FEATURE: SDN
"Customers are adopting
network virtualisation using
VMware NSX because they want
security, agility, efficiency, and
rapid time to market," says
VMware’s Al Omari.
The Middle East’s biggest
inhibitor for adoption of
virtual networks is awareness
and education. that point, I went and spoke to
some of our biggest sponsors
and coaches in the market place.
I said what should we do and
the advice I received is, there
are too many vendors who are
building these products. There
is no dearth of these. But there
is not one single proper system
integrator who can stitch all
this together."
"Many organisations are
reluctant to virtualise their
networks because they do not
fully understand the business
benefits that come from the
investment, or how to refresh
their workforce skills to enable
virtualisation," adds Al Omari. Since then the industry has
evolved and Vyas points out
that there are now over 1,000
network virtualisation vendors in
the fray. But he has no second
thoughts about the position that
Tech Mahindra chose to adopt
at that time.
Stitching it together
As a $4 billion plus, global
system integrator in the
business for the last 20 years,
Tech Mahindra is not new to
restructuring itself to meet
changing market needs. In
the past, Tech Mahindra has
done reality checks and chosen
to remain focused on its core
competency of providing
solutions for the
communication industry.
When the hype cycle for
software defined networking
and network virtualisation got
underway four years ago, Tech
Mahindra was again at a cross-
road. With only four global
vendors in the early fray at that
time, Tech Mahindra needed
to choose whether to go down
the product build-up route or
the solution implementation
route, and sought advice from its
global customer base.
Explains Manish Vyas, Group
President CME, Chief Executive
Network Services at Tech
Mahindra, "When the VNF and
SDN hype cycle was going on
three-four years ago, we had
also built our own products. We
started bidding and we even
started getting shortlisted. At
www.intelligentcio.com
"Almost
all regional
operators are
looking for
virtualisation
functions
as the main
or optional
requirement."
"I think there are enough
vendors with enough capabilities
to make network virtualisation
happen. Our value proposition
in the marketplace is ‘I want to
be the sheriff in town that can
integrate everything’,"
he explains.
An important development
has been the entry of Tech
Mahindra as a Platinum partner
into the global Open Network
Automation Platform alliance.
Other key Platinum partners in
the alliance include AT&T, Bell,
China Mobile, China Telecom,
Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, IBM,
Intel, Nokia, Orange Telecom,
Tech Mahindra, VMware,
and ZTE.
In order to build sustainable
demand for its forward-looking
integration services around
software defined networking
and network virtualisation, Tech
Mahindra has selected the open
source integration approach.
"Rather than building our own
products we have the ecosystem
of partners. We are partnering
with mainstream vendors like
VMware, Red Hat, Intel and also
with Affirmed Networks and
others," says Vyas.
Other than championing open
source, another initiative by
Tech Mahindra is to bring agility
to telecom service providers by
dismantling their monolithic
structures and leveraging
virtualised network functions.
Tech Mahindra has built a
micro-services platform as a
base to disintegrate business
functionality, away from
monolithic systems into a micro-
services level, leaving behind
the legacy only for a statement
of records.
"The statement of innovation
will be the new micro-services.
Now that is the change, the true-
blue change transformation,"
points out Vyas.
Another change is the move
towards an outcome defined
services model, and typically
that means Tech Mahindra is
investing ahead of the telecom
service providers.
"Commercial models have
changed, and in some cases,
we initially start with the
investment, but everything
is paid for. If anything, it is
only going to become more
mainstream," continues Vyas. ¡
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