Hello Members,

If I were to ask you: do you wish to become a better networking practitioner, grow professionally, contribute to strengthening of our industry and community, & reap the rewards of engagement with colleagues from 121+ nations, I’m sure your answer would be a resounding “Yes”! Well, this is exactly what the wealth of ideas and insights available here every week help you do. 🙂 So, be bold and vocal – contribute!

With 45 comments and excellent inputs from Dirk, Luc-Yves, Shuki, Sohail, Zia, Faisal, Larry, Theeuwes, Ray, Palmer, & Emeka, among others, we focused on diverse issues.

Carrier Ethernet Market:

Michael & Anuradha posted an article about how CE is *the* digital fuel for advancing business http://linkd.in/Uuntuk, and Zia wrote about how CE fuels the telco cloud http://linkd.in/1pphijD. This is lent credence by the likes of TW Telecom, whose CECP ranks crossed 200 (announced by Daniel http://linkd.in/1rTLI19) and who, therefore, clearly believe in the value of the CECP. (Discussed frequently here, e.g. in Sohail’s posts http://lnkd.in/bZYdJdi, & http://lnkd.in/b5JCs_E and Sanjay’s question http://lnkd.in/dg2Bvd6).

CE Technology & Network Design

Theeuwes raised an excellent question about what is a true 802.1ad EVPL http://linkd.in/1rnC9X8, which I leave to the purists and pragmatists to argue over 🙂 (do weigh in!), while Shuki’s post on MPLS-TE LSP load balancing http://linkd.in/1nKWs1k continues, with multiple intertwined technical threads!

MEF’s CEBP Certification

Recently, we discussed use cases for the MEF’s new CEBP Certification (http://linkd.in/1rnCk4H). Now Larry posted a survey asking YOUR input to help rank by importance the subject areas for this exam (deadline is Aug. 7, but if I were you, I’d take it *now* to grab my chance at influencing the industry :-)). A great example of interactions emerging from our recent partnership with the MEF; encourage each one of you to take advantage to provide your inputs and make yourself heard, not to mention contribute to a new certification for our entire industry!

Thanks Larry/Daniel for an opportunity for feedback. Go here to take the survey & comment http://linkd.in/1rnCk4H.

Telecom Markets:

Asad posted that Huawei supplanted Ericsson as the top telecom vendor for SPs, per Infonetics (http://linkd.in/UBC0V2), a measure perhaps of the shift in the center of gravity in telecom. Ray posted that telecom/datacom network equipment & software will bring in a total revenue of $1+ Trillion over the next 3 years http://linkd.in/Uuo2EE, greater than the annual GDP of all but 15 world nations! Brings to mind this article on the “Great Eight – Trillion $ Growth Trends until 2020” http://bit.ly/1qFw50d. And, Ray Le Maistre posted the all important LR 2014 Salary Survey (give the link here only).

Palmer posted, what I consider to be, an absolutely brilliant infographic on the hidden history of telecom in Silicon Valley (http://linkd.in/1k1pDgX). Gives us a sense of the magnitude of telecom driven from the Valley – 17 carrier labs., 161 startups, $190+B in investments. Tells me that telecom is as exciting and challenging as ever, and we are living in one of the best times to be in telecom. Check out the graphic and share your thoughts! Thanks Palmer and TCSV!

Standards and Learning:

After some debate, the IEEE relented to industry sentiment and formally began work on 25G (http://linkd.in/1tNYK0D), while Sohail asked about resources to learn about SDN from scratch (give the link here only), a subject that Sanjay had broached earlier (http://linkd.in/1xhioCc). Relates to Sanjay’s post http://lnkd.in/bJwYTTU

So, don’t miss out on a golden opportunity to learn, engage, grow, and give back, and let us hear from you – yes, you – you know you want to!

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

Best wishes,
-Vishal