart of the project is Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) technology from Intune Networks, which will have achieved commercial viability after years of development. The unveiling of the project coincides with the commercialization of Intune’s new Verisma product line, which the company touts as the first carrier-class converged switch and transport solution based on optical burst switching.
A key benefit of the Verisma line is the ability to deliver so-called “liquid bandwidth” – the concept of allowing network operators to deliver packets of higher bandwidth on-demand. The versatility provided is considered to be particularly important for network operators supporting Cloud services and other high-bandwidth users, as well as allowing operators to participate more easily in spot-trading and service passes to boost revenue.
Tim Fritzley, Intune Networks CEO said “Before today’s commercial launch we have focused on validating the technical capabilities of our technology and performing early trials with large operators. We are now moving into a new phase of commercialisation as we prepare for multiple global first office applications in the second half of this year. So far the feedback from the market has confirmed our assertions and we have deep and broad engagement with the major players in the industry.”
The MAINS program is an European research project composed by universities, companies and research centres which aims to define and develop new architectural solutions for next generation metropolitan networks able to absorb new traffic demands generated fixed and mobile broadband access technologies.
The Exemplar Test-bed Program is a communications services test-bed provided by the Irish government’s Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (DCENR) as a magnet to attract and expand leading edge research and development in Ireland for next generation Web and ICT services. According to Intune, the Verisma product family was selected as the foundation for the Exemplar lab Test-bed and allows the test bed to provide the flexible network architecture and simplified software operations and control interfaces required by the next generation of carrier services.
In the FP7 MAINS project, which is planning an OPST field trial in Cyprus in Q3-Q4 2011, the underlying objective is to develop a response to the fact that the current network architectures were never designed to cope with the new demands driven by emerging broadband Internet services like over-the-top video delivery, social networking and cloud computing.
MAINS project leader, Juan Pedro Fernandez-Palacios Gimenez from Telefá½¹nica I+D Ultrabroadband Networks area, commented “The proposed MAINS (Metro Architectures Enabling Sub-wavelengths) architecture targets a new architectural solution that will be able to face the huge expected traffic increase in a more cost-effective way. This architecture will be needed in order to assure a low cost broadband Internet access in Europe.”
With its commercial launch, the Verisma product line will begin to be deployed in the field to support a number of applications, such as cloud computing, mobile backhaul and metro optical aggregation. With its ability to provide mesh networking, dynamic bandwidth allocation and software-defined networking, the solution has been attracting attention for data centre interconnect and network-as-a-service applications.
As noted by Stu Elby, VP Network and Technology at Verizon, “The ‘cloud’ promises to cost effectively provide infrastructure, applications, and services where-ever and whenever they are requested. The ability to dynamically move virtual machines and/or data sets among data centres will allow us to address hot spot issues while potentially enabling new services. Current network constraints do not permit this capability to be exploited cost-effectively, so to this end virtualized, dynamic networking will accelerate the adoption and profitability of the cloud. “
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The Exemplar network is part of the MAINS project, led by Telefonica I+D's research branch, and with participation from a number of Dublin-based technology providers, including Intune Networks, which provided the unique switching technology, as well Amartus and Openet, which provided OSS and subscriber optimization software, respectively.
At the heart of the project is Optical Packet Switch and Transport (OPST) technology from Intune Networks, which will have achieved commercial viability after years of development. The unveiling of the project coincides with the commercialization of Intune’s new Verisma product line, which the company touts as the first carrier-class converged switch and transport solution based on optical burst switching.
A key benefit of the Verisma line is the ability to deliver so-called “liquid bandwidth” – the concept of allowing network operators to deliver packets of higher bandwidth on-demand. The versatility provided is considered to be particularly important for network operators supporting Cloud services and other high-bandwidth users, as well as allowing operators to participate more easily in spot-trading and service passes to boost revenue.
Tim Fritzley, Intune Networks CEO said “Before today’s commercial launch we have focused on validating the technical capabilities of our technology and performing early trials with large operators. We are now moving into a new phase of commercialisation as we prepare for multiple global first office applications in the second half of this year. So far the feedback from the market has confirmed our assertions and we have deep and broad engagement with the major players in the industry.”
The MAINS program is an European research project composed by universities, companies and research centres which aims to define and develop new architectural solutions for next generation metropolitan networks able to absorb new traffic demands generated fixed and mobile broadband access technologies.
The Exemplar Test-bed Program is a communications services test-bed provided by the Irish government’s Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (DCENR) as a magnet to attract and expand leading edge research and development in Ireland for next generation Web and ICT services. According to Intune, the Verisma product family was selected as the foundation for the Exemplar lab Test-bed and allows the test bed to provide the flexible network architecture and simplified software operations and control interfaces required by the next generation of carrier services.
In the FP7 MAINS project, which is planning an OPST field trial in Cyprus in Q3-Q4 2011, the underlying objective is to develop a response to the fact that the current network architectures were never designed to cope with the new demands driven by emerging broadband Internet services like over-the-top video delivery, social networking and cloud computing.
MAINS project leader, Juan Pedro Fernandez-Palacios Gimenez from Telefá½¹nica I+D Ultrabroadband Networks area, commented “The proposed MAINS (Metro Architectures Enabling Sub-wavelengths) architecture targets a new architectural solution that will be able to face the huge expected traffic increase in a more cost-effective way. This architecture will be needed in order to assure a low cost broadband Internet access in Europe.”
With its commercial launch, the Verisma product line will begin to be deployed in the field to support a number of applications, such as cloud computing, mobile backhaul and metro optical aggregation. With its ability to provide mesh networking, dynamic bandwidth allocation and software-defined networking, the solution has been attracting attention for data centre interconnect and network-as-a-service applications.
As noted by Stu Elby, VP Network and Technology at Verizon, “The ‘cloud’ promises to cost effectively provide infrastructure, applications, and services where-ever and whenever they are requested. The ability to dynamically move virtual machines and/or data sets among data centres will allow us to address hot spot issues while potentially enabling new services. Current network constraints do not permit this capability to be exploited cost-effectively, so to this end virtualized, dynamic networking will accelerate the adoption and profitability of the cloud. “
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Thursday, June 2, 2011
Teaching Networks To Speak Web - CABLE360.NET
Current network infrastructures are controlled by complex legacy OSSs run by large operators. This structure stifles innovation and prevents application developers from taking advantage of the flexibility the network can offer.
Social networking continues to grow as the newest form of communications, but where is it taking us and what is the next big thing to happen? Well the “social” aspect of logging onto Facebook has pretty much taken off, but the real “network” on which the social network runs still is operating on 25-year-old operations software and infrastructure architecture, even as it is working at faster and faster speeds.
In fact, the last major change in software that manages the network equipment inside telecom networks was started in 1987 with a protocol called “Simple Gateway Monitoring Protocol.” At the time, the Internet was in its infancy, and the idea that anyone outside of a specialized networking community would want to control their own part of the network was unheard of.
Fast-forward to 2004 and the start of Facebook. The older network software and, in fact, the underlying network equipment itself is preventing the introduction of real-time and interactive network services driven by Facebook and other social networks. For example, a combination of computer machines, large file transfers and high-definition video streams cannot be delivered on demand by the social network user to support or accompany more immediate type experiences within the social networks that have been created.
In other words, the social network is technology limited to a “best-efforts” connection. It is amazing that one can use a social network to keep in touch with many friends without having to physically meet with them or call them on the phone, but that same user cannot get a parallel network service for bi-directional video guaranteed to work that would enhance this virtual experience even further. This destroys the next dimension of social networking: multi-person video. This high-value service requires guaranteed streams of packets with low packet loss and deterministic network behavior. Today’s networks cannot guarantee this requirement and, even if they could, the software that controls the network cannot be embedded into the Web-driven applications that run on an iPhone, a Facebook page or an Amazon account. The network is not openly connected to the Internet applications in a developer-friendly manner today.
Here To There
Current network infrastructures are controlled by complex legacy OSSs run by sophisticated organizations, including those maintained by such large operators as Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Cox. This has to change. This structure stifles innovation and prevents application developers from taking advantage of the flexibility the network can offer. This translates into opening up the network so that applications available to end users can work on those dedicated, on-demand network infrastructures that would be needed to support their social networking activities. This means providing the ability to run social events over the social network, where everyone is connected together with their own dedicated network experience. This is the missing dimension.
So how can this be achieved? Two major evolutions need to happen to accomplish this: The software running the network itself and the interface software that controls the network need to be modernized. The principles that the software architecture used by Web services companies to support millions of customers can be applied to the network, developed and integrated as a new operating system for its products and the networks that they support.
This operating system is based on the latest Web-services technologies and delivers an application programming interface (API) to the network. This enables hordes of app developers to build apps that can take advantage of the full flexibility of the network and to do things like request the on-demand bandwidth needed to accompany some of the emerging high-bandwidth services. For example, this API could be combined with the Facebook API to enable a new dimension to be added to social networks or it could run inside the Android devices and talk the Web language directly to the network equipment.
The first demonstration of this will take place in Dublin, Ireland, this year, run on the Irish Government’s Exemplar Network testbed ( see sidebar on page 27). This is the world’s first open-network testbed where developers are given access to a software-programming interface, allowing them to experiment with new types of applications and services that support the next generation of social networks. Of course, there are a multitude of unpredictable new services that this could enable, and who knows what apps will be built as a result? This testbed also will form the basis of an alternative carrier network, and it will be rolled out live to show how these services actually will perform in a real-world network.
Where do the network operators fit in and how do they feel about this?
Network Ops
Well, they are a cautious bunch of folks, and change will take time to occur because of the large amount of legacy technology. However, seeing is believing in the technology world, and operators will get their first chance to see a live demonstration during the TMF World Forum in Dublin later this year.
In fact, this is an opportunity for the carriers to place their networks firmly inside the supply chain of modern advertising and marketing business that rolls out its products through social networks and Internet service providers. These new added services can be monetized because they add a clear value to the typical Internet programs available today.
Speed over the Internet cannot solve the latency or delay problem, as this requires a pre-engineered network with specific delays built in. This guarantees the performance of the video or real-time add-on services to existing social networks.
In practice, this might work as follows: A subscriber has a lot of social networking activities in his or her life; however, for a subset of them, the sub wants to include some live, high-definition video links. In this scenario, the user would subscribe to a service and agree to pay for the on-demand bandwidth required to support the service. Of course, the subscriber doesn’t actually decide what bandwidth is needed; the pre-engineered network delivers this.
These new services would be enabled by the fact that this software is running on a new optical-layer technology in the network that is responsive to user demand and that allows multiple services to be run over the same infrastructure without impacting each other. This technology provides a way to use the stranded bandwidth not being purchased for the high-quality add-on services to deliver best-effort Internet traffic. Essentially, this “free” bandwidth continues to provide traditional Internet services in parallel.
Streamlining
Such a scheme reduces the cost of implementation of services like gaming, interactive video, etc. This sharing of costs puts these normally highly specialized networks into the price range of the ordinary consumer. As such, the supply chain really works again, i.e., the subscriber pays for augmented services on his or her Facebook account, perhaps for some real network performance. A proportion of the payment is given to the network operator that makes the augmentation succeed with guarantees. Eventually, this revenue stream will be the only revenue the operators require, and the subscriber no longer has to purchase separate network connections. He or she only purchases a preferred augmented service — like gaming.
In sum, optical hardware combined with a breakthrough software approach can solve some significant problems in the supply chain of real-time, interactive network services capable of delivering the next generation of social networking with a real network element behind it. Virtualization of the network can give every consumer his or her own social network and a real network to support particular preferred activities. This will be the first major network architecture and software change in the last 25 years, and it will help ensure the continued evolution of the social network.
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Social networking continues to grow as the newest form of communications, but where is it taking us and what is the next big thing to happen? Well the “social” aspect of logging onto Facebook has pretty much taken off, but the real “network” on which the social network runs still is operating on 25-year-old operations software and infrastructure architecture, even as it is working at faster and faster speeds.
In fact, the last major change in software that manages the network equipment inside telecom networks was started in 1987 with a protocol called “Simple Gateway Monitoring Protocol.” At the time, the Internet was in its infancy, and the idea that anyone outside of a specialized networking community would want to control their own part of the network was unheard of.
Fast-forward to 2004 and the start of Facebook. The older network software and, in fact, the underlying network equipment itself is preventing the introduction of real-time and interactive network services driven by Facebook and other social networks. For example, a combination of computer machines, large file transfers and high-definition video streams cannot be delivered on demand by the social network user to support or accompany more immediate type experiences within the social networks that have been created.
In other words, the social network is technology limited to a “best-efforts” connection. It is amazing that one can use a social network to keep in touch with many friends without having to physically meet with them or call them on the phone, but that same user cannot get a parallel network service for bi-directional video guaranteed to work that would enhance this virtual experience even further. This destroys the next dimension of social networking: multi-person video. This high-value service requires guaranteed streams of packets with low packet loss and deterministic network behavior. Today’s networks cannot guarantee this requirement and, even if they could, the software that controls the network cannot be embedded into the Web-driven applications that run on an iPhone, a Facebook page or an Amazon account. The network is not openly connected to the Internet applications in a developer-friendly manner today.
Here To There
Current network infrastructures are controlled by complex legacy OSSs run by sophisticated organizations, including those maintained by such large operators as Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Cox. This has to change. This structure stifles innovation and prevents application developers from taking advantage of the flexibility the network can offer. This translates into opening up the network so that applications available to end users can work on those dedicated, on-demand network infrastructures that would be needed to support their social networking activities. This means providing the ability to run social events over the social network, where everyone is connected together with their own dedicated network experience. This is the missing dimension.
So how can this be achieved? Two major evolutions need to happen to accomplish this: The software running the network itself and the interface software that controls the network need to be modernized. The principles that the software architecture used by Web services companies to support millions of customers can be applied to the network, developed and integrated as a new operating system for its products and the networks that they support.
This operating system is based on the latest Web-services technologies and delivers an application programming interface (API) to the network. This enables hordes of app developers to build apps that can take advantage of the full flexibility of the network and to do things like request the on-demand bandwidth needed to accompany some of the emerging high-bandwidth services. For example, this API could be combined with the Facebook API to enable a new dimension to be added to social networks or it could run inside the Android devices and talk the Web language directly to the network equipment.
The first demonstration of this will take place in Dublin, Ireland, this year, run on the Irish Government’s Exemplar Network testbed ( see sidebar on page 27). This is the world’s first open-network testbed where developers are given access to a software-programming interface, allowing them to experiment with new types of applications and services that support the next generation of social networks. Of course, there are a multitude of unpredictable new services that this could enable, and who knows what apps will be built as a result? This testbed also will form the basis of an alternative carrier network, and it will be rolled out live to show how these services actually will perform in a real-world network.
Where do the network operators fit in and how do they feel about this?
Network Ops
Well, they are a cautious bunch of folks, and change will take time to occur because of the large amount of legacy technology. However, seeing is believing in the technology world, and operators will get their first chance to see a live demonstration during the TMF World Forum in Dublin later this year.
In fact, this is an opportunity for the carriers to place their networks firmly inside the supply chain of modern advertising and marketing business that rolls out its products through social networks and Internet service providers. These new added services can be monetized because they add a clear value to the typical Internet programs available today.
Speed over the Internet cannot solve the latency or delay problem, as this requires a pre-engineered network with specific delays built in. This guarantees the performance of the video or real-time add-on services to existing social networks.
In practice, this might work as follows: A subscriber has a lot of social networking activities in his or her life; however, for a subset of them, the sub wants to include some live, high-definition video links. In this scenario, the user would subscribe to a service and agree to pay for the on-demand bandwidth required to support the service. Of course, the subscriber doesn’t actually decide what bandwidth is needed; the pre-engineered network delivers this.
These new services would be enabled by the fact that this software is running on a new optical-layer technology in the network that is responsive to user demand and that allows multiple services to be run over the same infrastructure without impacting each other. This technology provides a way to use the stranded bandwidth not being purchased for the high-quality add-on services to deliver best-effort Internet traffic. Essentially, this “free” bandwidth continues to provide traditional Internet services in parallel.
Streamlining
Such a scheme reduces the cost of implementation of services like gaming, interactive video, etc. This sharing of costs puts these normally highly specialized networks into the price range of the ordinary consumer. As such, the supply chain really works again, i.e., the subscriber pays for augmented services on his or her Facebook account, perhaps for some real network performance. A proportion of the payment is given to the network operator that makes the augmentation succeed with guarantees. Eventually, this revenue stream will be the only revenue the operators require, and the subscriber no longer has to purchase separate network connections. He or she only purchases a preferred augmented service — like gaming.
In sum, optical hardware combined with a breakthrough software approach can solve some significant problems in the supply chain of real-time, interactive network services capable of delivering the next generation of social networking with a real network element behind it. Virtualization of the network can give every consumer his or her own social network and a real network to support particular preferred activities. This will be the first major network architecture and software change in the last 25 years, and it will help ensure the continued evolution of the social network.
Read More
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