“For me the fundamental problems of what is needed to support the cloud is you need a fundamentally scalable and performing network fabric that is very flexible that joins together your various data centers. We’re starting to - after going through many years of seeing network as being dumb pipes and relatively straightforward and IT as being awfully complicated and applications and all of that sort of thing we’re now starting to see a shift back from these major cloud service providers into saying well actually the networking piece is the most difficult thing I have. The concept of how to scale an application to very large footprints is more or less wellknown but the concept of how to link all of that together and the actual places that distribute that information together is becoming an extremely big problem for them,” concluded Walker.
MEF’s 10th Anniversary
At the summit, MEF presented an impressive set of market data and predictions for further growth in carrier ethernet (CE) equipment and services. Having just celebrated its 10th anniversary, the MEF continues to gain momentum through its increasing membership and other initiatives, including an expansion of its successful certification program to include MEF – CECP’s – Carrier Ethernet Certified Professionals important new standards work in the areas of access services and 4G
mobile backhaul. MEF’s strategy for fully enabling carrier ethernet to support private cloud computing also forms a major component of MEF’s current work plans. MEF Global Marketing Co-chair, Phil Tilley, quoted Vertical Systems Group’s confirmation that the worldwide market for business ethernet services is on target to reach $44.3B by 2015 with doubledigit
global growth despite recent economic uncertainty. Vertical also noted that 2011 marks two key tipping points in the carrier
ethernet market. “Cloud networking – both to enable cloud services and to provide access to them – is a significant market opportunity that will continue to fuel service provider and enterprise adoption of ethernet services.” Supporting this opportunity, MEF is working in cooperation with other standards associations in developing educational materials for the use
of carrier ethernet for cloud and, more broadly, contemplating technical work to develop a more “Dynamic, Responsive Ethernet” with cloud being the first major application,” said Kevin Vachon, MEF COO quoting Frost & Sullivan.
Vachon outlined the evolution of the MEF’s popular certification program through the addition of a Carrier Ethernet Professional Certificate to validate expertise, skills and knowledge of carrier ethernet technologies, standards, services and applications. The first level, MEF CECP, is already being awarded to individuals on the basis of an examination covering the fundamentals of carrier ethernet services, providing a widely recognized benchmark for customer credibility and career
advancement.
Data Centers and Cloud
“From an infrastructure perspective we see historically a lot of users will put servers in sub-optimal locations. You’re
trying to drive efficiency through cloud computing, yet you’re putting these servers in a Tier 1 city in a very expensive region and where there’s a high impact to the environment. So we think that to really optimize cloud computing the underlying basic infrastructure needs to be optimized as well and we think that’s been a mistake thus far. Maybe I shouldn’t say mistake
but I think in this rush to bring a cloud product to market there really has not been an opportunity such as Verne Global’s campus where you can really have all these attributes in the one location to optimize efficiency,” commented Jeff Monroe CEO, Verne Global.
Future Wireless in the Cloud
“For us the delivery of a service over the cloud is really just to ensure that you’re getting a consistent fully malleable solution being able to be delivered. So whether that’s the cloud or whether it is just delivered in the traditional manner for us it shouldn’t make too much difference, but cloud is the topic that people are talking about and we have to be capable and prepared to have those conversations and prove our worth in that market space,” said Sean Larner, Xirrus’ Vice President,
EMEA Sales.
When asked about the future of wireless in the cloud. Larner said, “I still struggle with the cloud not delivering what it’s supposed to have delivered to date, so our professed view about the future of wireless in the cloud is we find it; we found it wonderful when Google bought Motorola and when they bought their unified communications. We found it wonderful when Motorola sold off the rest of their wireless business to a venture company to go and do wonderful things with it.”
“Anything that sits in the cloud, any application that sits in the cloud, any application that sits in the cloud and wants to be
connected to or accessed to by a wireless device is our sweet spot and will only help to spread the word of wireless broader than it is today. So the density issues that we are seeing, the coverage issues that we are seeing, the amount of data that’s being pushed up there has to be managed effectively and we think that wireless is the way to do that,” concluded Larner.
