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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Thursday, June 2, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Can an Irish upstart save the internet? - Irish Independent
The world's broadband system is bursting at the seams. Intune Network's invention may just rescue it, writes Roisin Burke
IT'S not every fledgling tech company that gets name-checked by Bono. Twice. In a recent Hotpress interview he praises "the wealth of technological geniuses that we have here. People like the Intune Networks -- there's two young PhD students who could change the world, literally". He bigged them up again on Today FM.
The two "geniuses" are John Dunne and Tom Farrell, who started Intune as a campus company in 1999 as young UCD research boffins. They've come a long way.
At a launch party for Intune's game-changing new product line, Verisma, which went commercial last week, high-flying investors and supporters mill around. Bono's brother, Norman Hewson, pops in, Google and Bebo investor, Balderton's Barry Maloney, is there, and goldmining legend Sam Jonah, also an investor, is there.
There's no sign of Dermot Desmond, or anyone from Twitter investor Spark Capital or Acorn Computer pioneer Hermann Hauser's Amadeus Capital, but they're all Intune backers.
To give a context to Verisma's potential: just as early computers filled entire rooms and were shrink-rayed down to tablet size, Verisma compacts down miles of fibreoptic cable and thousands of silicon chips, into something the size of a small fridge. This unprepossessing-looking grey box of switches and cables stands in the launch party room at the Gibson Hotel, as trays of wine and canapés fly by all around.
Take say, the Olympics 2012. There'll be a storm of internet TV watching, YouTubing, tweeting, mobile video and digital image sending: a gigantic data-gobbling power surge over 15 days. Verisma can wing these massive amounts of data to where it needs to go, way faster -- about 80 per cent faster -- than existing broadband. It's all done with different coloured lasers, or Optical Burst technology.
The target customers are the telco giants: O2, Vodafone, BT et al, "The guys," says CEO Tim Fritzley, "who run the biggest networks in the world, that operate in the biggest cities and areas where fibre networks are just bursting at the seams."
After the science comes the selling. This is where seasoned Silicon Valley pro Fritzley comes into his own.
Lured here five years ago by Dunne and Farrell, he's become progressively paler but retains his white-toothed Californian smile and boundless enthusiasm.
Fritzley was sales VP at Microsoft TV. "With Microsoft I travelled the world, and I could see that the networks were going to collapse under all of this video that was coming along in 2003-2005 when social networking and YouTube hit. They are going to have to completely transition -- new architecture, new technology, new software.
"I just felt that John and Tom's was the right technology. What really attracted me to them was that they'd done a phenomenal job on patenting all their intellectual property."
The likes of multi-billion-dollar revenued Cisco are now playing catch-up and Fritzley says Intune is five years ahead of the posse.
He has built up a sales team with "fantastic" contacts. "If you're a start-up, you can't depend on another equipment vendor like an Ericsson or an Alcatel or a Cisco to represent you at early stage -- their goal is to burn you out of cash so that they can buy the technology cheap.
"With your own sales force, you go after their customers, then you get traction and the big guys think 'we better partner with them before somebody else does'. It's a balance of fear and greed." A global distribution agreement has just been inked with one large equipment vendor and another is close to signing.
Would Alcatel-Lucent or Cisco not just save themselves the trouble and buy Intune out? "They will always look at that," says Fritzley, "but we don't want to sell early, we want to create this very valuable company. We would love nothing more than to go all the way through to IPO, so we're in no rush to sell.
Meanwhile, Intune is gearing for profitability. "We're not cashflow positive yet, but we are in revenue. We did about €10m last year, we hope to do €26m this year, in 2012 we're looking to do about €100m and we'll go up to €200m-€300m after that. We are targeting that for 2012 we're cashflow positive."
As well as selling Verisma, Fritzley is drumming up more money. "We're just doing our series C round right now, targeting €30m-plus for this round. I would hope to raise more than that." Intune is currently funded at €49m.
Fritzley didn't expect to be here this long. "In a few more months I qualify for permanent residency!" But he's certain the Californian sunshine deprivation will be worth it.
Read More
IT'S not every fledgling tech company that gets name-checked by Bono. Twice. In a recent Hotpress interview he praises "the wealth of technological geniuses that we have here. People like the Intune Networks -- there's two young PhD students who could change the world, literally". He bigged them up again on Today FM.
The two "geniuses" are John Dunne and Tom Farrell, who started Intune as a campus company in 1999 as young UCD research boffins. They've come a long way.
At a launch party for Intune's game-changing new product line, Verisma, which went commercial last week, high-flying investors and supporters mill around. Bono's brother, Norman Hewson, pops in, Google and Bebo investor, Balderton's Barry Maloney, is there, and goldmining legend Sam Jonah, also an investor, is there.
There's no sign of Dermot Desmond, or anyone from Twitter investor Spark Capital or Acorn Computer pioneer Hermann Hauser's Amadeus Capital, but they're all Intune backers.
To give a context to Verisma's potential: just as early computers filled entire rooms and were shrink-rayed down to tablet size, Verisma compacts down miles of fibreoptic cable and thousands of silicon chips, into something the size of a small fridge. This unprepossessing-looking grey box of switches and cables stands in the launch party room at the Gibson Hotel, as trays of wine and canapés fly by all around.
Take say, the Olympics 2012. There'll be a storm of internet TV watching, YouTubing, tweeting, mobile video and digital image sending: a gigantic data-gobbling power surge over 15 days. Verisma can wing these massive amounts of data to where it needs to go, way faster -- about 80 per cent faster -- than existing broadband. It's all done with different coloured lasers, or Optical Burst technology.
The target customers are the telco giants: O2, Vodafone, BT et al, "The guys," says CEO Tim Fritzley, "who run the biggest networks in the world, that operate in the biggest cities and areas where fibre networks are just bursting at the seams."
After the science comes the selling. This is where seasoned Silicon Valley pro Fritzley comes into his own.
Lured here five years ago by Dunne and Farrell, he's become progressively paler but retains his white-toothed Californian smile and boundless enthusiasm.
Fritzley was sales VP at Microsoft TV. "With Microsoft I travelled the world, and I could see that the networks were going to collapse under all of this video that was coming along in 2003-2005 when social networking and YouTube hit. They are going to have to completely transition -- new architecture, new technology, new software.
"I just felt that John and Tom's was the right technology. What really attracted me to them was that they'd done a phenomenal job on patenting all their intellectual property."
The likes of multi-billion-dollar revenued Cisco are now playing catch-up and Fritzley says Intune is five years ahead of the posse.
He has built up a sales team with "fantastic" contacts. "If you're a start-up, you can't depend on another equipment vendor like an Ericsson or an Alcatel or a Cisco to represent you at early stage -- their goal is to burn you out of cash so that they can buy the technology cheap.
"With your own sales force, you go after their customers, then you get traction and the big guys think 'we better partner with them before somebody else does'. It's a balance of fear and greed." A global distribution agreement has just been inked with one large equipment vendor and another is close to signing.
Would Alcatel-Lucent or Cisco not just save themselves the trouble and buy Intune out? "They will always look at that," says Fritzley, "but we don't want to sell early, we want to create this very valuable company. We would love nothing more than to go all the way through to IPO, so we're in no rush to sell.
Meanwhile, Intune is gearing for profitability. "We're not cashflow positive yet, but we are in revenue. We did about €10m last year, we hope to do €26m this year, in 2012 we're looking to do about €100m and we'll go up to €200m-€300m after that. We are targeting that for 2012 we're cashflow positive."
As well as selling Verisma, Fritzley is drumming up more money. "We're just doing our series C round right now, targeting €30m-plus for this round. I would hope to raise more than that." Intune is currently funded at €49m.
Fritzley didn't expect to be here this long. "In a few more months I qualify for permanent residency!" But he's certain the Californian sunshine deprivation will be worth it.
Read More
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Intune Networks' Verisma optical burst switch/transport platform now available... (LIGHTWAVE)
Irish upstart Intune Networks says its Verisma platform, which combines optical packet switching with packet-optical transport, is now commercially available. The company also revealed its use in a second European networking project – and may have hinted at one Tier 1 carrier who may be evaluating the product for use as well.
As reported previously, Intune Networks’ Verisma platforms feature a highly distributed optical packet switching fabric – so distributed, in fact, that the fabric can perform both switching and transport functions simultaneously (see “Intune Networks readies carrier-class optical packet switching and transport”). The switching fabric comprises an optical ring network connecting multiple input/output nodes. The nodes can be 65 km apart. The nodes use lasers with extremely fast tuning capabilities to transmit packets among each other on various wavelengths. Meanwhile, a Web-based operating system offers simplified management.
The technology has been validated through use in the Irish Government’s Exemplar Network project. Intune now says the Verisma platforms will be part of a second European research project. The FP7 Metro Architectures Enabling Sub-wavelengths (MAINS) project, led by Telefonica I+D, will seek to define and develop new architectures for next-generation metropolitan networks. Intune’s technology will be part of a field trial in Cyprus in Q3-Q4 2011 within the project.
Meanwhile, Intune Networks CTO John Dunne told Lightwave earlier this year that the platforms also were in line for first office applications with a pair of Tier 1 carriers this summer. While the company has not provided further details on these applications, it may have dropped a hint by including a quote from Stu Elby, vice president, network and technology at Verizon, in the press release that trumpeted Verisma’s commercial availability.
“The ‘cloud’ promises to cost-effectively provide infrastructure, applications, and services wherever and whenever they are requested,” Elby says in the press release. “The ability to dynamically move virtual machines and/or data sets among data centers 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.“
Visit Intune Networks
As reported previously, Intune Networks’ Verisma platforms feature a highly distributed optical packet switching fabric – so distributed, in fact, that the fabric can perform both switching and transport functions simultaneously (see “Intune Networks readies carrier-class optical packet switching and transport”). The switching fabric comprises an optical ring network connecting multiple input/output nodes. The nodes can be 65 km apart. The nodes use lasers with extremely fast tuning capabilities to transmit packets among each other on various wavelengths. Meanwhile, a Web-based operating system offers simplified management.
The technology has been validated through use in the Irish Government’s Exemplar Network project. Intune now says the Verisma platforms will be part of a second European research project. The FP7 Metro Architectures Enabling Sub-wavelengths (MAINS) project, led by Telefonica I+D, will seek to define and develop new architectures for next-generation metropolitan networks. Intune’s technology will be part of a field trial in Cyprus in Q3-Q4 2011 within the project.
Meanwhile, Intune Networks CTO John Dunne told Lightwave earlier this year that the platforms also were in line for first office applications with a pair of Tier 1 carriers this summer. While the company has not provided further details on these applications, it may have dropped a hint by including a quote from Stu Elby, vice president, network and technology at Verizon, in the press release that trumpeted Verisma’s commercial availability.
“The ‘cloud’ promises to cost-effectively provide infrastructure, applications, and services wherever and whenever they are requested,” Elby says in the press release. “The ability to dynamically move virtual machines and/or data sets among data centers 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.“
Visit Intune Networks
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