Oct 18, 2019
SD-WAN Management Costs, Wargamed
In house or outsourced? This is an age-old question for many firms.
Oct 8, 2019
Is Your Planned Submarine Cable Doomed?
Anyone who follows the submarine cable sector knows that a lot of cables have been built in recent years—and investments in new cables keep coming.
I gave a presentation at Submarine Networks World 2019 in Singapore titled "Is Your Planned Submarine Cable Doomed?" My goal was not to identify particular planned cables that I think are doomed to fail, but rather to highlight some of the key flaws we often see when assessing cable operator business plans on behalf of investors.
I'm a cynic and you can be one, too!
This was the title of Tim Stronge's presentation during a recent webinar we did with our friends at Ciena.
Our favorite neighborhood cynic came bearing an important public service announcement for webinar attendees: just because you see a flashy slide deck or press release about a new submarine cable doesn't mean it's going to happen.
Welcome back to our blog series on “wargaming” WAN configurations to see how product choice can affect site bandwidth and total WAN costs. If you’re just joining us, it’s probably worth going back to the beginning.
When we last left off, my colleague Elizabeth Thorne covered minimizing MPLS down to the core offices. The next couple of entries, however, are going to focus on the radicals. Yes, the daring folks who decide to leave behind MPLS and go full internet.
Aug 6, 2019
Adding SD-WAN, Keeping MPLS
My wife has a brutal Northern Virginia commute; she drives about 80 miles a day. Recently, we decided it was time for a new car for her.
Aug 1, 2019
Wargaming Your WAN: MPLS-Broadband Edition
Hello and welcome to the third entry in our series about wargaming WAN configuration scenarios. We’ve made it to the MPLS-broadband edition!
Before we continue: if you haven’t read the previous entries where I introduce our hypothetical WAN and then add local internet breakouts with DIA, it probably makes sense to do that before you dive into this one. (This scenario mirrors our last, but replaces DIA with ISP-sourced business broadband.)
Welcome to the second entry in this series on “wargaming” WAN scenarios to make sure you’re getting the most bandwidth bang for your buck.
The first actual scenario we’re going to tackle is adopting local internet breakouts in an MPLS-DIA hybrid WAN. Let’s dive in.
I recently finished Seveneves by science fiction author and telecom enthusiast Neal Stephenson.
This book tells the story of near-future humanity struggling to survive after the moon explodes and threatens to end all life on Earth. The scientific and military elite game out their way forward, running models to identify scenarios with the highest probability of survival.
This brings me to wide area networking.
Jul 9, 2019
Building and Managing Security Empowered SD-WAN
The benefits of SD-WAN are apparent: more bandwidth, local breakouts, flexibility, etc. That being said, the larger attack surface makes it vital for security to be at the forefront of any modern deployment.
Jul 3, 2019
How Telefonica Hung Up on Central America
After months of speculation linking Spanish telecom giant Telefonica to a sale of its Central American operations, in January and February 2019 the group agreed to offload all five of its units in the region. Today we look at the deals in question and evaluate how they’ll impact the competitive landscape in Central America.
