Will the network become the platform?
Cisco predicts the next step in the evolution of the network is a platform … time will tell if this is so. Speaking at SATNAC 2008, Andreas Enotiadis, director of SP Solutions said that the best of breed networks are all about special features, speeds and feeds.
"The network is where many of the key services reside that enable customers to do all the things they want and expect to be able to do today.
"Our vision goes beyond adding data, voice, video and mobility into every market segment because no user is ever in only one of those environments", Enotiadis said. " We’re leading integrated lives and we’re both workers and consumers, operating in both fixed and mobile environments, all the time. So the move is to a world where standardisation and customisation happens at the same time – from specialisation of technology, devices, networks, to full convergence where these things are capable of multiple ways of interacting.
"The vision is about delivering information, communications, and entertainment in a way that frees up the user. Anytime, anywhere, on any media, one must have access to them and at the expected quality level.
"Network platforms are more than the sum of their parts, as platforms enable people to create things never imagined by their builders. But few platforms scale to truly strategic proportions. Internet protocol (IP) and HTML are two that do.
"What network as a platform means to Cisco is that we believe in the future all forms of communications (data/voice/video collaboration, entertainment, etc.) will traverse the IP network. Cisco’s role is to continue driving intelligent features and capabilities onto the network infrastructure so that future networks can support both media-rich applications and scale to user demand.
"How we live today is very different from the past. Our lives are not divided into neatly defined categories. Work and play are blended in a way we couldn’t have imagined even 15 or 20 years ago. Whether you’re at home, in a small or large business, or part of a service provider, the network is becoming the platform for information, communications and entertainment.
"To achieve this heightened relevance with consumers, providers are facing an increased urgency to stretch beyond their traditional limits – limits primarily enforced by the access technology that they implement in their networks. No longer, for example, can only a wireline provider just do voice or cable provider do television. They need to do both – as well as providing mobility for their services and offering service flexibility, speed to delivery, and expanded areas of service coverage. These attributes are necessary to compete with non-facilities based providers, such as Skype, Vonage, and Cinema known as "over the top services".
"Likewise, mobile providers and over-the-top providers need to get their capabilities integrated into all aspects of the experience, including ones controlled by wireline and cable providers. The bottom line is this: in order to truly offer an integrated experience to empowered customers, service providers must redefine themselves away from their access technologies to more of what it is they provide – they are transforming themselves into "experience providers." And their networks are the fundamental enablers of this transformation.
"In the IT industry, the technologies that succeed are generally the most open ones. Why? Because developers depend on open systems to create new applications, which, in turn, drive further innovation. There’s a good reason why TDM-based phone systems are disappearing from the scene. In large part, it’s because they’re closed, proprietary networks. In contrast, an open, IP-based platform is more conducive to third-party development, which can lead to an amazing level of innovation. Openness and cross-compatibility are the best guarantors of innovation: from hardware to software to set-top boxes to the network itself.
"The world, increasingly, is becoming interconnected and cross-dependent. Technology is playing an enormous role in assisting this integration, with IP networks serving as the foundation to link applications, equipment, services and, ultimately, the people who use them. Indeed, the whole communications model is changing, so that information is able to flow more freely and can be presented in a wider variety of creative ways. Concurrently, this new model is empowering users who are able to use technology, devices and content on their own terms. Interconnectedness plus individual choice: that’s the ultimate value of IP-based network convergence.
"In the nineties we saw the emergence of Web 1.0 – Text/Work/PC – Browser/Email/IM. Web 2.0 is now emerging in a very interesting way where powerful technologies like XML are making that possible. Web 2.0 is permeating throughout the workplace into the home, and it’s available on PCs and mobile devices. New solutions like wikis, blogs and mash-ups are creating new mass collaboration opportunities. But the best is yet to come.
"Web 3.0 will be about any media or application anywhere, on any device. This will create great opportunities for new solutions around video, mobility and virtualisation."
EngineerIT
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