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Tech

Impact of Today’s Hardware and Software Applications in Cloud-based Environments: Part 1

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As an industry, we have been looking at cloud-based technologies both from private and public structure and how best to optimize design, engineer and develop such technologies to better optimize the world of wireless and the Internet of Everything.

But one aspect that has not been discussed at length is how poorly hardware and software perform in cloud-based environments. I want to discuss some of the challenges facing the industry and some potential solutions that can help create and bring a new revolution to the world of Wide Area Networks (WAN), along with the automation of practically every human-to-human and human-to-machine interface.

Currently, there are two technologies being discussed in almost every seminar or white paper being published—software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV). While these vary in structure by different vendors, clearly, all of them attack certain aspects of the mobile carrier network or Tier 1 landline networks. Let me give you my two-cents on what these technologies must address:

SDN must create a more agile network with the development of an open northbound interface. This becomes an enabler for service providers (SPs) to reduce time-to-market for service introduction, reduce capex unit cost by focusing network elements (NEs) to just move traffic, and reducing opex unit cost for network services that take significant human capital cost to deliver, such as establishing protection and restoration or provisioning new connectivity services.
NFV must enable SPs to provide new services, and hence, new incremental revenue, by replacing dedicated hardware/software located on the customer premise, e.g., DVR, storage, firewall and others.

Cloud computing, on the other hand, must enable enterprises to leverage shared and scalable computing resources, hardware and software to impact their capex and opex unit costs.

The promise of such technologies has always been for

These promises are expected to deliver much better total cost of ownership (TCO) with lower opex and in essence support moving to a hardware-agnostic or independent model, offering further savings.

About a decade ago, I predicted that the battleground in the 21st century would be all about software and not hardware. Although hardware is needed, it is the role of software to optimize all five functions above using new state-of-the-art technologies such as SDN and NFV.

The problem that can become very complicated is that enterprise customers’ networks and appliances are not designed for multiple tenants, pay-for-play or on-demand services. However, SDN and NFV are fundamentally designed for such functions. That means that it is imperative for CXOs to sponsor corporate-wide programs to move into SDN and NFV, offering capabilities to drive higher revenues while competing for device replacements at the network margins from mobile access points up to wireline or Wide Area Networks.

SDN, by itself, is not really a new technology and has been in existence since 2006. It has been used to mainly improve data center performance, since the concept of big central offices with large Class 4/5 switches are pretty much obsolete in the 21st century.

But SDN has a long way to go to deliver an agile network. Today’s management of transport networks does not match the agility of the cloud-based services being deployed on them. These two have to converge to bring the transport agility into the 21st century for service delivery. Why should it take weeks and months to establish a new enterprise customer on an SP network? Why should it take weeks to provision high-speed point-to-point connectivity with specific protection requirements? SDN has yet to deliver just that.

NFV, in contrast, was introduced between 2010 and 2012 to operators in order to improve service time-to-market and network flexibility and allow a smooth transition to the cloud with significantly lower opex. In my view, the sky is the limit on NFV. For any onsite services (e.g., storage, firewall and DVR), whether today or in the future, NFV gives SPs the opportunity to deliver both consumers and enterprises major benefits, such as having a turn-key solution that lowers costs and improves quality of service (QoS).

The initial applications of SDN and NFV have changed greatly over the past few years. SDN focused mainly on cloud orchestration and networking, while NFV focused on IP-based protocols and capabilities such as DNS, DHCP, DPI, firewalls, gateways, and traffic management.

From my perspective, I believe NFV has already taken over Layer 4-7 of the SDN movement by delivering lower capex and cycle time, creating a competitive supply of innovative applications by third parties and introducing control abstractions to foster innovations that carriers need in order to compete with all over-the-top players.

Let’s also note that the new world requires openness in almost every API layer of the network from access to the core. The issue is legacy systems and processes that need to be changed in order to adapt to the new world of SDN and NFV.

Nowhere is this more critical than the mobile and Tier 1 landline carriers.

In essence, these sectors need to change all analog processes using legacy systems into digital processes, in which NFV can easily fit. That transition may take years, if not a decade, before it is fully implemented.

But the question is whether MNOs and Tier 1 carriers can wait that long to implement NFV and get the most optimized set of solutions in order to compete globally.

My guess is no, they cannot wait and stay competitive. The transition to NFV can be done more quickly, and I’m going to tell you how.

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Tech

What Google killing IE9 support means for software development

Google’s announcement that it won’t support Internet Explorer 9 is a sign of a broader move toward rapid iteration in software development.

Let’s start with this: I am completely OK with this. Sure, it may be a bit of a drag for people running Windows Vista (as newer versions of Internet Explorer – 10 and 11 – require Windows 7 or 8) but, let’s be honest – nobody expects any company to spend the money and man-hours supporting every web browser for all eternity. And Vista users still have the option of installing another web browser, such as Firefox or Chrome.

So, if this isn’t all that big of a deal, why am I bringing it up?

Web browsers are, in essence, platforms for running software.
Internet Explorer 9 was released in 2011. It’s only two years old.

That means that we have reached the point where complete application platforms are being deprecated, and left unsupported, after having existed for only two years. And, while that does bode well for the rapid improvement of platforms, it comes with a pretty steep price.

The most obvious of which is that end users are put in the position of needing to upgrade their systems far more often. This costs a not-insignificant amount of time (especially in larger organizations) and money. It is, to put it simply, inconvenient.

This rapid iteration of new versions of these systems also takes a heavy toll on software development. More versions of more platforms means more complexity in development and testing. This leads to longer, and more costly, development cycles (and significantly higher support costs). The result? The software that runs on these systems is improved at a slower rate than would otherwise be possible, and in all likelihood they will be of lower quality.

These are some pretty major drawbacks to the current “Operating Systems and Web Browsers are updated every time the wind changes direction” situation. But is it really all that bad? The alternative, for Windows users, isn’t terribly attractive. Nobody wanted to be stuck with IE 6 for a second longer than was absolutely necessary.

I don’t have a solution to any of this, mind you. Not a good one, at any rate – maybe we should make a gentleman’s agreement to not release new Operating Systems or Browsers more often than every three years. (See? Not a good solution.)

I’m just not a big fan of how it’s currently working.

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Microsoft, Windows 8

Broad Windows 8 deployment in enterprises could take years

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Learning curve, satisfaction with Windows 7 cited by experts

Widespread Windows 8 adoption by businesses is years away, primarily because it is so different from Windows 7 that the learning curve for end users will be a nightmare, experts say.

Gartner says in a report coming out later this week that 90% of enterprises will bypass wholesale deployment of Windows 8 at least through 2014.

A desktop consultant to businesses says he doesn’t expect to recommend Windows 8 to customers for a year or two. “There’s nothing for the task worker that Windows 8 is going to improve on,” says Pete Lee, Engagement Manger of SWC Technologies, a software development and desktop consulting firm in Oak Brook, Ill., which is a Microsoft Gold Partner.

The difficulties stem from the many small ways Windows 7 differs from Windows 8, says Georges Khairallah, a network specialist at the Chino Valley Unified School District in Chino Valley, Calif., who has been using Windows 8 for weeks to administer his network. While the differences didn’t affect him adversely, he thinks they would have a crippling effect on end users.

“It’s going to be traumatic, I think,” he says, “especially if the organization doesn’t have an excellent training program for users.”

That doesn’t mean the new operating system won’t have immediate niche applications that make it worth deploying to certain segments of employees, particularly among mobile workers and in cases where navigating by touchscreen is important, Lee says.

He thinks there are good reasons for certain types of jobs to be supported by Windows 8, and he can see Windows 8 being deployed more widely in businesses with large sales and marketing staffs that are mobile.

The operating system could prove valuable to remote and traveling workers who in addition to doing work on portable Windows 8 machines would use them for personal business and entertainment as well. The Windows 8 machine could serve the purpose of a business laptop as well as a notebook for work and a personal tablet used for messaging, music, games that would otherwise call for a separate device, he says.

He could see a business deploying Windows 8 for such workers while keeping Windows 7 on traditional desktops to avoid training as well as the costs of deploying new operating systems and the hardware upgrades that it might require.

Lee says he plans to suggest Windows 8 in work environments where many workers share the same machine, such as in laboratories where many technicians need to access data or libraries where patrons search for books. The touchscreen would be convenient for such tasks and wouldn’t eat up space that would be needed for keyboards and mice, making for a less cluttered work area, he says The touchscreen aspects of the operating system are not well suited to corporate desktops, he says. Deploying Windows 8 with full functionality would require touchscreen monitors but wouldn’t improve productivity of workers who use traditional desktops, and the monitors alone represent a heavy investment, he says.

Deploying Windows 8 without touchscreen and having users work in traditional desktop mode would be an unwarranted expense that would gain minimal new functionality, he says.

Compounding the problem is that many enterprises are still deploying Windows 7 as an upgrade from Windows XP, which Microsoft stops supporting next spring. Khairallah says his organization is in the midst of that and it hasn’t been easy. “Going from XP to Windows 7 was horrible,” he says.

He says it makes more sense to wait for Windows 8 to be sold with home computers and let workers get used to it. “Let them have the learning curve on their own time and after that start deploying it slowly,” he says. “I really don’t see it going mainstream right away,” he says.

 

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Microsoft

Microsoft Wave: yet another Microsoft site about Microsoft

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The Microsoft UK team has put together Microsoft Wave, and it’s not a new release of Windows Live, nor is it a competitor to Google Wave. It’s a Web portal that showcases cool new technology that the company is involved in. The site shows off the latest developments and products and breaks them up unevenly into five categories:

Hardware
Entertainment: Xbox 360 Project Natal, Microsoft Mediaroom, Microsoft Surface, and Xbox 360 Elite
PCs & Accessories: Windows PC Selector, Arc Mouse, Natural Wireless Laser Mouse, LifeCam NX-3000, and Sidewinder X6 Keyboard
Mobile: Windows Mobile Devices, Microsoft Tag, and Windows Live for Mobile

Software
Online Services: Live Mesh, Internet Explorer 8, Office Live Workspace, and Office Live Small Business
Featured: Dreamspark, WorldWide Telescope, DeepZoom Composer, Photosynth, pptPLEX for Powerpoint, Songsmith, and AutoCollage
Gaming: Halo Wars, Ninja Blade, Gears of War 2, Banjo Kazzooie: Nuts and Bolts, Flight Simulator X Deluxe, Age of Empires III: Gold Edition, and Zoo Tycoon 2:
Learn
Office: Microsoft Office Templates, Office Clip Art, Office Live Workspace, and Office Live Small Business
Design: Expression Blend, Expression Media, Expression Web, and Expression Encoder
Developer: Silverlight, Kodu, Expression super Preview, XNA Creators Club, Dreamspark, and MSDN Developer Centers
Videos: I’m a PC, Office 2010, and Project Natal

While it’s interesting to see how Microsoft has decided to divvy up its products, tools, and resources, there is quite a lot missing. Most notably, Windows 7 is nowhere to be found. The site definitely shows some flair: Microsoft is in dire need of showcasing many of the things that it does as much of it goes unnoticed. Still, this just seems like yet another Microsoft website that will fall by the wayside as it’s just adding to the clutter. There are way too many Microsoft websites that overlap, and even though Microsoft Wave is pretty spiffy, it isn’t helping with the confusion.

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PC Self-Paced Certification Training Courses In MCTS SQL Simplified

Everybody is busy these days, and inevitably should we decide to advance our future prospects, taking a course alongside a job is the only option open to us. Certified training from Microsoft can be the way to do it. In addition, you may like to talk in detail on the sort of careers to be had when you’ve finished studying, and which personalities those jobs may be appropriate for. Many people like to discuss what they might be good at. Ensure your course is matched to your needs and abilities. A reputable training company will ensure that your training track is relevant to the status you wish to achieve.
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Any program that you’re going to undertake must provide a properly recognised qualification as an end-result – and not a worthless ‘in-house’ diploma – fit only for filing away and forgetting. If the accreditation doesn’t feature a big-hitter like Microsoft, Adobe, Cisco or CompTIA, then chances are it will have been a waste of time – because it won’t give an employer any directly-useable skills.

Don’t get hung-up, as a lot of students can, on the accreditation program. You’re not training for the sake of training; you’re training to become commercially employable. You need to remain focused on where you want to go. It’s quite usual, for instance, to find immense satisfaction in a year of study only to end up putting 20 long years into a tiresome job role, simply because you did it without some quality research at the beginning.

Take time to understand how you feel about career development, earning potential, and whether you intend to be quite ambitious. You should understand what (if any) sacrifices you’ll need to make for a particular role, which particular certifications will be required and where you’ll pick-up experience from. We’d recommend you seek guidance and advice from an industry professional before you begin a particular training path, so you can be sure that the specific package will give the skill-set required for your career choice.

There are colossal changes washing over technology in the near future – and it becomes more and more thrilling each day. We’re barely beginning to get a handle on what this change will mean to us. How we interact with the world will be inordinately affected by computers and the web.

If earning a good living is around the top on your wish list, then you will be happy to know that the usual remuneration for most men and women in IT is much better than with most other jobs or industries. The need for appropriately qualified IT professionals is certain for a good while yet, thanks to the substantial growth in the technology industry and the huge deficiency that we still have.

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