Programmable Networks as a Key Element for Sustainable Operations

Introduction

0:03 and I guess to start everyone off I thought it would be a good idea for us to just make sure we're all on the same

0:09 page about what actually is a programmable Network so if maybe we go starting from right to left um as you

0:15 look at us on on stage um and if you could just intro yourself your role

0:21 um and kind of what the phrase programmable networks means to you so Pablo you want to kick us off with that

0:26 yeah sure thanks everyone for sticking around uh I'm Pablo Castillo I work for

0:32 easy that's izzi it's the largest MSO operator in Mexico

0:38 um and well programmable network uh uh basically dynamically controlled or

0:43 managed using software-based approaches I think that's the general idea

Who is Rajesh

0:50 great thanks Rajesh hi my name is Rajesh I'm with Verizon

0:55 um very excited to be here we were just joking uh saying it's the the last session of the the day and uh we at

1:02 least would have like you know six people here because we're very excited to have so many people here so I'm part

1:08 of the the Verizon Consulting Services uh what we do is we help Enterprise customers we build the strategies and

1:15 the the network designs and so on so uh when we talk about the uh the programmable networks we talk about uh

1:23 what are the how does the network look like that solves the the needs of the

1:28 customer today as well as uh the needs of tomorrow right for even for use cases

1:33 that the customers haven't thought about so how do you look at the the real-time visibility how do you actually adapt

1:39 those things to uh deliver new new things uh like that so so that's that's the the program Network and especially

1:46 from um uh from Verizon's perspective it's not just the core uh not the just

1:51 the software defined networks but it's also getting down to the The Last Mile right so how do we do the the slicing

1:56 how do we so we have an opportunity where uh the network can be completely programmed all the way from the the core

2:03 uh till the last part okay um my name is vasili muken I'm a product

Who is Vipul

2:09 manager of a Juniper Networks um I'm part of the group uh which is

2:15 stand behind those big big routing systems the max PTX if anybody of you

2:20 ever heard about this thing and um so my group in my experience very

2:26 much connected to the old school networking uh very much on the automation side which

2:33 we call the devops type of thing not much on the AI side and uh all in all um the sustainability

2:42 which we're going to discuss in connection with the Automation and programmability

2:48 um this it stands High uh for for the company but the point which I want to

2:54 mention here is as I said that my experience goes back into roots of a networking with some 20 years of

3:00 background and the fact that the guy like me got into the panelist session for

3:05 sustainability means this is really really big

Who is Ron Porter

3:10 one I'm Ron Porter I head product marketing at amdocs for Network OSS and

3:17 and 5G Solutions um and I think programmable Network even

3:22 if I Look From amdoc's perspective amdocs started many years ago from billing then to wider BSS space and

3:31 actually not so long ago it's already quite a few years moving into you know OSS and deep down into the network

3:36 because the network became programmable right we don't make boxes we don't make Hardware but we you know we make a lot

3:42 of Telco software and this need emerged as a network starting from the days of

3:48 you know nfv SDA and our first days in onap and as the network became more and

3:53 more mixed with the cloud evolving into Oran 5G find this like so all this

4:00 programmability and dynamic dynamic nature that came into the network

4:06 um really is what was driving our involvement in it and also I think in a way

4:12 so we'll talk about it has a lot of complexity but it also adds a lot of opportunities in the ways to adapt the

4:17 network to what you need from it at any specific time cool thanks and you mean you've touched

Benefits of programmable networks

4:24 on my next question so very nice set up wrong which was going to be what are some of the benefits that operators are looking to achieve from programmable

4:31 networks so maybe Rajesh we can start with you with Verizon what kind of benefits are you looking to achieve by

4:37 shifting towards more programmable Networks yeah so um you know when we look at the

4:42 the benefits of the programmable networks there's the the customer side of things so this is the the customer experience right so uh if you are uh

4:51 things are moving at a very fast pace and how does the network keep up with uh how does how do we deliver those things

4:57 right so that's the the customer experience side but on the other side on the operator side uh this comes down to

5:04 uh the agility right that the cost um so when we look at the entire cycle of

5:09 deploying a network and delivering Services we go all the way from your customer expectations or your customer

5:16 experience to development uh development to deployment deployment to operations and then finally decommission so when

5:24 you start looking at each of these areas um it the programmable Network makes it

5:30 easier in each of these segments right so for example previously we had to uh

5:35 build these things that were very custom for the the for delivering certain things but right now you know after you've separated these two length planes

5:43 uh software is actually what's controlling the the delivery of that if you look at the operations uh how do we

5:49 get the visibility how do we change these things all those things becomes uh very much um I mean it's not only just the uh the

5:57 cost aspects but also how quickly can we deliver things and how um agile can we get into and then from a cost

6:03 perspective uh when we start looking at the programmable networks we can really optimize our networks where

6:11 um how do we adapt to the changes uh that the customers want and then quickly turn on Services bring back things and

6:18 so on cool thanks and what about it for yourselves probably easy uh what is it

Benefits of sustainability goals

6:23 the same benefits that you're looking to achieve or are there any nuances there for yourselves well uh yes in theory yes

6:31 um we are maybe in in Mexican market and maybe even latam a bit behind

6:37 sustainability goals we have the traditional objectives you know reduce cost improve operational efficiency uh

6:45 but my role is as an innovation manager and innovation

6:50 even more than technology something that I'm really passionate about so for me and and I've heard it uh all around this

6:58 conference the the abstraction part and the hiding of the complexity

7:05 uh myself and and some uh parts of my team most of my team and colleagues at

7:10 EC we we feel and we are very passionate about bringing non-technical people into

7:17 exploiting Network capabilities so uh it's been it's been said uh plenty apis

7:24 that can uh close a gap between the huge development communities that have been

7:30 sharing code and knowledge forever and the complex networks that are changing

7:36 super fast so one of the more uh maybe romantic things that we are looking for

7:43 with with the programmable Network capabilities is for those developments to abstract capabilities in such a way

7:50 way that those other Industries or or non-techy guys can can

7:56 use the network functions and Propel innovation

What are your thoughts

8:02 and so you guys that are more on the vendor side are you looking to provide those same kinds of benefits or are you

8:09 thinking even bigger picture uh maybe further further down the line vastly you're grinning there what are your

8:15 thoughts yeah that's a big one question actually and uh

8:21 the benefits from a programmable network is obviously everywhere and I agree with

8:26 publish so it's easier to connect it with a day-to-day benefits of operations which are maybe obvious but still we can

8:35 connect it to the um the sustainable Network or sustainable operations uh in a very

8:40 practical way as a matter of fact because it so depends on what component of the network we want to be

8:46 programmable and interestingly enough though sustainability comes across probably three major things right so

8:52 we're talking about maybe triggering some new business or coming to some power consumption or say

9:00 becoming more green in terms of the carbon footprint and if we just focus on one by the way people as well right so

9:09 if we're focus on the on the power consumption so just a simple feature like

9:16 um you may be able to program your network nodes to turn off a couple of non-used packet folding engines right

9:23 and uh so that opens up new opportunities right so definitely to use

9:30 this programmable property of the network will save you uh tons of dollars

9:35 right and bring you to the next level of your sustainability objectives which

9:42 will be just I want to be three five percent more power efficient from year to year right and well that's that's

9:50 really value and benefit them this crime so there may be some more examples about

9:55 the the people but maybe we will talk in the in the context of a some some other questions

10:02 on it for sure I'm wrong I'm gonna do anything to add on that point well I think we we started with uh the classic

The evolution of the public cloud

10:08 you know looking to reduce costs and enhance new Revenue which is again I think it the goal of many of the things

10:15 we're doing um so so I agree with most what's being said I think I like to use the analogy

10:21 of you know the the evolution of the public Cloud right if you thought at the beginning we used to have these remote

10:27 storages of one gig to you know and it was static and the beginning of the cloud was very similar to that not so

10:33 much programmable as the cloud evolved enhanced Automation programmability in the cloud so first of all it reduced

10:40 cost you could offload your data centers that contributes of course to sustainability because again sharing of

10:47 resources Etc and the public cloud provider started to offer additional Services right not just service and it

10:53 just keeps keeps growing adding Partners into there and the same thing I think is

10:58 happening across the network and five it's not just five G's like this 5G era of network and Cloud mixing together so

11:05 obviously on the reduction of cost and you know lowering power consumption or resource utilization is obvious but even

11:11 in offering new Services you know an example we did in the 5G open Innovation lab just a year ago was was at a farm

11:19 and like was mentioned here exposing these um services to to a farmer you know

11:26 there was an application that does optimization of water and irrigation and pesticides now again before the

11:32 programmable Network he could do the application was there he could take the Drone footage but then he had to

11:37 download it and upload it to the cloud it's remote it took hours by you know having this end-to-end cycle leveraging

11:44 an edge and a private Network and a back hole and having everything automated and programmable he could get this results

11:50 in minutes and save 50 of water and that's sustainability right in there on the new Services side so

11:58 that's a good example cool thanks I mean I'm interested you've obviously mentioned several points but one of the

Balancing cost and energy efficiency

12:04 key ones is around optimizing for different attributes things like cost or Energy Efficiency for example

12:10 um and maybe I'll go back to you Rajesh how is Verizon balancing those different drivers things like optimizing for costs

12:17 Energy Efficiency low latency I'm aware that Verizon has obviously Net Zero goals that they're looking to to achieve

12:23 but also cost reduction goals how are you balancing those and measuring and you know working towards multiple goals

12:30 in that area yeah in terms of the the sustainability goals I'm very proud to be working for

12:36 an employer that really believes in the in in in the sustainability aspects right so

12:43 um just to I mean we have some very um you know optimistic goals uh by 2035

12:50 we're going to be Net Zero from our operational uh emissions right so which is and then also every uh fires uh we

12:59 have you know bigger goals uh so 2025 will and then when you look at the

13:04 sustainability uh we always talk in terms of the the three hours right the the reduce the uh the reuse the recycle

13:11 and so on so um that same concept applies for you know the the telcos has fallen right so

13:17 how do you actually reduce these things or how do you use more of the uh the resources that are uh you know renewable

13:25 energy right so for example by 2025 uh our goal is to get 50 of all the

13:32 electricity for our operations from renewable energy and then by 2030 it's going to be 100 of that so um and then

13:39 we're one of the first um uh telcos that actually launched like a green Bond and

13:45 most of those investment actually goes to the the you know getting the renewable contracts and so on so both

13:52 solarwind any all those things so by doing so we are actually reducing the

13:57 the carbon emissions but at the same time uh I mean this goes to the the

14:03 model of how do we grow our business responsibly right so it's not just about you know more emissions but also being

14:11 responsible to the environment uh making sure that we have uh we're using all the all the renewable energy sources that we

14:18 have and then still providing the the services and then at the same time uh if you look at like a lot of the on the

14:25 mobile side right so we uh we actually recycle a lot of these these phones right so each of those things normally

14:31 would end up in a landfill but these things have been taken it has a higher energy life and uh the things that I

14:39 talked about from the expectancy the customer experience to the development to deployment if you look at

14:45 um when we have these programmable networks it is actually expanding that the time that things are being used from

14:52 the deployment operations till the commission previously we had to change these Hardware boxes right right now

14:58 we're keeping those boxes uh intact we're changing the software so this is actually saving us a lot of money but at

15:06 the same time we're also helping the the environment reducing all the database that's coming up interesting and then I

Sustainability vs cost reduction

15:12 guess maybe Ron let's go back over to you are you seeing different drivers such as sustainability competing against

15:19 cost reduction and other drivers of demand for for yourselves with amdocs um or is it still traditional kind of

15:26 cost drivers that you you see more of the demand for and kind of Market your products more towards well I think the

15:32 good news is obviously often it's it's aligned right if you're looking to into energy consumption obviously and and

15:38 that's a big thing because of you know energy costs are rising and also because

15:43 the the 5G you know especially 5G and millimeter wave of different radios of fired you will take

15:49 um enhanced power consumption so there's ongoing uh you know exploration to reduce these

15:56 costs which is very aligned with sustainability and having said that there's increased Focus I think across

16:02 the industry on on ESG in general and sustainability and you know so we get

16:07 these requirements from our customers and we're also you know looking at into it internally right even from a

16:14 marketing perspective you know in mwc in Barcelona one of the key themes we had

16:19 we had this big counter of you know energy saving and you know the contribution that is being made because

16:25 it's a key focus and you know we used it for marketing but obviously this drives a lot of the uh considerations into the

16:33 product um you know obviously it helps others these things are are aligned and it makes sense and and uh

16:40 um the fact that the you know it also translates not just in

16:46 the power consumption because often these things are driven by automation so when you enhance

16:51 automation throughout your network and better connect it to the real-time business needs

16:56 so again you're saving money and at the same time you're contributing to sustainability and and we have the

17:03 advantage of having this end-to-end view right both from the the business service

17:08 requirements down into the network so having this real-time digital experience connection which again made the key

17:15 driver is the customer expectations but we we get this additional benefits and the other fact is you know when we look

17:22 at the network across the network we have this end-to-end view so again before when you had this very siled

17:27 operations and traditional operations even in things like inventory we'd be

17:33 hearing from customers that they were still discovering unused assets or you know dozens of servers that are lit up

17:40 somewhere not used just because you know it's still silent inventories are not able to track

17:45 and now they want to move to a more end-to-end view to enhance automation to enable these new Services Etc but we're

17:53 getting all these benefits so you're switching it off unused assets and exploring new ways to work

17:59 exploring more distributed architecture you know multiple Edge locations things like that

18:04 um Oran which is another airport right and you know adding Rick and I think

18:10 uh margarine from Dish mentioned that even this morning how he's a key driver

18:15 to Energy Efficiency and it's all about programmability Automation and connecting it to the service requirement

18:21 because at the end of the day it is a business right if somebody wants a service you want to be able to lit up

18:27 and and do the you know choose the right Spectrum activate the radio find the

18:32 right Edge activate those you know instantiate whatever is needed and ideally once it's not needed power

18:38 it off as much and balance it out yeah and you mentioned there are obviously several different drivers

Network transformation

18:44 things like Automation and cloudification that are all working kind of together with pretty large energies

18:49 between them in the general Network transformation Journey if you will um and Pablo I don't know for yourselves

18:55 it easy how you're considering those different elements you mentioned that you're potentially at an earlier stage than some other operators but are you

19:02 considering those uh different elements kind of in in one big Network transformation package things like

19:08 Automation and cardification how are you working through those to reach more

19:13 sustainable operations yeah a big Network package I guess it's it's very

19:18 uh evolutionary so we we basically take advantage of uh

19:24 business opportunities or projects as of today sustainability is not the the main

19:33 driver but uh we certain people within the engineering team and Innovation team

19:39 we are plenty of arrowheads aware of it so we have started introducing classes

19:45 for example in rfps uh regarding Automation and Cloud workloads

19:53 um and taking advantage of the panel here we we rely a lot in vendors right so so we uh in our operation the skill

20:03 set is not not necessarily mature we are uh quite traditional engineering team

20:09 we've started of course using uh more Cloud tools more on the on the

20:15 development part of of the industry but it's it's very very early stages for us

20:20 so we are we are relying on partners and and vendors that can integrate these

20:27 Concepts into their solution uh and and probably for us that will be the way in

20:33 which we can have quick access to the benefits um we are using Cloud Technologies but

20:40 uh pains me to say that we use the new technologies with the old way of

20:46 thinking so we spin up some instance and uh automatic uh uh uh scaling up or down

20:55 is we have failed maybe to to give

21:01 confidence to our bosses that that works okay so we are used to basically we are

21:06 focused in business uh value and high availability so

21:11 it's maybe easy for us to say leave it always on right uh even though it's it's

21:16 in a cloud and and the capabilities are there uh I guess that we are facing

21:22 maybe social limitations uh ourselves we have to get over ourselves

Tracking benefits

21:30 and maybe just a bit of a follow-up to that are you starting to kind of track the benefits of any of these programs at

21:36 all or is it still very nascent early days and that's something that you would look to slightly further down the line

21:42 more the latter uh I guess that otherwise what about you rajash how are

21:48 you guys at Verizon managing to kind of track the benefits of these shift towards programmable Networks

21:54 so in the in the work that I do um I mainly work with other customers as well so many of the things that we start

22:00 with is uh looking at the the business value of things right and then um you know so when we talk about a

22:08 project we talk about the total cost of ownership so when we are helping them migrate to the cloud uh we're showing

22:14 them that this is the the current uh energy utilization that they have with their on-prem servers but this is what

22:20 is going to happen once you migrated uh you have the options for uh you know is

22:25 it a VM is it a container I mean and where do you uh where do you actually position those right so one of the

22:31 things that we do is uh on the uh when we look at a workload uh we could actually break the break this thing down

22:38 into this where certain uh critical low latency workloads can go into the

22:44 edge right certain things are going into the the cloud region services so when

22:49 you look at this there's the cost is actually a combination of uh I mean is

22:55 the traffic coming all the way from the end device uh to the edge uh to the the cloud right because there's the there's

23:01 a network costs associated with it where is it running there's like a compute cost associated with this so we look at

23:07 each of these things and then um show them like this is the value of moving uh to a particular place versus

23:13 the others I guess once that kind of project has started and that's the

Tracking KPIs

23:18 programmable networks are starting to be deployed are they uh are you tracking any specific kpis with those Enterprise

23:24 customers absolutely absolutely so we we actually look at like the the complete

23:30 utilization what are the things that is happening um and then many of these things uh it's built using the the automation where

23:36 we're turning down uh things when they're not needed and scaling up as we need it and then um you know on the on

23:44 our Enterprise side again uh we I mean there's the you could have like all

23:49 these servers running all different times or you could have you know break this uh you have the the

23:56 model of you are you just shifting and putting it in the cloud or are you refactoring it and then you know making

24:02 sure like you have a separate components right so we we look at each of those models look at a complete architecture

24:07 models after that like we have the visibility of how these things are running there's the the cost uh

24:13 accumulated and then based on that we do the optimization cool so I mean I guess we talked about some of the benefits and

Challenges

24:20 uh you know how we might track that Etc but I'm interested to know about what some of the challenges that are shifting

24:25 towards my more programmable networks are and whether there's some kind of unforeseen challenges

24:31 um that you guys have faced um in your programmable Network exploitments maybe vastly you want to kick us off on that

24:36 one are we all about the challenges of course okay

24:44 um the actual challenges actually is that we've been mentioned during the AI

24:50 session it's probably a challenging task itself to Ultimate all right and uh okay

24:57 if we look into this problem not just a programmable network but programmable Network as a part of the

25:03 overall alternation complex um but yeah I believe it is a journey

25:09 and the key thing here is to to be consistent and

25:15 um well Juniper is acting right now very very much actively in promoting the our

25:20 own uh automation solution uh but yeah it's not going uh immediately to the to

25:28 the high targets so we we developing It On the Case by case basis

25:34 um one of the first case for example we're looking into this as a network onboarding

25:40 and especially I'm talking it from the my own perspective because we all has our own biases here and so my belongs to

25:48 the large Network infrastructures which can be uh used for and not can but they

25:54 are used for Mobile Patrol or some metro metro Network applications right and and

26:01 so here you can end up with deploying and onboarding network with the tens of

26:06 thousands devices and this is not your own exaggeration so this is kind of the

26:11 uh so Rajesh can confirm probably how many they have in in Verizon

26:19 so and um yeah so it seems like this is a long hanging fruit talking about the

26:26 challenges all right but uh interestingly enough this case uh uh

26:32 addresses uh some interesting targets of the sustainability as well if I can just go back and connect things together here

26:38 because well if the thinkors will be the the point here that let's say I want to

26:44 decrease let's say I'm I'm in charge of deploying this large Network infrastructure and they need to plan my

26:52 my installer is writing to this ten thousand nose actually all across all across the uh Nation or the country and

27:01 uh let's say if I put my uh objectives like I want to decrease the number of

27:06 trips uh per each installation from three to two so it means overall ten

27:12 thousand last trips and that's immediately makes me way more Greener yeah right on the on the carbon

27:19 footprint side um so that's very interesting how those programmability and automation can be

27:26 connected to the sustainability objectives

27:32 um and I guess ROM for you as we start to move past the kind of low-hanging fruit

Complexity

27:39 into more end-to-end Automation and starting to bring the likes of AI into

27:44 things with more advanced Solutions how do you see the kind of range of challenges changing I guess and the

27:50 range of benefits changing as we move into more advanced Solutions in this space I think that the biggest challenge

27:56 is complexity because it acts provide via programmable

28:01 networks at complexity when it's boxes and cables you know the worst thing you have is a spaghetti of cables like you

28:06 know I don't know if we've all but any of you have seen the back of Iraq in other days knows how that looks but as

28:13 it gets programmable and scales up the complexity increases and of course programmable sorry it typically also

28:21 means multi-vendor even enhances complexity I think one area we're seeing it is is an Oran that seemed a huge

28:27 promise and and and now it's it's complete complicated to do so it's taking time to find the the you know the

28:35 the middle ground of optimizing you know the complexity versus benefit similar thing with the network slicing which was

28:42 you know hyped for many many years and once you know we had to start getting

28:47 our hands dirty and making it work people like oh this is complicated because I need to look at Duran and

28:52 maybe an edge and transport and core maybe all the way into the cloud and focusing all this and end-to-end is

28:59 called complicated on the other hand there is progress that's being made and this connects to the other challenge

29:04 which is a little bit of you know the evolution the change of the mindset right both in the how people

29:10 operate and it was mentioned here right people to need to work in new ways and adapt and I think that's you know they

29:16 everybody's talking about uh uh the the the people uh factor in that

29:25 um which is also in the mode of operations and in breaking down the Styles and I think that's something that we do see more and more and working more

29:32 with our customers and and in some places it's more at a POC stage how do you work to bring up the sentence slice

29:38 and I mentioned the example before but we've done other uh examples with other operators

29:44 um to you know to deal with that focus on specific use cases and then see

29:50 how it scales up to best leverage and optimize the network as is needed keeping in mind that again almost well I

29:57 was going to say no and almost no one is Greenfield right so everyone is Brownfield so it's not like you can come and paint it however you are in the

30:04 optimal way I mentioned inventory but same thing with could be with orchestration or Assurance or all of

30:10 these things there are existing systems there and when we come to our customers nobody wants to rip and replace

30:16 everything and do it so we need to find the way to do it sometimes it's Federation sometimes it's identifying

30:22 specific use cases to make this Advantage into this automated you know

30:27 more end-to-end business focused Network um and then the benefits also in the

30:33 term of uh um sustainable operations you know mature over time and they're tracked and again so it will like I said

30:40 the on a higher note you know if you're talking about 5G for so long that people

30:45 now are like they've become a bit of um anti to 5G or to slicing but the fact is

30:52 that you know we just started talking about it too early

30:58 so I I agree Ron uh complexity is a big issue I I think you mainly refer to the

31:05 complexity of the network uh in my experience as an operator that has also

31:11 translated into a more complex uh vendor ecosystem so now a lot of different uh

31:19 Solutions and Niche uh brands are starting to pop up everywhere

31:25 that adds to the complexity I guess complexity brings more complexity but it also has a certain opportunity feeling

31:33 to it um I mean there's there's more to pick and choose so you so you can build your

31:40 operational uh environment but another aspect that is uh very relevant to us is

31:46 knowledge transfer so now we have a a significantly larger tool set and uh we

31:55 always have this business pressure to do more with less so now one guys has to use I don't know 20 30 different tools

32:04 to accomplish uh something within the uh efficiency uh that that we are looking

32:10 for so uh on a management perspective that is uh also a big challenge

Takeaways

32:18 cool we are rapidly running out of time so I will ask one more question to all of our panelists which is essentially

32:24 what is your key takeaway from today's session so if you could sum up kind of everything we've spoken about in the

32:30 potential future of programmable networks as a key element for sustainable operations if you can sum up your thoughts on that in one sentence

32:36 what would that be and we can start at the far end with Ron once you're once you've done your water

32:43 so first I didn't comment about the number of people but I'm super proud guys

32:49 um so I guess that's Michael uh no um I think that the my main takeaway is

32:55 I think we we touched on it in different ways it's a journey um we're you know it's taking time but

33:01 it's not a bad thing it's taking time you know it's people need to think and I gave the cloud example is something that

33:06 took years to get to it we're used to it now so um and I'm happy to say that I think

33:11 we're advancing on this journey you know both you know amdocs internally but also as an industry of course

33:18 um and you know focusing on the new use cases great focusing on the reduced cost is great but sustainability like we say

33:24 is it's a good thing that it's also part of the mix sure

33:29 okay so um I would say that my takeaway came from the getting prepared for this

33:35 for this panel session interestingly enough because well I started to think through the what are actual practical

33:41 connection between the sustainability or being sustainable and Netflix for

33:47 growing ability so actually there is no let's say explicit connection at least at the first sight and the takeaway is

33:54 that index actually it is there it is there and well those couple of examples which will show how just the being

34:01 programmable or automated can literally and immediately translate into the

34:07 sustainable Goods that's actually really really interesting and I suggest everybody who ever look at look into

34:13 this look into this specifically practical aspects of this all this thing

34:19 so it is there yeah um Mike he think of his

Conclusion

34:24 um implicitly surprising so many people even at the end of the position uh the

34:30 sustainability is um is becoming a must these days for any any companies that it's trying to do

34:37 business and programmable networks are pretty much in alignment with you know helping those goals uh so and and

34:44 definitely think it's a it's a journey and a combination of all the the mentors

34:49 The Operators the consumers for the good cool last but not least so mine is kind

34:55 of a two-part or two key takeaways one is basically what you said basically for me this was a very very uh Rich exercise

35:04 of connecting these two concepts so so that is important and valuable for me

35:09 and another one uh is that uh and I've heard it before uh our our customers and

35:16 our users don't really care about technology as we do and that's fine I

35:22 mean that's that's the way it has to be as we don't care about other Industries uh know how but uh again uh uh I I feel

35:31 that there is a great value that we can derive from abstracting and and

35:37 leveraging that uh difference in in interests on the other half of the

35:43 non-technical population of the world great thank you very much to uh to all

Questions

35:49 of our panelists we do have time for a couple of questions um if there were any from the audience

35:56 yes there is a microphone coming for you from the back

36:02 um

36:08 [Music]

36:14 uh so far

36:20 we burden being responsible for managing networks organizing Network solution

36:28 um so

36:37 which is also a very good for us

36:46 the main explain various seconds there are different groups more accessibility

36:53 [Music] foreign

37:04 ers to manage this

37:11 responsibility everyone will be able to access network easier taking some

37:16 actions do you study any policy any framework any orchestration layer to

37:22 manage this type of harmful actions on your network

37:31 so we do have an orchestration layer in place but uh security is is always a big

37:38 concern and uh I mean programmability and and

37:44 automation is is one of the I think maybe the only way in which we can react

37:50 in in a timely fashion uh for example we could isolate part of the network if we

37:56 detect that that something is being uh looks weird right off the baseline or

38:02 something so uh yes it's a very big consideration uh we we don't have it

38:08 figured out totally things are moving really really quick but it's always uh

38:14 keep us up at night that some someone or something could be uh purposely or not

38:20 uh in certain parts of the network where they they're not supposed to be yeah

Privacy

38:26 just to add to that um you know privacy is another concern right so I mean as a

38:32 provider like we probably have the the location services of uh I mean where these things are only but that's like a

38:38 uh you know it's you can't just expose that right but the things that we can expose um I mean the thought is more of

38:45 a orchestration letter and network apis and so on that we will do

38:51 there any other questions from the audience on the back left

38:58 so um I guess I would understand that part of being sustainable would come

39:04 from extending wherever possible the life cycle the lifetime of an asset and I was

39:11 just wondering how you guys think about that in comparison to perhaps

39:17 implementing a programmable Network solution which might be more energy efficient and how do you

39:24 think about and calculate the interplay between those between saying we have Legacy equipment but we want to extend

39:30 the lifetime of that equipment because there's embedded carbon in that that we don't want to put in the bin but also we

39:37 would like to have Solutions in place to help reduce you know energy that are

39:42 more energy efficient and help to power down and so on and so forth so just any opinions on the the interplay between

39:48 those two and how you see operators managing it if you want to say that one

39:55 I I would say again it's it's a delicate balance and it connects to what I said

40:01 before even with regards I talked about systems and and software but I think the same is true for hardware and we're like

40:08 we're seeing it in the radio operators are looking they know how to evolve often where things are there and working

40:14 and you know most of the time it's business considerations if it still justifies its

40:21 existence and it makes more money and it doesn't you know there's an Roi model and often you know the operators will

40:27 see how to keep it in place but again the the programmable networks gives you more flexibility into seeing how you you

40:34 know balance these things out and you can maybe add so even if you take some

40:40 Central officers some data center at a Metro that an operator might be still using and now he might be wanting to

40:46 migrate and leverage some Edge Solutions maybe his own Edge Solutions or extension of hyperscalers so again I

40:53 imagine it'll be a trial and it you know trialing seeing how it works and over time if it justifies that and the

41:00 equipment does get over old go get old over time it'll find the optimal way to retire it or reuse it or 

Hardware Sustainability

41:10 yeah you'll go and then we'll have one more very quick question Peter says

41:17 I can just shout but um yeah uh one uh

41:22 one more question which actually relates to um the the ques the previous question about

41:28 extending the hardware is um I know that the hardware

41:33 manufacturers have not been particularly great about being sustainable in terms

41:39 of like the efficiency you know every time you drop a giant heat sink on your

41:45 chip you know that you're wasting energy uh so how much how much can we pressure

41:52 the hardware I mean factors to participate in this sustainability as

41:58 part of the a part of the larger ecosystem okay I don't know so I can take it

42:05 because [Laughter]

42:13 so the short answer is I think and I would answer the whole industry we are

42:18 all in and as I said at the very beginning of the introduction part uh cell

42:23 sustainability Factor stands very very high and power consumption is one of

42:29 them and there are certain different ways how we're considering it so first of all okay so it consumes as much as it

42:36 it it it consumes as a matter right to deliver the the performance which is required for the for the um for the

42:45 given solution but um there are always considerations about

42:50 how to make it how to make it most optimal so if I'm if I have a multi

42:55 multi-asic or multi-netic processor system so I will look and think as a

43:01 product manager will put requirement that okay guys so it needs to be toner I I should be able to turn it off if I'm

43:08 not using it and do it through the programmable programmable way right um you know you know there are multiple

43:14 multiple things of course so the way how to how to let's say um combine things inside it and to make

43:21 sure that the my fan spins as slow as possible not consuming the extra extra energy so I would say you can push

43:30 uh on the hardware vendors but be gentle

43:37 I think but it's also connected by the way to technology Evolution if you look at Radio like 3G radios are turned off

43:45 and taken away not because they stop working but the technology evolves new requirements and data centers now if you

43:50 need now gpus instead of or different technology and Technology often moves faster than the hardware store yeah and

43:57 I just like to add that uh I I feel that this sustainability ideas should not dampen economic activity so uh it feels

44:05 like we have to be careful and oh we don't want to decommission this equipment uh leads me to think about

44:12 this circular economy concept right so we we of course have to pressure

44:17 manufacturers but a big question is what hap I mean I wanna I wanna upgrade the

44:22 network and I and I want to move quickly to to make the the future now uh but but

44:29 the question is not for me it's less if you upgrade or not than when I mean if you got the money and you've got the the

44:35 the business uh justification an important question is what is going to happen with those materials that you

44:42 are going to be decommissioning in the equipment and can you feed them back into the loop in order to to uh gain the

44:49 the benefits of the new designs right right great thank you very much again to

44:56 our panel and uh thank you guys for staying to listen

45:02 foreign