{"id":1479,"date":"2016-12-07T21:47:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T21:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radcom.com\/?p=1479"},"modified":"2024-04-15T11:37:54","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T11:37:54","slug":"service-assurance-in-virtual-hybrid-environments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radcom.com\/service-assurance-in-virtual-hybrid-environments\/","title":{"rendered":"Service Assurance in Virtual + Hybrid Environments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Through all of human history, people have wanted to communicate with each other. When messages had to travel greater distances, smoke signals and drumbeats came into use. About the 5th century, someone thought of using carrier pigeons to deliver written notes. Clever as this was, it wasn\u2019t entirely reliable: one strong wind, a rainstorm, or a hungry hawk could intercept an urgent message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the advent of the telegraph in 1838 and the telephone in 1876, telco was solidly on its way. Although a storm could still take down wires, there was a more reliable network carrying voice and text data nearly anywhere in the world. The first videophone was tested in 1920 but didn\u2019t take off. Perhaps people preferred talking to one another without worrying about formal attire. Pagers, one of the first wireless devices, introduced as a special service for doctors in NYC around 1950, were commercially available by the 60s and ubiquitous by the 80s. Fax machines have moved from wired to wireless, and are still standard in some places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although car phones originated in 1946, and the concept of wireless telephony was popular for years earlier, the first real handheld mobile phone only emerged in 1973. The cellular systems then were very primitive. The first mobile cellular network was created in 1981, soon followed by the arrival of email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Telecom, computer communications, and networking technologies have intersected at various points, moving towards a more convergent stream of development. Computer telecom began with teletype, evolving from simple terminals wired to a mainframe, to packet-switching data relays. The internet first started running on existing telephone networks. We\u2019re mirroring that cross-pollination now, with OTT television, voice, and video on mobile, IoT-controlled smart mobile, and digitally-based voice offerings such as VoLTE coming from traditional CSPs. With virtualization crossing into telecom from IT sources, the merging of the two timelines continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Telco networking has always involved the upkeep and installation of high-maintenance metalware and miles of wire. What we retroactively call 1G, and telco\u2019s next big jump to 2G, digital cellular, were a vast but necessary time and money hemorrhage, continuing with the switch to 3G and then 4G LTE. It\u2019s a resource bleed, installing shiny new proprietary gear while ruefully removing the last round of expensive, obsolete hardware, and getting the newly-connected networks to behave properly, with as few dropped calls and data packets as possible. Changing over to developing tech always comes at a cost, but the ongoing massive expansion of mobile users and mobile carriers, plus the upcoming segue to 5G, simply cannot be built on an equivalent spending model. There has to be a better way. There is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carrier service providers are shifting increasing percentages of their data and operations to cloud computing. Cloud-controlled virtualization is an unfolding process we\u2019re all revealing more of as we experience it. As virtualization matures and accelerates, there\u2019s always more to learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2014, Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin referred to dissolving their relationship as a ‘conscious uncoupling’. A year or two earlier, decoupling began for new forms of networking structures. By now, the hardwired status quo is out the window, but it\u2019s a very positive breakup. SDN and NFV are working together to make it easier for us to think of the proprietary hardware we\u2019ve been depending on as just somebody that we used to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SDN<\/strong> (software-defined networking) separates the network\u2019s control plane and data\/forwarding plane in order to offer a high-level overview of the distributed network. This exponentially increases efficiency for management and automation of network services. SDN works as a base for NFV, almost like an operating system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s a simplified look at SDN in action (below). You can see the programmable control plane in the center, the data and forwarding plane at the bottom and the network functions at the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n