ELASTIC FABRICS& CLOUD ISPs

Carriers: Ignore them at your peril

Skeeve StevensNetwork Architect & Futurist

COMMSDAY SYDNEY 2015

ELASTIC FABRICSWhat are they?• Removing one of the last barriers of full elastic IT• Revolution* in connectivity/telecommunications• Characterised by –

OnDemand* Provisioning / AutomationCheap pay-as-you-go pricingNo (or short) Contracts*

Extreme speedsMarketplaces of Services

• A predictable eventuality – the gourmet world• Enterprise service delivery revolution

FABRIC PROVIDERS

Megaport

Others….Nextgen(What happened

to it?)

Equinix CloudExchange

Pacnet PEN(TEN?)

IX Australia

• Cloud – Direct Access (AWS, Azure, others coming)Compute, Hosted Desktop, Storage, Cloud Applications (AaaS), Hadoop, etc

• Core ISP Infrastructure (LNS, CGN, Routing, Peering, etc)• Physical Infrastructure aaS• Storage Providers (mostly via public cloud players)• IP Transit – Backup paths, OnDemand capacity• Tails - xDSL, Fibre/NBN, MetroE, International Circuits - anything Layer 2• Voice - SIP Trunks, Hosted Voice; Full Enterprise PABXs• DDoS Protection-aaS / CleanFeed – i.e. Micron21• Virtual/Physical Appliances - Firewall-aaS, Load Balancing-aaS• Most of the above available as whitelabelled wholesale offerings

WHATS AVAILABLE NOW

• Enterprise targeted services, especially capex intensive, multi-tenantable solutions

• Storage seems to be one of the big ones• Many vendor appliances – Cisco making big moves• Hosted Layer 2/Layer 3 environments• More Public Cloud – Google Compute, OrionVM, SoftLayer, RackSpace• Enterprise Cloud – SalesForce, SAP, Adobe, Oracle• Private/Hybrid Cloud – Fujitsu, HP, IBM, EMC, etc• Hosted Desktops are hot – licensing is what is holding it back a bit

Real Windows desktops, Virtualised Macs, hosted embedded systems (e.g. POS), hosted advertising platforms, industrial control systems, etc.

WHATS COMING (or likely to)

• No, Not a Cloud Provider• Not a reseller• Not the old term ‘VISP’• A REAL, multi-carrier, self managed, elastic infrastructure,

Internet Service Provider• Almost doable – within 6-9 months• Some partial deployments exist – I’ve built them

THE CLOUD ISPWhat is it?

• Rapid deployment of ISP environments • No Hardware/Licensing delays• No equipment failures*

• Scalable capacity without hardware upgrades• Highly redundant – Multi-cloud, regions and AZs• Minimise business risk – no capex• Elastic Infrastructure – pay only for what you need, when you

need it• Global reach and possibilities• Replicatable – i.e. copy/paste in Singapore, HK, etc

CLOUD ISP – WHY?

• The Big Vendors - Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, A10, F5, Citrix• Core Functions - Virtualised Routing and Switching• ISP Functions - LNS, CGN/LSN, Proxies• Security - Firewalls, IPS, DDoS Mitigation/Cleanfeed• Servers – Virtual/Containers/Physical• Cloud Providers - AWS, Azure, Softlayer, GC, Cisco

InterCloud, VMware vCloud Air… more coming• Elastic Fabrics (the glue)• Datacentre Physical X-Connects – to get to those not yet on

THE BITSNow and in the next 12 months

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?

• Machine Images still coming – many more needed• Licensing from Vendors could be nicer• Cloud Provider internal networking still needs work• Inter-connection pricing for data needs to be improved• Terminology is a pain• Have to figure it out yourself• Minimal Expertise/help/support

WHAT DOESN’T WORK …YET

WARNING

Service Providers, Infrastructure Providers

and Carriers

• If you’re not selling via Elastic Fabrics, your competition will be soon or already is

• Expanding Globally – Equinix, Megaport….• Ease of migration – TO or FROM you (think Mobile portability)

• Hardware vendors are rushing to release virtualised equipment to Elastic Fabrics

• You can ignore it, but others are already servicing the (your) market

• Wholesalers: You will still sell tails, but your VA profit will go• Enterprises are already buying services directly• Why not?

WHY YOU NEED TO CARE

• Speed of Legals• Speed of Provisioning Services• Contract Terms• Value Add• You cannot sell your customer everything – get over it - Partnerships

are king – even at the highest end of town• Join other fabrics – participate in the marketplace• You need to know your customer and how they buy – watch what 12

year olds are doing• Die? Altavista, MySpace, Kodak, Nokia, Nintendo, Atari, Sega, Pizza

Hut – many more. • The mighty can fall – carriers are no exception

HOW YOU NEED TO CHANGEInnovate or Die

THE NEXT 6-12 MONTHS• Cloud ISPs. Rapidly deployed full service ISPs• More VxC Fabrics, on demand and fast (more 100Gb)• Vertically Focused Fabrics• Interconnected Fabrics• Marketplace maturity• A LOT more wholesale product offerings with Value-add

products making all the difference• EC Awareness

SKEEVE STEVENSe: skeeve@eintellegonetworks.comw: eintellegonetworks.comt: @skeevestevenslinkedin: /in/skeeve w: www.TheISPGuy.com

f: /theispguy

THANK YOU.

COMMSDAY SYDNEY 2015