 Hi, I'm Dean Perrion, Executive Vice President at JSA, and on behalf of Light River, I'd like to welcome Mr. Travis Ewart. Travis is the Chief Operating Officer at Light River, and Mr. Alec Gilner. Alec is the Senior Vice President of Sales also at Light River. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being with me today. I appreciate it. Hey, thanks, Dean, and thanks to JSA TV. Yeah, thanks for having me, Dean. You bet, you bet. Thanks, guys. Before we get into talking about aliens, a little teaser for those of you watching, why don't you tell us a little bit about Light River? Yeah, you bet, Dean, and thanks again for having us here today. At Light River, we engineer, we build, we deploy, and automate some of the largest and most complex networks out there. Typically, these networks are multi-vendor and multi-technology in nature, and our customers represent Tier 1 wireless, wireline, the FANG, hyperscale folks, data center exchange, largest fibercoast, so we do a lot for a lot of people, but our two main lines of business are our factory-built network that supports upfront lab build and deployment of these networks, as well as Netflix or automation platform. And for both of these, the focus is on multi-vendor and multi-technology, which is absolutely key to this discussion. Awesome. Okay, so let's get right into the meat and potatoes part that I'm most excited to discuss with you. Alien-aware networking. What in the world are we talking about here? Travis, back to you. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, this does require a little bit of an explanation, right? So if you look at traditional optical networking, it typically reflects end-to-end technology from a single supplier, and what you get with this approach is basically you get a network that's more or less proven in by way of test and performance and network management through a supplier's respective element management system or EMS. So if you look at open optical and network disag, that model's completely disrupted or changed. And what you end up with is more of a bring-your-own or BYO for best in breed, transponder, muck-sponder, pluggables, colored optics into your layer two, layer three instance, all of which over an existing or a new open-line system. And I know that's a mouthful, but in this model, what used to be an end-to-end wavelength or optical service that was more or less known and managed end-to-end, that's now foreign or what our industry called alien, you know, as an alien wavelength. So, you know, for alien-aware networking, that really highlights awareness and the fact that we can see it end-to-end, test it, know it, manage it end-to-end, and that's really what's behind the alien-aware networking messaging. And you mentioned, you mentioned wavelengths. So Alec, I'm going to jump, you let you jump in here too. Like as a product offering focused on optical disaggregation and alien wavelengths, what exactly does LightRiver provide within your alien-aware networking offering? Yeah, absolutely. It's a suite of tools that will allow the operator to realize the capex savings from network disag with the primary benefit though of not having to hire specialized headcount than to operate and maintain that system, right? So key benefit of our solution is we can avoid vendor lock-in and we allow the operator to effectively deploy best-of-breed solutions as they're actually released to the market. Okay, we do this by giving them a full suite of design, build, and automation functions that cover the whole life cycle of a disaggregated solution. And I'd just like to point out that LightRiver, we're the very first to put this kind of solution to market. And it's across not just multiple vendors, but also across multiple technologies that a vendor may offer as well. So this question is probably for both of you, but can you give us some some good examples around alien-aware networking and the product offering that you just described? How does that help a network operator? Travis, you want to go first? Yeah, you bet. On the automation side of things, I mean, we're working directly with large operators to provide this end-to-end management across their newly introduced or newly minted disag network. And what is cool is that not only do we provide uniform management across this disparate network elements and technologies, but for our Netflix customers where they've already got a deployment in place, that new deployment looks like their existing deployment. So from a business practice and process perspective, we make it look the same. So what's great here, they can introduce this highly complex network, but from an operating model perspective, which reflects UI that detects access, API for all your integrations, everything else. I mean, that vision, SDN abstraction is realized even into this new world. Alex, same question. Again, you know, some good examples of alien-aware networking and how it ultimately helps the network operators. Yeah, sure. Two come to mind quite easily. First is we have a service provider that's wanting to offer a wavelength as a service option to their customers. We provided the testing and validation services to make this possible. We took their line system of choice, and then we took just about every single vendor's transponder that was out there available on the market today, and we're able to test and validate a complete solution. The benefit here, though, is the service provider's offering is more competitive because they can allow their end user to choose the transponder or alien wavelength of their choice, perhaps the ones that they're familiar with in their own network. And so it winds up being a win-win for both the service provider and for the end customer. Another example would be a gaming customer that just wanted to reduce their data center interconnect costs. They were able to choose the best of breed from a transponder solution from a line system, and in the end it resulted in a lower lifecycle cost for them. There's a lot to unpack here, gang, but we only have a finite amount of time, as you know. But Travis, this sounds like a pretty unique advantage. Can you talk to us a little bit about those advantages? Yeah, you bet, Dean. I mean, it could continue on with an alien-aware networking theme. I mean, we see more aliens than anybody else out there. We see more aliens in the wild, which is literally a production network, as well as in our Area 51 alien labs for Disag Technologies. And the reason we can say this is, I mean, we have strong relationships with all the key suppliers in this space. We have partnerships with all them. We have access to the equipment itself, to their engineering resources, and broader. And frankly, the same can be said for our customers. We're doing this work with some of the largest out there. And as Alec just mentioned, as we speak, we're doing tests and interop and the automation builds and all that. So we're doing that at scale already and have been for some time. A cool and coincidental timing. I mean, just yesterday, light reading did a webinar, and our buddy Sterling Perrin was on there, and he presented some new results he had from an analysis or study he just did last month within heavy reading. And interestingly enough, what came out of that, I mean, first of all, with 80-plus operators across the globe, and for open optical and network Disag, they came away and surprised, three top things. Who's going to test this? Do interop for me? Who's going to help me design, deploy, and build this? And then the hardest one, who's going to help me build out this automation to do this and to end management? Because I'm not going to get that from any of these other players. And for Alec and I, as we listen in, it was like ding, ding, ding. We were super jealous because that's who we are. That's what Light River does. And we've been doing that for a really long time. Yeah, again, a very, very good explanation. Thank you for that. Alec, let's talk to the network operators now. For the network operators out there, what are some best practices that they should consider before attempting a network Disag within their optical networks? Sure, great question. And actually, that just kind of leads us into our, I'll call it our Area 51 multi-vendor Disaggregation Lab. In the lab, we have over 50 million dollars worth of transport gear from various vendors, or even over the last 10 years. So we have the latest NextGen, and we have legacy systems that they're still trying to maximize the lifecycle value there. If you're going to embrace Disaggregation, the real key is the ability to fully test that solution in a vendor agnostic environment so that you don't get steered away from the potential pitfalls from one vendor to another. Our Area 51 lab allows a service provider to go in and test all the different aspects of a disaggregated solution. And more important, once you have it tested, validated, and deployed, then you need to automate it so that you're not increasing your OPEX cost on the backside. And I think that's really what you need to consider here is, how do you get the CAPEX reductions without increasing your OPEX at the same time. And that's where Light River can help, and our Area 51 lab makes all that possible. Gentlemen, we did it. Thank you very much. This has been fun. I do feel like, again, that we could probably spend another hour just kind of unpacking the ins and outs of the of the alien today. Unfortunately, that is all the time that we have again. I really greatly appreciate your time today. Thank you very much. Hey, thank you, Dean. Yep, glad to be here. Thanks. You bet.