A Contributed Article by Adam
Johnson, VP of Business, Midokura
With the specifications for the next
generation of networks calling for better resource management, faster
connectivity to the networks, and smoother transition between networks,
existing carrier infrastructure seemed ill-equipped to support those
requirements without massive and expensive network upgrades.
Along with the Linux Foundation, the industry
is tackling those challenges head-on by forming an industry alliance of
telecommunication equipment providers and operators with the goal of developing
a carrier-grade, integratable, open source reference architecture. The Open
Platform for NFV (Opnfv.org) is an open source project focused on advancing the
adoption of Network Function Virtualization (NFV).
To help address today's business networking
needs, Midokura recently joined the OpNFV Project as a Silver-level member. We
look forward to advancing the movement, and as we continue on in the New Year,
are happy to share our top networking predictions for 2015:
1.
App owners will increasingly own
the whole app and IT Stack from dev/test to production and scale. Shared
Infrastructure services (compute, networking, storage) will be accountable to
app owners in the lines of business. Additionally, IT will become more and more
decentralized and reporting into business unit P&L leaders and doing away
with silos completely.
2.
Rich content will drive open
networking and the consumption of rich media will skyrocket globally. The ability
to delivering rich content to regions with spotty Internet will become even
more of an imperative. Carriers supporting next-gen networks with
infrastructure upgrades will look to open source software and open platforms
for cost reasons.
3.
Hyper-convergence gets real.
Purpose-built virtualized hardware (compute/storage/networking) optimized for
specific application workloads will come from ODMs. The competition between
OEMs and the ODMs will intensify, and while price performance, analytics and
ease of management offer some differentiation, true differentiation will come
from pre-deployment support during POC and post-sale, architectural design and
support to help the end user company with scale.
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About the Author
Based out of San Francisco, Adam
Johnson is a founding member at Midokura. He has built and manages the Global
Technical Services organization, and started the US office for Midokura. Prior
to joining Midokura, Adam was founder and COO of Genkii, doing strategic
consulting and development for social media and virtual worlds, with a focus on
open source solutions.
Adam has been advising and
working with a number of startups over the last 8 years. In addition to his
experience with early stage startups, Adam has also worked extensively in
Fortune 250, Healthcare, and Education.
Adam Johnson has Bachelor of Science
degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics.