IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

My day started with a 7am flight, followed by a soon to be customer visit,  I then presented a
IPv6 state-of-the-union  perspective at a Futurenet panel discussion along with John Curran Chairman of ARRIN,  and Todd Underwood of NANOG. And ended the day with the Massnetcomms 2008 award dinner.

The highlight of my day was at the award dinner, I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Vanu Bose (he is the son of the founder of Bose) who was honored with the most innovative product of the year.  Vanu has developed a software controlled radio that can operate across many deployed mobile standards .  Instead of fork lifting hardware,  you change the software and mobile operators can efficiently rollout new wireless protocols.  Kinda like adding a new application on your PC.

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.

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!

ICANN released an informative announcement  on IPv6 last week.

The paper is well written for both technical and non-technical audiences.  I did post a response at ICANN’s blog site  providing some insight as to how Global Crossing is working to address them.

Global Crossing provides IPv6 support today:

• As the first—and only—provider to support IPv6 natively on a global scale, Global Crossing is uniquely qualified to enable a transition to IPv6
• Dual-stack edge routers enables v4/v6 on the same port at no additional cost
• IPv6 addresses provided
• IPv6 DNS delegation
• IPv6 caching servers

 Global Crossing is one  of only nine Tier 1 ISPs worldwide*: (* As of October  29^th , 2007 )

• AOL Transit Data Network
• AT&T
• Global Crossing
• Level 3
• Verizon Business
• NTT Communications
• Qwest
• SAVVIS
• Sprint Nextel Corporation

 Global Crossing owns and operates our their  global IP network:

• One seamless global IP network (AS#3549) with end-to-end control covering 100,000+ Miles/160,000+ Kilometers

The ICANN fact sheet  identifies a couple of additional issues and concerns:

What are the issues with IPv6 rollout?

IPv6 is already available in some desktop and server operating systems. However, the vast majority of Internet content and services are only provided over IPv4, which is a problem as IPv4 and IPv6 are not interoperable. That means a desktop computer that only has an IPv6 address cannot access a website that only has IPv4 connectivity without passing through a NAT-PT device or some other form of protocol translation system or application gateway.

Another key issue in IPv6 deployment is that the vast majority of networks were built for IPv4. Enabling IPv6 on those networks involves making sure that provisioning, management, monitoring, auditing, billing and firewalls all work with IPv6.

Both of the issues will affect IPv6 adoption unless the IP Carrier can offer a platform that mitigates the risks and costs of adoption.  Global Crossing’ Dual Stack offer provides the needed mitigation of both adoption issues.

 

Is it IPv6 or nothing?

The answer is No,  customer's can  utilize a Carrier that can provide IPv6 IPv4 dual stack Globally!

Check it out!

This weekend I read a commentary by PC Magazine’s  editor and Chief Lance Ulanoff “Don’t Give Google 700Mhz”

I posted  a response at their website and I am still bothered by the position he has taken.

“ The position that 700Mhz digital data services may require antennas as broadcast analog TV is totally off base.  An analog broadcast !=  (not equal to) digital data, broadcast TV is just that a broadcast signal without any protocol between the receiver and transmitter, whereas digital data receiver and transmitter have defined protocols that optimize reception given the available data rate e.g. WiFi, GPRS etc …

Some  of the biggest advantages of wireless digital data at 700Mhz is not needing line of site ,  not prone to moisture (water in leaves) and a huge chunk of to be available spectrum.

The position that Verizon, Sprint and ATT know the business and can do better for the American public is weak at best.

“The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent United States government agency, directly responsible to Congress. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.”

The FCC’s job is to manage American spectrum for the country , e.g. the people.

When was the last time Verizon, Sprint and ATT acted on behalf of the people?  Checkout your Verizon RZAR and you’ll find out they feature lock Motorola’s features (like local access to Bluetooth to transfer files), whereas T-mobile does not.

Google is acting to further itself , but there’s a difference here.  Google’s advocacy on Open Access to Spectrum is disruptive   and will create innovation in the wireless industry that will benefit the people.

Google’s greatest strength is their  success, their greatest challenge is maturing as a regulatory influencer against the incumbents who have decades of experience on playing the game.”

I had to rewrite the post several times just to get my emotions out.

Google has and will change the wireless industry.  The position they have taken on open access on spectrum will create innovate  environment , which will open the markets to more companies that develop hardware, software or services (content).

The big three will need to be competitive to protect their base, this is no different than the FCC open market position in the 90’s that opened local markets which benefited users with more choices and lowered costs.

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.

A key element of virtualization is the concept of abstraction. Abstraction can take many forms and  many applications with profound  benefits.

This is the first of a  five  part series on the evolution of virtualization, with the following planned articles:

Virtualization – Part 2 - The Abstraction of the Computer
The definition of a computer (CPU, data bus, memory, input/output, and disk)  , the  abstraction of programming a computer (machine code, assembly language,  3rd generation programming languages (3GL),  4GL and  5GL), the  separation of a CPU from disk and the   application  of a Storage Area Network (SAN),  blade servers and the realization of GRID computing.

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.

Virtualization – Part 4 – Virtualization of Voice Communications
Telephony basics in the  circuit switched voice network and the evolution of the  packet switched voice network , aka VoIP.

Virtualization – Part 5  -  Real World IT  Examples and Benefits
The anatomy and benefits  of Virtual Data Centers and  Call Centers

We’ll start the series on a model that is near and dear to our hearts – the Internet.

Vint Cerf  is one of the founding fathers of the internet and created a transport model of moving packets from one network to another. Seems pretty straight forward but,  back in the day this was not an easy task as the networks were typically homogenous deployed by a single hardware vendor (DEC, AT&T, NCR, Apollo, Banyan, etc… ). Each vendor had their own proprietary methods of defining a ‘packet’ (that is,   the number of bits in a ‘packet’; the order of the bits in a ‘packet’; the number of bytes in a ‘packet’; and the meaning of each bit/byte in a ‘packet’), and the way these computers spoke to each other (i.e. the protocol).

The first  major challenge was to allow these desperate networks to exchange data. The challenge was met by defining common communication protocols (i.e. TCP/IP, UCP, etc …)  , and   a  common packet &  addressing structure.

This allowed high powered users (Scientists at the world's research institutions) to efficiently communicate across an environment largely made up of  heterogeneous computers.  Within this structure, application developers at each vendor (DEC, AT&T, NCR, Apollo, Banyan, etc…)  developed tools, using the agreed upon common protocols  ,  to transfer files (FTP), login into another computer (TELNET) and exchange email (POP3, SMTP).


Tim Bernes-Lee was one of those high powered users and wanted to find an easier way of navigating thru the internet without having to issue ftp commands or walk thru folders ( i.e. directories).  He created an abstraction between what the internet looked like and the commands that facilitated communications .  Tim created the notion of the world wide web.  The world’s first web site  was brought online in 1991. 

Tim is credited for creating the following words we all use everyday:  www, http and HyperText Transfer Protocol.

These abstractions have lead to an  unprecedented number of users to the internet in very little time.   A concept that some call, “Internet Time” . 

“Internet Time” is defined by Wikipedia   as:

“Internet time was a common catchphrase that originated during the late-1990s Internet boom. In this period, people who worked with the Internet had come to believe that "everything moved faster on the 'net", because the Internet made the dissemination of information far easier and cheaper. Fast-moving developments were therefore said to run "on Internet time".

Efforts in virtualization of the internet are focused in/around layer 3 of the OSI stack,  in the next article in this series we will take a dive into the machines themselves to understand abstraction as it relates to their operation and subsequent evolution, in Part 2 - The Abstraction of the Computer.

We’ll then take a quick look at the applications that ride over them in Part 3 – The Abstraction of Applications.

After understanding the abstraction of the Application,  we’ll look at a very basis of communications – Voice , in Part 4 -  Virtualization of Voice Communications.

In the final article we will put all of these pieces together in understanding the anatomy and benefits of Virtual Data Centers and  Call Centers , in  Part 5 - Real World IT  Examples and Benefits.

It gets a little irritating in reading the media’s somewhat negative stance on the recent release of the iphone .

If you have followed Apple over the years, you will find a company who constantly can innovate and lead industry change.

A few examples we all take for granted:

1. 1984 ,  The world’s 1^st mass market windows GUI the Mac is  launched during the superbowl.  They took pieces of technology previously developed by Xerox PARC,  created a vision and  brought it to the world. It was Apple the company and not the technology creator Xerox.
2. 1993 , The world’s 1^st mass market PDA equipped with a 20Mhz RISC processor running on (4) AA batteries.  Apple took a U turn and went up market with subsequent message pads 110, 120, 130, 2000 and 2100.  The device was borne of true innovation creating a platform that challenged previous computers from Norand,  Symbol and GRID.  It failed due to high cost structures and not being able to meet price sensitivity  defined by the market winners like Palm. (By the way, Apple understood price sensitivity as  they found volumes rise as they sold below cost to clear inventories to make way for the planned roadmap). It also failed due to lack of integrated communications.
3. 2007,  the iphone.

Here is something to consider,  we are now hearing that there is another “nano iphone” being planned  , is it last minute planning , or something larger with more phone products that bracket incumbent mobile devices , while flooding and fine tuning the market with Apple patented innovation.

My bet is they learned a lot from the Newton and now will apply it to a very ripe market and use media to their best interest in being a market maker.

Adding to Adam's recent blog on  Rochester's contribution to  communications.

Hiram Sibley is another famous Rochesterian  who worked closely with Samuel F.B. Morse ( the inventor of the Telegraph) and co-founded Western Union along with Ezra Cornell ( co-founder of Cornell University).

In 1876 Western Union was the leading communications company at the time, and when an unknown inventor by the name of Alexander Graham Bell tried to sell the patent outright to Western Union for $100,000.

The president of Western Union balked, countering that the telephone was nothing but a toy.

Two years later, the president of Western Union told his colleagues that if he could get the patent for $25 million he would consider it a bargain. By then the Bell no longer wanted to sell the patent.

By the 3rd year,   the Bell company acquired Edison's patents for the carbon microphone from Western Union.

In this industry one needs to keep an open mind to innovation!

Wow, things really do happen fast and a great example of “internet time”.

Here’s the result of my prediction on March 19th.

Watch out Voice based directory services have just been disrupted and expect Google to be leader in this space.