IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

Of the more interesting developments that are emerging as SIP  technologies and products mature is the changing context that Enterprises’ IT organizations operate in.  Historically, telecommunications has been defined and provided to the marketplace by Service Providers like Global Crossing, Level 3, BT, etc.  The requirements needed to formulate an offering were provided by SPs to the manufacturers of the platforms (Cisco, Juniper, etc).  Things are changing rapidly on this front though.   Enterprises in some cases are bigger in many aspects of the definition than some smaller traditionally defined Service Providers.  In my humble opinion, this warrants of new definition of the Enterprise.  The Enterprise is the newest category of a Service Provider. 

With regards to SIP, there is ample evidence of its adoption in the Enterprise marketplace and vendors that have catered directly to Enterprises have taken heed.  As examples, see Microsoft’s, Siemens’, Cisco’s, Avaya’s adoption of SIP in their product portfolios.

The impact of this is an overall decentralization of the Enterprise communications environment that leads to a more collaborative workforce.  If you need some examples, think of the IM communications in support of standard telephony and email infrastructures.  Nowadays in our MS OCS/Exchange environment at Global Crossing, when I read an email – I not only have the ability to reply, but IM or click to call in response. This is all handled via a single user interface.  This form of collaboration is _NOT_ dependant on the traditional services that Global Crossing provides. (with the exception of the underlying IP transport), but rather the infrastructure is supported by our internal IT department.  By the way, this is all decentralization is enabled with SIP.

Adam “voiploser” Uzelac

DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don’t necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

I had the opportunity to present the latest message from Global Crossing in support of Unified Communications.  On March 27th, I attended a panel discussion at Sun Microsystem's Boston campus for masnetcomms.org and on March 28th I presented at a Global Crossing VoIP seminar in Cleveland.

My massnetcomms presentation was focused on the technology enablers (Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), XML, Service Oriented Architecture, Price performance of general purpose computers , Software As a Service model, Network Convergence (IP and access),  Protocol Convergence (SIP)) that have created the opportunity for Unified Communication adoption.  Unified communications is not a new concept, it’s about 10 years old and really never took off.  The early UC models were all hardware centric with specialized devices and lacked seamless integration into your desktop.  However today,  companies like Microsoft have taken a software only architecture that leverages their installed base of email (exchange) and identity (Active Directory) into realizing a seamless experience on my desktop.

In Cleveland,  I shifted the discussion to a more network centric message and highlighted our internal IT success in deploying Microsoft OCS . Global Crossing’s internal IT team began the road to Unified Communications in 2003 when we deployed Cisco VoIP handsets . 

The 2003 VoIP deployment was an important milestone in that both the network (LAN, WAN) and operations (Voice vs. Network team)  had to come together and provide a reliable and consistent transport for Voice, Video and Data. This is an excellent example of IP convergence providing a solid foundation for our subsequent deployment of Unified Communications. 

In 2005 Global Crossing deployed Live Communications System (LCS)  (LCS is the predecessor to Office Communications System (OCS) ) and in 2006 our first deployment in support of Microsoft OCS beta.  Global Crossing was one of 72 companies supporting the beta and tap phases of OCS  and in October 2007 supported Microsoft with their OCS  launch in San Francisco.

What we are experiencing is that not only can OCS provide unparalleled  integration into our desktop environments, but more importantly business transformation as it is now embedded into our workflow, sales portals and company directory.  We are able to work more efficiently , with better communications which will add to a better customer experience.

But the deployment of Unified Communications didn’t start in 2005 when we deployed LCS, it actually started in 2003 when we began deployment of a converged network.

At both presentations the message reasonated with other industry leaders and customers. Clearly IP and network convergence provides the foundation for a successful deployment of Unified Communications.

While visiting with several individuals a few weeks ago at the Ziff Davis Unified Communications Summit in Seattle, WA I noticed that some people hadn't yet realized the power of one aspect to the overall value of unified communications which relates to presence awareness. That is leveraging presence not just in instant messaging but in other communication vehicles can play an important role in transforming your business impact as an IT organization. As a result I thought I would dedicate this post to help create ideas around things that can be done to assist in helping IT in leading the way.

Here at Global Crossing in an attempt to leverage this core components of Unified Communications in an ongoing effort to incorporate the advantages of collaborative, converged services within our enterprise we've transformed internal applications from static non presence aware to anticipatory engaged communication tools that are supporting contextual collaboration with presence-awareness throughout the enterprise. In this instance presence-awareness (whether someone is available in simple terms and how to contact) is utilizing capabilities including chat, computer-based telephony, conferencing, IP video, and e-mail across tools that leveraged across the enterprise drive in principle more efficacy from consumption and corresponding execution. In fact it is my opinion that since presence has been embedded into our application infrastructure to enhance our collaborative capabilities it is natural to see transformational improvements occur around our "quality of experience" associated to the overall user experience. This is so because enabling enhanced customer experience truly enables the IT organization to drive one more component to our IT organizations transformational success in enabling the business to not only "react" but be proactive by achieving extensibility required within the distribution transparency model required for execution. Said another way the fact that presence awareness has been integrated into our application infrastructure means this action will further enhance our agility to enhance operational efficiency by allowing application "pivots" to be present thus accelerating communication by eliminating in some instances serial cognitive task execution.

As the industry landscape continues to evolve there are a few constants that will remain the same: (1) increasing business demands require more innovative, transformational capabilities between employees, partners and customers and (2) continually driving operational velocity reductions around the cost basis of delivering information technology services is imperative. It is commonly believed by many vendors such as Avaya, Cisco, Intel, Nortel and Siemens as well as software developers such as IBM and Microsoft that presence technology will continue to become an increasingly important tool at driving traditional costs out by attacking the serial nature of traditional work execution thus increasing operational efficiency.

So why is presence so important to Unified Communication services? Presence is important because it can become the intelligent communication application for converged IP communication services such as those demonstrated by our IT organization at Global Crossing. Determining where a user is and how best to reach them in our case by leveraging presence enabled applications that have been integrated into our infrastructure with the "glue" to increase the overall value of our converged IP services brought to the table and help realize substantial business transformation value.Said another way presence-aware applications offered on a converged IP communication service help evolve traditional serial actions of quickly determining and thus engaging with employees regardless of location, modality or scheduling which allows our globally dispersed users to communicate and collaborate in real time providing productivity in a truly global and mobile workforce environment. Combined converged IP communication services with presence technology provide for accelerated collaboration between our employees, partners and customers by knocking down the walls of traditional serial communications and by accelerating communication through anticipatory engagement.

Presence is the value.

The impact of the Open Source movement on VoIP is strong and continues....

Some of the tools that we use and/or tested with here at GC are included, for example SER, Asterisk and one that's not on the list SIPP.

Top 50 Open Source VoIP Apps

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don't necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

When I was asked a few months ago by a customer who was also a CIO what all the fuss about TelePresence was I thought long and hard about my response … not because I was concerned that a competitor was trying to sell into the customer an alternative solution but rather I was thinking differently as to what the potential customer was really asking – that is, what were the main issues or challenges in not only deploying a fully immersed panoramic video solution but also how he or she would eventually support it to their internal customers while achieving some cost velocity reductions along the way.

Before we go there a few interesting tidbits about the TelePresence space … according to a few research firms sales associated to TelePresence opportunities were expected to nearly triple in 2007 to $169 million from just $64 million in 2006 and these same research firms see sales of possibly $1 billion by 2011. Wow, that’s an impressive CAGR ! According to John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, he noted “TelePresence systems orders grew from the prior quarter by over 300%. In Q4 (ended July 28), the number of TelePresence systems grew by over 400% from Q3." That is pretty impressive if one thinks about what goes into a TelePresence offer from a service diameter perspective and in fact the actual revenue tied to the TelePresence service industry could be higher engineering, consulting, installation, etc  are factored in above and beyond equipment.

So what’s all the fuss about TelePresence? It’s like deploying any other real time sensitive application on the network isn’t it? In some ways yes and in some ways no …. First lets start with why its different … the amount of work that goes into the room engineering to ensure the immersive nature and performance associated to customer experience is at the highest quality is significant. Not only do normal electrical, network and physical build out aspects play a role but so to does acoustic balancing, lighting, video performance analysis and engineering needs to occur. Without a properly engineered room (or rooms depending upon how many systems you deploy) you may not achieve the level of visual and acoustic quality desired or intended driving higher consumption experience. More common to core telecommunication and equally important is the criticality that the underlying network achieve the best possible engineering principles in order to achieve optimal video and acoustic performance from a data delivery perspective. It goes without saying that the level of traffic engineering associated to QoS (classification, policing and shaping) and the corresponding core network behavioral network attributes and principles need to be defined such that the end users who are leveraging TelePresence capabilities see value and drive consumption while ultimately eliminating costs.

In the end TelePresence isn’t a “do it yourself” job for everyone but rather should be approached much in the same way you would approach packetizing your voice communications infrastructure – following well though out, well defined architectural and engineering principles in order to achieve success.  What goes into this well defined architectural and engineering design is choosing equipment suppliers and service providers who can live up to the demands of the underlying  service diameter needs. You do this and you are on your way to a quality, immersive video experience increasing employee productivity through engaged collaboration while reducing the overall cost velocity associated doing business across the globe.

Imagine starting your car and seeing that message on your dash.

If this happens, it's not outside of the realm of possibility.  BMW labs is experimenting with the use of IP sub-systems for internal communications, which is a pretty interesting idea!  One of the draw backs of using standard protocols and components is the availability of knowledge around said commonly available technology, but IP can be secured pretty well, so if it's done properly hacking shouldn't be a big concern. 

The author didn't mention the possibility for 3rd party after market add-ons, but one would think they'd be possible if the car has IP packets flowing through it's veins, but then that would reopen the possibility of security threats too, so it might be in BMW's best interest to try and prevent any sort of external tampering with the system.

I think the author of the article is a little confused about IPv6, though.  He says:

Costs drop because fewer specialized components are needed, and the new
version of IPv6 is even better than the more than fine performance from
IPv4.

I would love to know how the new version of IP is even better than the performance of IPv4, especially given that it doesn't perform as well as IPv4, which I noted in a previous post.  In some discussions with members of the IT community from various government agencies, they are leery of deploying IPv6 for security reasons (not because of known issues but more because of the unknown issues that have yet to be discovered because IPv6 is not widely adopted yet).  As a result of these factors as well as overall adoption rate, IPv6 support might actually cost a bit more than IPv4 for several more years.

Despite the erroneous implication of improved performance, if this just a proof of concept and 3rd party after-market add-ons are not a priority, why not design it around IPv6?  IPv6 might even help insure that the system stays a somewhat closed
one...or it might be the killer app that drives further development and
investment in IPv6.  Furthermore, you could do crazy stuff like putting an RFID tag on every nut and bolt in the car, build an RFID-to-IPv6 proxy server, ping every last component on the car, and triangulate their position to make sure they're all where they are supposed to be.  Then when your mechanic ends up with those extra parts and throws them to the side like he did before, you can run the diagnostic before leaving the shop and call him on it.

Better make sure there's an on-board DNS system too, just so we don't have to see the following error message 'Communication Failed with device 2001:450:1999:900:0:670:1708:1920'.  :-)

posted by Dave Siegel

Google’s Impact on the Wireless Internet

In case you missed the announcement last week, Google has tossed it’s hat into the ring for the last remaining commercially viable wireless spectrum in the US.  The 700MHz spectrum was used to provide analog TV service and becomes available to the highest bidder on January 24th, 2008.  The impact of Google’s announcement is yet unknown, but should prove to be very important in the long run.  

Some interesting datapoints:

•    From Wikipedia - Several countries, including the UK, now have more mobile phones than people. There are over five hundred million active mobile phone accounts in China, as of 2007. Luxembourg has the highest mobile phone penetration rate in the world, at 164% in December 2001. In Hong Kong the penetration rate reached 139.8% of the population in July 2007. The total number of mobile phone subscribers in the world was estimated at 2.14 billion in 2005. The subscriber count reached 2.7 billion by end of 2006 according to Informa[citation needed], and 3.3 billion by November, 2007, thus reaching an equivalent of over half the planet's population. Around 80% of the world's population enjoys mobile phone coverage as of 2006. This figure is expected to increase to 90% by the year 2010.

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

Now allow me to pluck the germane data from the above for my point.  Phone = 3.3 BILLION -  Computers =  1.25 Billion.  Google already enjoys dominance for eyes in the computer space, and if they are as successful on wireless phones as they are with PCs, watch out world!

The problem Google currently has with wireless devices, especially in the US, is the locked-down nature of the device to the wireless network operator.  It’s actually a sad commentary that Google has to forge ahead with buying spectrum, but it makes all the sense in the world.   Boy is it interesting watching the impacts to the industry.  Check out Verizon Wireless’ announcement about opening up their network to devices.  Don’t think for a second that these two announcements are unrelated.  They couldn’t be more tied to the hip.

All this guy has to say is, “Good on ya, Google!”


Adam “voiploser” Uzelac
DISCLAIMER: The comments here are mine only. They don’t necessarily reflect intelligence, refined thoughts, or anything that the reader should take too seriously. Should the reader expect a polished thought process in the content addressed here, then a strong dose of medication should be prescribed to address that misconception.

At some point or another when the concept of unified communications comes up during customer interactions, dialogs with colleagues, strategy discussions - often times it moves to a discussion around features and RFCs and remains there. Having come from an IT organization for which I was immersed for several years in operations I have a different perspective when I think about unified communications. When I think about unified communications I don’t think just about SIP or SIMPLE or the ability to receive communications across multiple modalities rather I think about the constructs that make unified communications possible. Don’t get me wrong – the ability to communicate across multiple modalities simultaneously such as cell phone or a software based agent using a simultaneous ring or find me follow me feature is intriguing and to some extent are becoming increasingly more prevalent in a “techno gotta have evangelists” world such as my own but it’s not the only place where unified communications is making IT operations go from good to great!

What I see as taking unified from good to great and where truly exciting work is happening is where software and network architects alike focus not on the “features” alone (although continuous improvement is important) but rather on making unified communications seamlessly integrate into existing IT environments thus allowing IT organizations to drive further value from legacy / existing investments and hopefully simplifying their operations experiences. An example of how this might occur is in and around identity management and enhanced directory services where a users identity can be defined within a unified communications model that not only allows that identity to transcend one modality to another but also might be the same identity that is used for all application access requirements. This my friends is where some of the real magic and exciting stuff appears to be occurring and what is going to make unified communications go from good today to great tomorrow when mainstream adoption across IT organizations occur so long as business justifications and associated ROI necessary for the investments are realized.

That said many vendors today offer unified communications with heavy emphasis on SIP and SIMPLE for obvious reasons – to drive market penetration for current or future products as well as to protect the cannibalization of their installed base through next generation service expansion. What will be interesting to see unfold is not what service or features come next but how many of those vendors look to attack a core and longstanding issue of IT pain points – enabling unified communications while seamlessly integrating into existing back office infrastructures. The key to success in my opinion and those who are positioned for success will be how vendors use a single identity to authenticate and gain access to different modalities such as email, voicemail, enterprise instant messaging and collaboration software or web based tools thus allowing the ability to transcend multiple modalities seamlessly and transparently while affording productivity improvements that every CIO is asking and requiring. In my opinion unified communication can’t be yet another off the shelf solution that requires more work to integrate into an environment to become productive but rather it is about enhancing the bottom line – getting something more for very little and driving tremendous productivity gains. So to be effective and win market share such companies that offer unified communications must invest heavily on seamless integration to the back office and thus driving a core fundamental of productivity that unified communications anchor on.

So no new user names, no new user accounts, rather a single yet pervasive identity in order to make unified communications become great. You could say that the argument or requirement for a single identity isn’t new – rather its been around for a while. In fact there are companies that make identity management software and have been doing so for quite some time. What you can’t say or know and for which I am most excited about is watching how those companies map their current positions in delivering such capabilities into facilitating mainstream unified communications and its adoption further. Food for thought in case you’re not yet following me - watch what IBM and its Tivoli solution, Microsoft with its Active Directory as well as others do with their software around unified communications and how they enable further business communications. Heck, one never knows what Google might do to improve their recent moves into mobile wireless communications since they may see IBM and or Microsofts current positions in this space as a threat to their continued dominance around maintaining their velocity as a formidable competitor whose deep research capabilities rival all but IBM and Microsoft in an industry moving at light speed.

From this former IT guy some real exciting stuff around unified communications is happening … taking it from good to great. Watch how a single, enhanced identity will be mapped transparently to core IT infrastructure services and driving future unified communication services thus making it possible.

A number of bloggers have been blogging about on Google's mobile plans for the better part of the year.

Recently I blogged  as to how Google may be able to take their may ad revenue  business model into the mobile space.

Well today, Google made it very clear with their mobile alliance announcements .

The interesting part of the discussion revolves around Verizon. Specifically, Verizon may be in talks with google in joining Sprint and T-Mobile as part of Google's plans.

But is this the same Verizon that sued the FCC after the FCC adopted Google's open access  motions?

Yes it is the same Verizon.

It may be that Verizon needs to be involved and not get blindsided as they did when they choose not to support Apple's iPhone, and lost a tremendous branding opportunity.

Or, it may be that Verizon needs to be involved to make sure it's part of the disruption as mobile business models change.

Another score for the open source business model and for the public as we should see innovation at as faster velocity.

Time will tell!

Here's the second part of our Virtualization series  and a continuation of Virtualization -  Part 1 – The Abstraction of the Internet.

A computer consists of several key elements that along with software (and firmware) provide useful applications like the browser you are using to read this blog from our web servers.

Here are some of the items that are noteworthy:

Central Processing Unit (CPU) – aka Pentium for you wintel folks, is the heart of the computer and executes instructions (software or firmware) that are programmed by a software engineer.

Input/Output Devices – Provides a method to enter , display or share information from the computer, for example:  Display, keyboard, mouse.

Random Access Memory (RAM) – Is memory that is accessed by the CPU which losses its contents when you remove power.  RAM (Typically) is the fastest memory that a CPU and “read” or “write”.

Disk Drive – Is memory that is also accessed by the CPU which doesn’t lose its contents when you remove power.  Disks are slower than RAM.

Flash Memory – Is like RAM but has the characteristics of a disk drive.

Data Bus – Depending on the CPU (8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit or 64 bits wide) is where the CPU can read or write data from or to the various memory devices,  Input/Output devices.  Each bit is a “1” or “0”.

Address Bus – Also dependent on the CPU , this is where the CPU (using bits) selects the location in memory to read or write data.

Firmware – aka BIOS for wintel folks, is software that is used to “boot” (restart from a known state)  the computer that resides in Flash memory or a Programmable Read Only  Memory (PROM).

Software – eg Office.

Operating System – eg Windows, is a layer of software that abstracts the hardware and controls the overall operation of the computer.

Networks – Are communication systems that allow computers to share information.

Programming Languages – A CPU can only understand binary (“1” or “0” s) for the  instructions it executes.  There are various instructions to read , write, add, multiply, subtract , divide and move data. However, Humans need to abstract the instructions into words to make it easier.  These languages define the way words are used forming a grammer (just like English or Spanish) .  The first form of languages are assembler languages which are specific to a CPU and not portable, the subsequent languages like C, C++, FORTRAN, Pascal provided more functionality with Database languages like 3GL, 4GL etc..

A computer can be a main frame, a desktop or your laptop which were confined to a area (room, your desk or your lap).

Advances in networking have provided efficient methods of distributing the CPU from Disks, Input/Output devices. 

Storage Area Networks are clusters of disk drives that are no longer directly connected to the computer using the various buss’s described above. This is a key level of abstraction which has allowed distributed computing to evolve into GRID computing where the software is one place, the CPUs in another and memory in yet another.  Distributed computing provides more efficient use of computing at unparalleled  level of disaster recovery.

Why is this important? 

Computing has and will continue to be the mother of invention for advances not only in the hardware or software but also in the networks that connect everything together like the Internet or also an Enterprise VPN.

More later :

Virtualization – Part 3  - The Abstraction of Applications
Concepts of a Application Programmers Interface (API),  examples and pitfalls for APIs and the abstraction of  Web Services.