Cloud Native is a Hot Topic
I attended SDN World Congress in The Hague a couple weeks ago and among many meetings there I had a conversation with David Snow, Principle Analyst for IP Services Infrastructure at Current Analysis. We both agreed that “cloud native” has become a hot topic in the NFV world of late, and I was able to share our views on cloud native with him. He has just published a blog post on this topic at https://networkmatter.com/2016/11/02/microservices-how-cloud-native-are-network-vendors-today/
Cloud native is not just a hot topic, it’s a big one, David raises some pertinent questions about how traditional telco equipment vendors are going to make the transition from their current approach to NFV with “ported appliance” software to real cloud native solutions, and points out that customers are going to demand and expect some progress. He also namechecks Metaswitch as an early leader in the cloud native space.
As we engage with network operators who are wrestling with the on-boarding of virtualized network functions that have traditional software architectures – and discovering that cloud native VNFs really are far easier to work with – we see a lot of confusion about what cloud native really means and why it is so much better. We also have concerns that the term is being devalued as more and more vendors make spurious claims that they, too, are offering cloud native solutions.
In response to this, we’re taking the lead in developing educational materials to help network operators understand cloud native communications software in depth, and to provide them with the tools to distinguish between real cloud native VNFs and those that are really thinly-disguised ported appliances. Watch this space.
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Martin Taylor is chief technical officer of Metaswitch Networks. He joined the company in 2004, and headed up product management prior to becoming CTO. Previous roles have included founding CTO at CopperCom, a pioneer in Voice over DSL, where he led the ATM Forum standards initiative in Loop Emulation; VP of Network Architecture at Madge Networks, where he led the company’s successful strategy in Token Ring switching; and business general manager at GEC-Marconi, where he introduced key innovations in Passive Optical Networking. Martin has a degree in Engineering from the University of Cambridge. In January 2014, Martin was recognized by Light Reading as one of the top five industry “movers and shakers” in Network Functions Virtualization.
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