 This is JSA TV the newsroom for Tekken telecom professionals. I'm Dean Perine and welcome to JSA TV We are coming at you live on location from the telecom exchange in Hoboken, New Jersey And I'm here with my I'm gonna say old friend. I'm at this point Mike Mr. Mike Jonas Mike is the president of global customer operations for light river Technologies and before we jump into this typically Mike and I are doing these Interviews standing up and what you might may not know is that Mike is about three and a half foot taller than I am So we're sitting down today But last night we were talking and one of the things that I was dared to say during this interview is that we would I instead of Talking about our height. I would talk about just how handsome we are. So there you have it I have accepted the dare. I'm talking about how handsome we are and now we will jump into the interview What a great start You got it you got it so Mike for our viewers that don't already know why don't you tell them about light river technologies Yeah, you bet So we're the largest us integrator focus purely on the design engineering deployment Automation and support of optical networks carry a grade networking is all we do require fiber require lasers and require five nines. That's that's the place we live Outstanding so just about a year ago. You acquired unique computer services adopting its esteemed Netflix product which resulted in a new division of light river light river software Why don't you tell our viewers a little bit about that? Well, so you bet. So as we've done for 20 years we make Disaggregated optical technologies work together in hardware. We've developed the lab. We've developed us factory just specifically to build these networks Support organization for that and increasingly with the move towards SDN and the move towards further disaggregation of these technologies it became obvious that We had to do more in software. We had to make these devices work more efficiently for the operations teams for the network operations centers for the architects and for the capacity planners, so Given the fact we have pretty good knowledge of the industry of the equipment manufacturers of the technologies that are trending We identified unique as as a fantastic acquisition target. We had worked with them in the past on automating networks Sonnet starting and sonnet networks back in those days I remember that and and and you know through currently to the DWDM the flex grid environments and And it was a perfect match. So we've made them part of the team We've been able to accelerate so much of the development process because we have ready access to the technology in the lab on the roadmaps Indirectly from the vendors that it's been a fantastic year for us very good Yeah, I mean we were talking earlier about about some of my notes and the fact that it has been a fantastic year And it seems like every time we talk there's something new Legitimately new to talk about and this net flex is a big deal. It's such a big deal That you were recently recognized and I want to make sure that I get this right by by enterprise network magazines 2018 top 10 SDN solutions provider And that flex has a lot to do with that. So why don't we get into that just a little bit deeper if that's okay? Yeah, you bet. And so I think the key term there is solution provider because SDN network automation network intelligence doesn't pop out of a box You've got to figure out how to make this work and and the depth of knowledge We're able to brown both the hardware and the software sides have helped us to help a number of customers We'll start moving down the path of of software to find networking and network automation and Enterprise networking recognize that that you know, we weren't trying to give you a downloadable app that would solve all your problems magically You know, it's a solution that has to be identified and solve those apps before and so That's really the difference for us. We've able to marry so well the hardware and software technologies and With such a depth of understanding of the actual needs of our of our network operator customers that We were able to propel both our technologies, but more importantly our customers efficiencies In a meaningful way this year and we're pleased to have the recognition for it outstanding Yeah, and not only the recognition, but you're doing some things internally updating the website specific to the net flex Product and things of that nature, but it's an ongoing thing, right? I mean, there are upgrades that need to be made there are feature sets that need to be Constantly reworked to meet your customers needs and I understand that net flex just recent I believe it was net flex it just recently went through an upgrade Why don't you tell our viewers a little bit about what that upgrade was all about? Yeah, absolutely So obviously the the churn of technology is quickening. Yeah, we are innovating the whole industry is innovating now And in a time period measured in months not years or longer Which is which has been our past and so we do two major releases a year and two-point releases a year and We recently just significantly expanded The deployments we have using Linux that was part of the recent 3.8 release a lot of new capabilities around the flex grid environments that are coming in the DWDM space We've added a number of the DCI boxes in the most recent release So we are tracking at least evenly if not a little bit ahead of the technology curve. So again, we benefit from Very preferred relationships with a number of the leading equipment manufacturers. So we do understand What is coming next what's going to be ployed what's what's gonna help people solve problems? and so we get a chance to get a little bit of a head start on that and I hope that our both our Manufacturer partners and our customers are benefiting from that, you know Mike You just said what's happening next and so you're creating segways as you typically do Better than I could do for myself, but you're you're celebrating your 20th year right now So you guys are getting pretty doggone good at determining what's happening next you've been around a long time Why don't you tell our viewers what's happening next for you? Why don't you tell our viewers what's gonna what? How things might change for you say in the next six twelve two years, maybe So I do think that we're gonna see further desegregation of the networks. We went through a period of time where the functionality For transport networking was being condensed and converged further and further into a single platform We're gonna see that broken apart. We feel like that's gonna be a very positive trend for light River you're gonna have Specifically built purpose built boxes for switching for transponders for DWDM For OTN and they're just gonna keep breaking these things up making These blocks from different manufacturers will give us as a as a integrator here the opportunity to pick best of breed For every part of the network and then get it to work together Automate it and make it efficient. So we're gonna do a lot more work with this aggregated hardware We're gonna do a lot more work making it act as a unified network and software Mike it is always a pleasure talking to you I am most definitely sure that we will be talking more today and and more in the future So thanks for joining us today very good. Great to see you good to see you as well And thank you viewers for watching JSA TV. We'll see you soon