Hello Members,

i) This week we killed it with technical content, with folks bursting to line rate 🙂

First, Azhar raised some neat points about Multicast L2 VPNs http://lnkd.in/dXya7BX, & Hairpin Switching http://lnkd.in/bPz2tMa (which can get you knotted into a pretzel, if you’re not careful with the connections, OVCs, interfaces, and bends :0)).

Sanjay asked what a network using a certain type of equipment should be called? http://lnkd.in/b_Wk_FW.

Whether or not it can rightfully be classified as a Carrier Ethernet Network (CEN)?
(If you haven’t checked it out, voice your opinion now: come-on admit it, it’s not easy to discern what is or is not a CEN, and you’re wondering about it too! Don’t despair, share your opinion in this friendly community, & let’s collectively hash out a well-reasoned answer.)

Finally, Patrick (Lopez), asked whether we are ready for “experience assurance” – http://lnkd.in/bQSRbcP & http://lnkd.in/dDiakEj. My short answer — far from it!
Briefly: experience assurance requires performance assurance, which requires (a lot of) work at the orchestration & management layer, and, of course, support from the underlying equipment. While that’s certainly improving, vendors are still far from meeting operator (and customer) expectations/needs.

ii) We had posts on state of the industry, new developments, and CE advancement:

First, an interesting question about “diversity” of operator input at the IETF raised by Chris Grundemann http://lnkd.in/deHpKBf, which lead to some rapid back & forth, so jump in if you have a thought. If you’re a service provider do take Chris’s survey and help improve the workings of the IETF.

The post from Michael (Lemm) says Ethernet services are on a roll http://lnkd.in/deWGVvP, but where’s the growth in profits? We, as an industry, must focus on how to make Carrier Ethernet profitable as well, and to help operators increase profits as they make it part of their portfolio. (Now I am aware of carriers that are certainly finding CE quite profitable :-), but more should be helped to figure out this equation.)
Which brings me to Cisco’s acquisition of Tail-f http://lnkd.in/brR9mgn a good study in strategic initiatives.

I wrote a bit about IoT World, Day 1 http://lnkd.in/bxwdJ9j and can assure you that this is a (r)evolution in the making, those that like to be on the cutting-edge might find it worthwhile to invest a bit of time on it. You can get a good idea of the areas of application simply by taking a look at the agenda from my earlier post http://lnkd.in/bNWAXBB.

There was a great summary of some of the most significant presentations at the just-concluded NANOG 61 http://lnkd.in/b9hX-Bb, from Geoff Huston (known for his legendary status in the Internet community, check out my Conversations with Experts (TM) video with him http://bit.ly/1lFGzYE)
If you couldn’t make it to this NANOG, this is a way to get a distilled summary from one of the greatest Internet minds – don’t take my word for it, read it yourself and judge …

iii) Of course, SDN, NFV, and Cloud (real and virtual!) are never too far today — seems like the clouds have literally descended on to terra-firma!
Lauren (Menzies) let us know of interesting interviews from the recent Network Virtualization & SDN World in the UK http://lnkd.in/brfvc7r. A great way for those keen on SDN to quickly come up to speed, by hearing thought leaders.

Mark Lum of Layer123 sent a link to sessions from the SDN & OpenFlow APAC Congress http://www.layer123.com/sdn-apac-webcast. So, you can deeply immerse yourself in what the thought leaders and early adopters are thinking.

Finally, Elizabeth (Palmer) of TCSV shared information on TC3 in Silicon Valley, a key (and perhaps the only) telecom event of its scale devoted to telecom innovation. http://lnkd.in/bC4Hrmz

As always, until next time, may the bits in your bytes and the bytes in your packets be profitable!

Best wishes,
Vishal