In the journey to the cloud, the needs of enterprises have evolved and there is a mismatch between their needs and what they get offered by the telecom operators.
Enterprises need cloud services, but in many cases all what they get from the service provider are connectivity services (Internet, IPVPN, remote access VPNs…). The enterprise require access to a variety of cloud services, while in the best case, the telecom operator just offers its own service. Service agility is also key in the cloud world, but the SP offerings are very static and slow to provision. Enterprises need security and reliable connectivity to the cloud, but all what they get are VPNs and CPEs (customer premises equipment).
The gap between enterprise needs and service provider offerings represents the new opportunity. But where should telecom operators start? In my opinion, there are three steps they can take, depending on the level of implication.
- Evolve the current connectivity service offering
- Orchestrate network and cloud services
- Build it’s own cloud offering
Let’s see briefly what the telecom operator should aim to achieve in each one of those steps.
Evolving the traditional connectivity service offering
The current service offering on connectivity is composed of a variety of access technologies plus a variety of VPN topologies (L2/L3 point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, any-to-any…). That model, served pretty well the traditional needs of the enterprises, but are not solving the needs created by the adoption of cloud (see my previous blog)
The purpose of the connectivity should be to build reliable paths between the enterprise employees to the cloud services in a secure and reliable way. The model, should be flexible enough so new features can be incorporated as new needs appear.
Current VPNs are still very static, and one of the reasons sits on the CPE. In the overall cost model of VPNs, CPEs are very expensive elements carefully selected to serve the minimum needs an optimise costs. Adding new features takes a lot of time and in most cases it requires a physical upgrade or replacement. So the CPE is becoming a piece that limits the agility and ultimately the peace of innovation provided by the Telco. For some service providers, the CPE is seen as the service delivery point. As CPE is limited by its CPU processing and memory , it becomes a bottle neck to the innovation delivered.
Some operators are evolving towards a virtual CPE (or cloud CPE) composed of a simple piece of hardware at the customer premises and all the complex functionality sitting in the cloud (network Edge, Data Centre…). The set of services is not limited any longer by the capacity of the CPE. This model brings many advantages: lower cost, agile infrastructure, up-sell opportunities… (read the guest blog by Colt)
Orchestrate Network and cloud services
Imagine a model where the network responds to the application (when possible). A simple example could be a backup service provided from the cloud: as the backup starts, the network tries to provision additional capacity to serve it better, and if not possible, the network can interact with the backup application to try to reschedule it… By embracing the network programmability principles it is technically possible, however it requires both sides (network and application) to use a common language.
Software Defined Networking (SDN) makes it possible as in a good implementation the controller(s) will be able to orchestrate services end-to-end, across multiple network operators and cloud providers.
Building the Telco Cloud offering
Enterprises are currently served mainly by multiple OTT Cloud providers. Telecom operators however, with its close relationship with the customers, get to know the gaps in the cloud services and can try to build themselves. As an example, an enterprise might be served by Salesforce.com and Amazon clouds, but might be interested in a storage cloud service provided by its local telecom operator.
To do so, service providers and carriers, should be building scalable and simplified datacenters, to provide its own cloud services in a competitive way, and host there its own services as well as licensed models (i.e.Microsoft Office 365 for SPs)
The journey to the cloud is not easy but service providers should take small steps towards it. Read my next blog, to understand the telco cloud ecosystems
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