April 29, 2008

Insatiable Demand for Bandwidth Continues

So you've read about our IP traffic study in some past posts -- If you've been wondering whether traffic growth is really occurring and what's the impact of this growth to the networks, I can firmly attest that absolutely it is. Every major service provider I have interacted with over the past 6 months has talked about how their traffic is growing faster than before - but not necessarily at the same rate for all.

What's behind this traffic growth? Personally, all you have to do is look inside any of our homes to see the drivers. Let's take mine as an example. My 15 year old son has stopped watching television and lives his academic and social life in the virtual world through a laptop or through a game console. My 12 year old daughter is also spending more time online with her friends but with slightly different interests. What's most intriguing is that my 8 year old son is watching videos online continually. Even my wife prefers to occasionally catch snipets of her favorite shows from the www than on live television. As soon as a provider can deliver faster bandwidth to my house, they can count on me as a customer. Where am I going with this? I know that I am not an exception but more of the standard of homes with kids. It is clear that video is the big driver of this growth and will continue to be as we increase the number of creators of content and consumers of content and ways that it can be consumed.

Early in April Cisco announced that sales of Cisco CRS-1 have doubled in less than 9 month from 900 to 1800 units. This is clearly a sign that service providers around the world are conducting expansions of their networks but want to be assured that as traffic continues to grow they will be able to scale their networks. The multi-chassis capability of CRS-1 allows SPs to scale their systems where needed while the 16, 8 and 4 slot single shelf systems allow the SPs to grow the footprint of the core network to accommodate the rapid increase in the number of subscribers and the bandwidth per subscriber.

The question we need to ask ourselves are - will this insatiable demand for bandwidth continue at the rate of the forecasts? Or will it be even higher?

Posted by Kelly Ahuja at 11:16 AM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

April 28, 2008

Welcome to the Exabyte Era, part 2

In a previous post, I wrote about our Cisco IP Traffic Study, entitled “The Exabyte Era.” It’s getting a lot of attention now as its topic is being featured as one of the drivers of the need for new platforms such as our recently launched Cisco ASR 1000 and because the adoption of web 2.0 and “all-things video” is getting increasing relevance to the industry, the market, and our daily Connected Life, whether it be at home, at work or on the move. It is well worth a read and was even was featured on the front page of the New York Times, a few weeks ago.

Here are a few of the takeaways for those who like the Cliffnotes versions:

At Home, the story is video, video, video. Here are some video’s effects as a driver of bandwidth growth.

• Three years from now, Internet video will be six times what it is today, and twenty times what it was in 2006.
• In 2011, online video will generate 1 billion DVDs worth of traffic each month.
• Online video will drive 30% of consumer Internet traffic by 2011.

At Work, new business services and applications will drive the growth:
• By 2010, telepresence will generate more traffic than the entire US Internet backbone in 2000.

On the Move: the coming ubiquity of Mobile Data
• Mobile data traffic in 2011 will be sixteen times what it is today.

The next few years should be quite exciting for the industry, and, because providers are actively investing in their networks to get ahead of the end customer demand for bandwidth and value-added service, the next three years will have quite a beneficial impact to all aspects of our own Connected Lives as well.

Posted by Doug Webster at 12:51 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 24, 2008

What is an Exabyte?

“What comes after Petabyte?” was my question to Arielle Sumits, our lead researcher on the IP Traffic Study a few years ago, when we started the effort a few years ago. Even with a wide variety of very regional and granular market forecasts on topics such as “VoIP subscription growth in Western Europe” and “IPTV subscriber forecasts for AsiaPacific,” we didn’t have visibility on what these all mean to the network as a whole. And having a global focus with a global customer base, we needed a global view. Since the market didn’t offer one, we set off to create one (and from Arielle’s standpoint, she likely did it to cease the never ending questioning from me along the lines of “But what does this all mean?” Depending on my level of caffeine consumption, my questioning can often be a far too fast and quite annoying… as my wife, Annie, can firmly attest).

So in a quest to silence my questioning, Arielle went about a very extensive modeling effort, piecing together all of the more granular third party forecasts of subscription forecasts from analyst firms, such as (in alphabetical order) ABI, Dell’Oro, Gartner, IDC, Informa, Kagan, MRG, Ovum, Pyramid Research, ScreenDigest, Synergy Research, Telegeography and Yankee Group. She then factored in usage data and assumptions such as average amount of time a subscriber watches TV a day, if they have high definition, how much of their viewing does that entail, if they have a PVR, how much does that affect the streaming of video to the home even it the content is never viewed, etc. Finally, the model was worked back with Cisco engineers to determine the total sum of the impact of on the network.

The result we reached (and by we, I mean Arielle) was a sizable figure… one that was in excess of 1000 petabytes, which then caused me to ask my infamous “What comes after Petabyte?” question. The answer, courtesy of Wikipedia, was “Exabyte,” hence the “Exabyte era” was born.

Now, in its sixth iteration, our global IP Traffic Growth study is forecasting 29 exabytes of IP Traffic per month or nearly 350 exabytes per year by 2011, only three years from now. While that seems very aggressive to some, our CEO John Chambers has pointed out that, in this fast-moving industry, often seemingly aggressive forecasts can eventually prove to be conservative. This may very well be the case here, not just because we (and yes, I mean Arielle) intentionally based the forecasts on the lower end range of usage assumptions to maintain credibility of the project as research instead of marketing, but also because the growth of the applications and the rapid adoption of them by empowered consumers. For example, once my father began receiving high-definition television (a day that will always be cherished by him), he now does all that can to watch nothing but high-definition content, which takes up far, far more bandwidth than standard definition. And even at Cisco, when we (and by “we,” I really mean our incredible IT shop) launched its large deployment of TelePresence sites in our offices around the world (at my last count we were over 175 and reducing our travel expenditures by 20%, not to mention carbon emission reduction), our internal traffic grew not by 42% year over year but in the hundreds of percent.

So with nearly 350 exabytes forecast for 2011, I am faced with an interesting question as the seventh round of our study commences and the time frame is extended a bit further:

What comes after exabyte?

Posted by Doug Webster at 07:20 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 22, 2008

Ideas, Musings, and Perspectives from the Blogosphere

Here are a few items that came across my reading queue this past week that I found of interest and thought that you may too…

Enjoy and thanks for reading,
Doug

Second Life is pretty intriguing and here’s a New York Times blog post about amping up the reality part of virtual reality even further.

At Cisco, our customers are often awe-struck when we conduct a presentation over or give a demonstration of Cisco TelePresence – with its high definition screens and spatial sound, the experience becomes so real that you have to resist the urge to shake hands with the participants on the other side of the table (who actually are thousands of miles away). As innovations such what is presented in the video on this post build upon virtual reality and “transposed reality” such as Cisco TelePresence, the holodeck and remote Holographic “presence” that was envisioned by NTT years ago and even demonstrated by Cisco the past fall, may very well enter the mainstream far sooner that many think.

I thought the study highlighted in this post was of even more interest after Google announced their impressive quarter later this week. Though as members of a market driven economy we try our best to extrapolate forecasts from any and all indicators, the Invisible Hand of the market often proves too elusive.

Mary Shacklett highlighted the opportunities that broadcasters of all sizes have in the new Internet evolution, using Arena Football as an example of an organization using a non-traditional approach and getting non-traditional and much higher success metrics as well.

Ray Mota, chief strategist of Synergy and one of the major voices in the telecom industry analyst arena, debuted his personal blog this week -- with his first few posts being about the rising Green trend in the industry. Whatever the topic, though, keeping tabs on what’s top of mind with him offers great insight as to what’s top of mind with his very broad range of his customers – I’ve already book marked the site and recommend you add it to your “read” list as well.

Network World’s Layer 8 blog did a story on the first pitch of the New York Yankees home season being out of this world. As you may recall, Nick Adamo, our SVP of Service Provider Operations, is a huge Yankee fan, so here’s to hoping that such a frontier-breaking start to the season (not to mention a visit by Pope Benedict to Yankee Stadium) will help the team this year because if Nick isn’t happy…

Lastly, check out this blog – it’s not about technology or even about service providers. But the fact that the Wall Street Journal has an entire blog on one of the biggest, best, cutting edge music festivals from the live music capital of the world, Austin (which, as a citizen, I am proud to say is the coolest city in the country and the heart of the Great State of Texas), well, that just makes the go-to-business publication all the more hip and in touch with its readers (especially this one).

Posted by Doug Webster at 06:55 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 21, 2008

TelePresence: A New Presence for Managed Services

I am thrilled and excited about today’s announcement that AT&T will offer the industry’s first (1) intercompany; (2) managed Cisco TelePresence service. The Human Network is realized when more people able to experience it and when the experiences we have at home, at work and on the move feel less like technology and more like life…, partners like AT&T certainly share this vision.

Intercompany: SizeMatters.

One of the key parts of this announcement is the “Intercompany” capability. An intercompany Cisco TelePresence network service, which enables customers to maintain close contact with their extended supply chain or community of interest, has the potential to transform business. Furthermore, as more people use a network service –Telephony, Internet, Web 2.0 social networking, or Intercompany TelePresence, the more valuable the service becomes. Greater value attracts more users, creating a positive feedback loop and continued usage growth – that’s the “Network Effect”. It is no wonder the NewAT&T shares this vision with Cisco;according to Wikipedia, network effect was presented in the 1908 annual report by then AT&T President Theodore Vail --- 100 years ago!.... and now IP DNA meets network DNA, fitting anniversary event ….

Speaking of IP DNA, this brings me to networking and Internet pioneer, Robert Metcalfe and his law. In this context it inspires:

“The value of intercompany TelePresence - and the network service that makes it possible - can be expected to increase not linearly, but in proportion to the square of the number of users.”

As more companies use intercompany TelePresence, its value for the user and for the provider multiplies. This is certainly true as the network approaches critical mass. A blog post by Bob Metcalfe is interesting and humorous reading on his law.

AT&T Managed TelePresence Solution will be available in the second half of 2008 with reach to 23 countries throughout the world. Additional country availability planned for 2009. Early trials of the solution are underway now.

Managed TelePresence: “Managed” Matters

Managed business services deliver reliability, high availability and confidence. With Cisco TelePresence, enterprise customers connect with each other, partners and suppliers through this highly scalable and secure solution across the world. Adding an ongoing managed service aspect to TelePresence brings confidence that the experience will be delivered.

The AT&T solution is an innovative turnkey bundle that integrates AT&T global MPLS VPN network, Cisco TelePresence application, and strategic application management for rapid turn-up and ease of use, assuring the customer experience.

AT&T Managed TelePresence will deliver...

a bundled, fully-managed service that offers a turn-key solution for enterprises.

a “meet-me” business-to-business connectivity feature that allows multiple companies in different locations to connect to one another

Web-based application for scheduling, directory assistance and reporting

Managed network service enabling converged network solution backed by Service Level Agreements to optimize TelePresence application

As company’s increasingly look to TelePresence in their workplace, the confidence that it can be fully managed should only help them adopt and scale it throughout their business...

In a CNN article last week (check out the video link), Ovum analyst David Molony said “There's no excuse for enterprises not to have [TelePresence] because it fits with global growth strategy, improved working practice, carbon reduction programs, etc -- and the business case is demonstrable."
What do you think? Will a managed TelePresence solution help speed market interest and adoption?

Posted by Al Safarikas at 06:33 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 17, 2008

Politics as a Visual Networking Case Study

“Internet’s pervasive political punch” read the front page headline of San Jose Mercury news, that one of our lead SP business analysts, Shruti Jain, showed me on a recent trip to Silicon Valley. While we have been talking of internet revolution for over a decade, the extent to which current presidential campaign in the U.S. is using Web 2.0, underlines importance of the network across all aspects of our daily lives, and across all aspects of the political spectrum for that matter In this case, the network transforms the campaigns from being largely national based on predominately paid placement and news coverage to having a trans-national reach using “grass-roots” methods being driven by individual voters. This approach can both shed light on the emotions associated with the democratic process while helping to bridge the gap between the traditional voters and the younger generation who are going to be defining the international political scenario of the future.

In this current campaign, there are many examples of the candidates using the network as the medium. One of the most prominent examples, is a speech in mid-March from Illinois Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama on race in America. Clips of the speech were shown on news outlets throughout the country, but his campaign posted the entire 37 minutes speech on YouTube as well. The result, even though the video was a bit grainy and took some time to fully download and buffer, was that instead of relying on written transcripts of the entire speech published in select newspapers or hearing hearsay from one of the few hundred in personal attendance at the event, many people around the world could not just hear the speech but feel the emotion of it as well – in essence, even with the technical flaw, they were able to “experience” it to some levels. At last count, the speech had been viewed nearly 4.2 million times – far exceeding the reach, depth, and connection with the audience that a traditional advertisement could bring.

So where does this leave the provider? Cable and IPTV providers rely on such television advertisements for revenue. Broadband providers deliver such YouTube videos but have no way to monetize the delivery of them beyond basic subscription fees.

The answer? It can be varied and is something that is sure to get quite a bit of commentary from those in the industry (In fact, it was the topic of a great conversation I had last week with Phil Marshall from the Yankee Group who has both great ideas and a cool accent…) In my personal opinion, the answer is to break down the silos that exist between broadband and television, between Web 2.0 and traditional vehicles, between social media and paid placement, between professionally produced and user-generated content. There is still quite a way to go before such silo-breaking can occur, both in terms of deployment, technology, and regulatory environments. However, like the efforts of the current campaigns, the resulting visual networking experience for the audience would be even more personalized and impactful. And for the provider? It will be a way to gain both more relevance with the customer and more avenues to drive revenue and deliver more value in the process.

Posted by Doug Webster at 06:46 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 15, 2008

Open Sesame

With all the "open" talk at at CTIA recently, Ali Baba might have thought Las Vegas was home of the forty thieves (not to mention casino odds). The FCC was concluding the 700 MHz auction, which included rules for the C Block that require "a platform that is more open to devices and applications." Google had agitated for such a requirement, but Verizon Wireless won the auction, bidding $9.4 billion.

How will Verizon Wireless comply with the openness rules? They revealed some plans in New York city, on March 19, when they unveiled their Open Development initiative. I arrived at the event with some skepticism. I've written before about how the Internet business model challenges the culture of the mobile industry (see Where Worlds Collide). But after an enthusiastic welcome by Tony Lewis, the vice president of Open Development, the Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg gave a keynote that addressed these issues directly. He recognized the intersecting megatrends of mobility and the Internet as prompting a new wave of applications, which no single company can create by itself. Instead, Verizon embraces an ecosystem approach, which motivates this new Open Development activity.

After his speech, he spent the rest of the morning participating in the meeting, including conversations during breaks with participants like myself. Senior members of the Verizon Wireless team also spoke, including president Lowell McAdam, chief marketing officer Mike Lanman, who described both retail and wholesale commercial models, chief information officer Ajay Waghray, who described self-service activation options, and chief technology Tony Melone, who along with members of his team, spoke about the device certification requirements. The main session concluded with remarks by James Piwowarsk of OnStar, which is built on the Verizon Wireless network. Many questions remain, but clearly this initiative arrived with much energy and attention at senior levels of Verizon.

What are their motivations? To some extent, they must want to seize the initiative in defining "open." Market-driven moves towards open mobile networks will yield more flexibility than top-down government regulation, as envisioned by the Skype petition to the FCC. The Apple iPhone terms with AT&T defined a new business arrangement, and Google Android promises more to come. But fundamentally, Verizon must expect the Open Development initiative will be good for their business. OnStar has generated millions of incremental dollars for Verizon, and they surely hope for similar innovation from the Open Development program.

This business motivation will disappoint some, who think "open" should mean "free" (as in, "no charge"). But it's unreasonable to expect that Verizon Wireless would give away its services after investing billions in spectrum and equipment (including some excellent Cisco products!). Verizon Wireless will need good return on investment, while leaving room to prosper for those using its Open Development program. Let me offer some guiding principals for this balanced openness:

Open means open. In other words, you can do what you want, unless you objectively harm others, presumably by harming the network.

Objectively harmful behavior will be discouraged or prevented, but competitive behavior will not.

When possible, excess resource consumption will be controlled by billing ("economics"), not blocking ("regulation").

Egregious behavior may result in immediate blocking or deactivation ("jail"), but the definition of such behavior will be technically objective and well documented in advance.

Compliance testing will be decentralized and competitive, to avoid bottlenecks and encourage reasonable costs.
You get what you pay for, with clear public commercial terms.

A network operator may offer value-add services (quality of service, text messaging, etc.). But such offerings are optional, not part of the base definition.

Whether Verizon and other operators embrace such principals will determine the real-world impact of all this talk of openness. With the right balance, the mobile industry could say "open sesame" to more riches than in Ali Baba's cave.

Posted by Larry Lang at 01:57 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 14, 2008

Ring vs Mesh topology in Carrier Ethernet networks

Network architects have debated over the best way to interconnect network elements. The ring camp believes that the best way to recover from a failure is to have a simple topology where all nodes have a similar access to the bandwidth. The mesh camp believes that the most scalable and flexible way to interconnect network elements is in meshes.

Service Providers are familiar with SONET rings and they expect Ethernet based rings in Carrier Ethernet networks to perform similarly. However, Ethernet rings are expected to behave like Ethernet networks with oversubscription, redundant access, node protection, link aggregation and so on. Thus, Ethernet ring requirements can be more complicated than SONET ring requirements.

Do we have to mandate a ring topology in Carrier Ethernet networks?

It will be very attractive if a protocol can support both ring and mesh topologies in Carrier Ethernet networks.

Posted by Rajiv Kapoor at 06:53 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 07, 2008

Are today’s Service Provider SLAs good enough?

Managed services is always a top of mind subject for Service Providers (MSP). As we observe the trend of MSP’s, I continue to see them looking for ways to help Enterprise customers achieve there business goals. Conversations between MSP’s and Enterprises have more and more centered around the intelligent network services that enhance the networks ability to be business relevant. An example of this type of intelligence is: Application Aware Networks.

Essentially, with an Application Aware service, businesses identify their applications as critical, important and best-effort, classifications that align to the business goal for application availability. Creating an Application Aware service requires that dynamic QoS be deployed in the carriers IP NGN, along with, the ability to tune the QoS mechanisms as required. Customer satisfaction hinges on the carriers ability to successfully deliver application aware SLAs. This is an excellent opportunity for MSP’s, as, new applications are demanding new levels of QoS on the networks.

Do Service Providers need to adjust their SLAs and the underlying technologies to support the new Application Aware Networks? The answer is a resounding: ‘Yes’.

MSPs need to respond by enabling businesses to identify what applications are actually running on their networks, help identify application foot-print (behavior, network requirements including QoS, user interactions and such) and then, abstract the complexity of QoS required for applications.

Additionally, self-provisioning brings forward the dynamic QoS aspect and for that, IP NGNs would need to have Application Awareness throughout the network and not just in closed-loop systems. Application aware IP NGNs need to monitor and report application behavior at CPE, PE or infrastructure level. For this, we need embedded technologies (IOS NetFlow, IPSLA, FPM, NBAR, etc.) end-to-end on the IP NGN.

When businesses require application awareness, abstraction of QoS and dynamic tuning via self-provisioing, end-to-end embedded technologies on the IP NGN will help MSPs respond appropriately and help make their customers successful in their business objectives.

Therefore, the direction for the Application Aware Services would be for the Service Providers to:

These would help applications resonate directly to the businesses charter and, reduce technical complexities when it comes to delivering a seamless application experience.

Posted by Jeff Spagnola at 09:04 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 04, 2008

The Impact of India Inc. on Telecommunications

I recently returned from my first ever trip to India, and experienced firsthand the juggernaut that this country has become across most of the major industries in the world. You almost can’t open a newspaper or an Internet browser these days without seeing the impact this world-changing nation continues to have. Experiencing an average of 9% GDP growth per year for the last 3 years alone, India’s quick rise to global prominence and economic influence has been fueled in large part by the phenomenon of “globalization”, or the outsourcing of well-defined business processes to fast-growing Indian IT and professional services companies.

In recent years, leading companies in India have begun re-defining globalization by turning the tide, expanding out and establishing leadership positions, or acquiring companies outright, in a variety of industries previously dominated by businesses from established nations. According to KPMG, Indian companies acquired 62 companies in the first 8 months of 2005, to the tune of $1.7B, and the pace just keeps accelerating. The world’s largest steel company, Arcelor-Mittal, was created less than two years ago by the successful pursuit by an emerging markets bellwether firm of an established Western counterpart, consisting of a small group of 100+-year-old companies. And if the purchase of a Jaguar or Land Rover is in your future, you will soon be making the check out to an Indian firm, Tata Motors.

India Inc.’s acquisitive bent is showing up in the IT management and telecommunications spaces as well. Wipro recently acquired Infocrossing, a U.S.-based provider of remote infrastructure management, enterprise application and business process outsourcing services, for about $600M. In very short order, the combined entity won a $275M multi-year outsourcing deal for Missouri HealthNet Division, an agency run by the state government to provide health care services to Missouri residents. Tata Communications, the newly re-branded combination of VSNL, VSNL International, Teleglobe and Tata Indicom Enterprise Business Unit, has announced it is seeking acquisitions across the globe in the managed services space, focusing on companies with technological prowess who lack the scaling capabilities to go global.

While they haven’t announced any U.S.-based acquisitions yet, India-based mobile giants such as Bharti Airtel are looking toward the U.S. to add to their already mammoth number of subscribers. The growth rate of mobile subscribers in India continues to accelerate, rising to a healthy 8+ million per month and born out of the rise in the last 15 years of a robust middle class of some 300M people with money to spend on such luxuries as telecom services. Bharti Airtel is the largest mobile carrier in India, reaching 50+M subscribers by November, 2007, and continuing to add 2+M subscribers per month. Now, Bharti Airtel is adding to their numbers and expanding outside their home footprint by launching their new “Airtel CallHome” service for calls made from the U.S. to India. The service is targeted at the more than 2.5M Non-Resident Indians (NRI’s) currently living and and working in the U.S., but still with family in India. The service features single-key access dial to the customer’s ten most frequently dialed numbers at an average of 30% less cost than competitive offerings – it also includes other benefits, such as a customer referral reward program (offering free talk-time), configurable dialing for up to 50 numbers, and soon, access to other value-added services, such as astrology horoscopes, cricket scores and other services that promote connection to the customer’s Indian roots.

On both the business and consumer fronts, Indian communications and outsourced IT/managed service providers will very soon be a force to be reckoned with by U.S. carriers and hosting providers. Around the globe, the telecommunications industry is going through tumultuous change as traditional wireline, cable and mobile carriers all vie to grow revenue by retaining existing customers, gaining new ones and growing ARPU through flexible and innovative new service offerings, and managing cost. All are starting from varying positions of strength, and all are moving into each other’s territories, in order to accomplish these objectives; cable providers have branched into voice, wireline providers are launching new video services, and the mobile carriers are trying to convince everyone to take their triple play on the go.

Leading service providers in the U.S. are carefully following these trends and evaluating the global landscape. I would not be at all surprised if companies such as Tata Communications, Bharti Airtel and others became the world’s largest carriers in the next 10-20 years, with footprint in every major geography. These companies are incredibly innovative in their development of next-generation business and consumer telecom services, and they are nimble in their design and deployment of services because they don’t have existing infrastructure that they have to continue to “sweat” to gain the maximum ROI. They are dreaming big about what is possible, and moving quickly to design and implement new services, custom-fit to both their local customer base, and to those outside their traditional footprint.

So, what do you think about the “globalization of telecommunications”? As the geographic and technology lines continue to blur, how do you think all the players across the globe will be able to compete? How will they differentiate themselves from everyone else and retain loyal subscribers?

Posted by Nick Adamo at 09:50 AM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

April 01, 2008

Mass Customizing Managed Services (Bringing the glass slipper to all…)

I submit that success by providers in managed business services will be due in large part to an ability to mass customize the experience. The impetus to get this thought out and into a post was prompted by a recent In-Stat research study covering end-users of all sizes was announced and concluded that, “customer feedback indicates that a one-size-fits-all approach to managed services needs to change -- by addressing specific vertical and horizontal market stakeholder needs and requirements.” Ahh, the wisdom of The Kinks.--- “Give The People What They Want”.

The conclusion to give the people what they want is not a radically new topic for managed business services. Providers of all sizes and focus have attempted to solve this either in word or in actual attempts. After all, it’s a mass-customized, on-demand world where end users are emboldened - at work, home and on the move.

I think we’re getting closer. Here’s why:

Collaboration and complexity (and, years removed from the sour tastes of failed outsourcing) are softening the end-users (of all sizes) to look to an out-tasked solution.

Web 2.0 is democratizing the experience – everywhere. And, these capabilities will adapt well to the personalized dialogue between managed service providers and their end user customers.

SaaS is taking off and is further priming the market to accept hosted solutions and it’s going to be a model for SPs, VARs, SIs and other providers to find ways to work together – sharing monitoring tools, processes etc ---- but maybe not yet definitions.

Market understanding around the drivers and opportunity areas for managed business services is becoming more refined. Currently, we’re conducting a “managed services benchmarking study” to determine how SPs intend to accommodate more granularity into their service offerings.

IP NGN networks and their increased intelligence allow for more intelligent networks capable of scaling and adapting to business priorities.

Market acceleration resources and programs such as our Cisco Powered Program initiative exist to help managed service providers better create, target, market and services.

Designations as those we have in our Cisco Powered Program help codify the core set of requirements needed for a quality managed service experience. This takes much of the guesswork out and allows providers to spend less time defining their core processes, people and tools; allowing more time for customization and focus. They enable providers to focus more on service customization (for end-users) and service differentiation (for market distinction).

It makes sense. A network is not just a network. Managed service providers have an inherent need for differentiation. And, no two end-users or service providers are alike. As a result, we shouldn’t expect end-user needs to be the same or for service provider offerings to be the same.

What do you think? What managed services focused tools, trends or otherwise do you see shaping the ability of service providers to customize their offerings?

Posted by Al Safarikas at 07:44 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)