 So next up we have a panel talking about telecos and open stack and how the two work well together and once again, we do have a Opportunity on Twitter if you ask questions now last Afternoon yesterday morning rather we actually did not get to some of the Twitter questions, but I promise we will get to some of them today The good news is many of the questions from yesterday were actually about NFV explain it to me What does it actually mean? yet another buzzword to learn so We'll get to some of those questions, but please go ahead and and tweet your questions with the appropriate hashtag And we will get to those so Next up I'm gonna introduce Michael still who's gonna be monitoring the panel and he is a project technical lead for the Compute project and he's kind of a big deal. So come on out Michael and introduce the the pale Wow, there's kind of a lot of you out there So I know it's been a long morning and we all want to get to the break So we need to make this as interesting as possible But that's kind of on you not me because you need to ask good questions on Twitter But let's keep the ball rolling and and get on with it. So I'd like to bring out my panel members, please So we have Marcus from Swisscom Thanks man gelong from orange and Toby from AT&T And I think I should get an award for getting that right by the way So thanks for coming along Now I think one of the interesting things about this panel is these guys are users This isn't filtered by their vendors or anything like this is This is an opportunity to hear what they actually need from the open stack community And so I think we should make the most of that So let's start off with could you all briefly introduce yourselves? Yes, so I'm Marcus Bronner. I'm working for Swisscom I'm leading their standardization and that sort of particular because we believe that open stack is the de facto standard in cloud Infrastructure, but that's our interest there Shallon Kong I'm working at orange labs as a team leader We are working in cloud computing in general and in particular in open stacks in two or three years And I'm Toby Ford. I work for AT&T on Responsible for architecture and strategy for our cloud and platform Infrastructure been working on open stack for quite a while four years. Cool. So let's start with an easy question How are you guys currently using open stack? So on the Swisscom site, we actually use open stack From piston with networking from Plumgrid we used it as an infrastructure layer for our application cloud So we run on top of this open stack. We run Cloud Foundry Same here. We believe that Cloud Foundry might be the facto standard for the higher layers That's where we basically try to produce our applications and where you also allow third parties to deliver their applications on it and Use our infrastructure out of that cloud system. And that's what we do at the moment. That's purely IT oriented Work we do and I think NF we we're gonna talk afterwards. Definitely At orange. Yes, we are using open stack in several ways first since nearly two years We're working in the adoption and adaptation Of open stack for our internal IT applications Our senior VP J. Swish has given a detailed presentation yesterday about this subject secondly We are working with the company cloud was on building public cloud offers on top of open stack and the last not the least Orange is contributing activity within the open stack community to improve the new turn component cool And then for AT&T we've been using open stack for the last four years and with a number of different partners We've tried to stay as close to vanilla upstreamed open stack as possible and then Where we've made any innovations we've tried to contribute that back We've used it primarily for internal applications and a lot of our developer focused External offers so our API Exposure programs are all running on open stack and then the last year We've really focused on NFV and and target a few of those applications Okay, so people keep using the term NFV Give me a non telco description of what it actually means Essentially, it's virtualizing network functions switches routers DNS bind the typical kind of functions you would would need to run DHCP these kind of things you would run a network and then For telcos specifically things that get into mobility systems the the major three components of mobility system the ran the MPC and the IMS core these three components have many Subtending components that would get virtualized in a NFV solution So maybe Part of the misunderstanding is how do telco data centers differ from the enterprise environments people might have seen before Are we talking about just you know racks and racks of computers or is it different from that? in fact telco operators such as orange hosts and Managed huge variety of different applications across many data centers one Particularity of these telco applications is that they are huge heterogeneity in terms of their runtime environment for example the operating system the middle well the library dependency Secondly Many telco applications should support real-time Communication which doesn't tolerate to match the latency the real-time performance is also an important requirement Probably to add to the real-time one. I don't think it's really about real-time. It's really about Guarantees so we have a set of services which require certain guarantees and also legally require certain guarantees I think to add also what was not hearing so far is security So there is Telcosystems tend to be secure at the moment To a certain probably at least to a certain degree. We can discuss the degree So that's that's one one thing which I believe is a bit different though. I mean with our Footprint and banking that's also need to be highly secure on the IT side The last thing I would add increment to that is Existing telco environments are very regulated at least in North America. So the the actual Facility we use has a lot of Legal rules we have to apply to and so we're doing a lot of work to try to work around those in this as we go forward So the next question I have on my little bit of paper is why is NFV special? It seems to me that maybe some of the answer is real-time, but are there other things we need to be thinking about when we think about this use case? So when we started to look into open stack and that's a few years ago already Open stack was not terribly well suited for large IO loads and even if you really think I mean Toby was talking about in the mobile network basically every Mobile packet would flow through that cloud system right if you have this type of functions there That's the level of of IO load we we need to have and I think that's a bit of Special at least from how it was built up. I see a lot of work going into that direction now. I like that Yeah, I mean I think NFV is an important thing for us because of at one level it's about Being more efficient and trying to run, you know more competitive environment try to find something that would run multiple workloads and Use up as much of the assets as possible. That's a very important driver for us Because we have a lot of competition coming from interesting new areas and they they typically come at us with all Shared infrastructure and all quite unified. This is not typically how Tokos have run It's typically been very siloed and we're trying to to change that and pool our resources together on one common platform So that's that's a key part of it as well as the time to market the extensibility Our competitors are rolling things out much faster than now Ever before and we have to make an environment and infrastructure that will extend quickly I agree with Marcus and Toby about the importance of NFV. I would like to add a technical point NFV doesn't not mean the simple virtualization by replacing physical machines by virtual machines for the technical applications since the simple virtualization may lead to performance issues and doesn't provide the highly expected scale capability By seeing NFV We are often talking into aspect the first having carrier-grade cloud infrastructure and secondly adaptation of the existing technical applications and the platforms So may I add to what Toby said since we want to sort of move towards sort of relatively vertically integrated box type of business to this sort of platform Hopefully NFV platform with these functions on top There the whole discussion comes in sort of what's the guarantee a platform gives to the VNF's this Applications on top and who is responsible for end-to-end performance guarantees in this type of Setting so if we buy a VNF from a third party we put it on our Cloud system NFV cloud system Who's now responsible if something doesn't go well specifically if it doesn't go well and performance or security perspective So I see what we have some questions from Twitter, but I'm going to ignore them for one second because I have a question and I've got the microphone So what about less cool features do you guys need Live upgrades good performance at scale cluster-wide scheduling things that I don't see really being talked about As part of the NFV use case or will you never upgrade your cluster for example? Yeah, this this is a particular sensitive point for me. I mean we've since we've have a lot of sites with open stack We need we really need help to make it so that we can upgrade and get ruling upgrades happening and continuous integration to happen For these sites we anticipate deploying open stack in a large number of locations not exactly huge setups per location, but a lot of them and That that really requires that we get the lifecycle management down solid and we're able to not only deploy quickly But it maintain it over time. So that's key. And then obviously if we have a lot of these locations having some level of like integration across site It's gonna be all essential. Okay, cool. I It's very important, but I mean I got the feeling I mean the whole cloud Paradigm is actually exactly helping Doing that now. I'm not sure and on detail how far open stack is in that If it's not then it's it's yeah, it's it's a feature which isn't is needed. I thought it's there Okay, cool. So let's take some Twitter questions So we let's start off with what's your primary use case for open stack inside a telco What are you gonna do with these open stack installs? At the at the moment as I said at the moment we we run application it were closed on it if We really go NFV it's all types of network functions are candidates and We acquired Frank. I mean that's not something we're gonna do it tomorrow So we looked into it and it's basically a bit of a life cycle Issue so if there is a function at the end of life, we're gonna probably move that to a more cloud NFV based system The immediate benefit is not shown at the moment To sort of move before before it's end of life Yeah, for us. We actually beyond the IT workloads that are in our existing system I mean we're actively pushing things that actually have already been working quite well NFV wise in a Virtual environment things like a viata people have used viata as an example on top of virtual machines or containers to actually To do one one particular function in our network called the customer edge router Which is very a smaller kind of setup that? Doesn't have the performance requirements of a mobility system for all consumers That can be deployed on a one one customer kind of basis per customer basis So we're we're starting that right now So that's that's a an initial kind of toe in on this this concept that that does exist today Mm-hmm. I think the obvious follow-up question is will my mobile phone calls ever get routed over open stack? Will ever be my fault if my call doesn't work? Yes Yes, I believe so okay, I mean already today a lot of our calls are on Ending up on some sort of virtualized Systems not open stack yet, but sort of virtualized type of systems. I don't see any reason why not Okay, cool. I'm pushing as hard as possible to make that happen by the end of next year or in 2016 Okay, I think you need to come back and tell us when it's ready so we can all make a lot of calls Yeah, and I can blame you So next question from Twitter what improvements in open stack that aren't code would help you the most So I guess people are thinking Docs You know deployment tools that sort of thing I think if open stack could provide the natively integrated design planning and configuring and Deployments automatic deployment tools to manage multiple data centers It would be fine and if there's tools could also manage the change management of the data center hardware It would be better. Mm-hmm. I think the the testing aspect tempest and these things around being able to do full for integration testing API testing this this kind of thing is essential in my view To get to what we're just talking about. Yeah, it certainly seems like you guys care about reliability. Yes Ah, it's just kind of our next question. That's kind of funny. How important is continuous integration delivery and DevOps in your NFV journey? That's a difficult one We have a long we have long discussions if we really go NFV if your phone calls would rely on Continuous integration at the moment we we don't feel comfortable enough to do that be quite honest It's if it's for IT systems for like applications where they can fail or things like that It's okay, but if it really comes to the core network bit If our whole Swiss come wide network is down because something goes wrong Continuous integration is bit of a stretch at the moment Probably leave it to some early adopters first try that This area is very important to me. I feel like agile agile methods not just continuous integration deployment but test-driven and Just the sort of collaboration that agile brings is an essential ingredient to what's transforming us as it as As we get into this space. So for me, I think it is an essential step for us to get to And I mean I trust my car to be continuously deployed today. So I Will trust in the future that my phone will as well So if some of you aren't going to be doing continuous deployment, how long do we need to support our stable releases for? Do you guys roll out code every six months every 15 years? What's it look like? So today probably we have the equipment there for something like 10 years Or more or more. Yeah, some some of it even more and you don't do firmware upgrades on that If it went once it's deployed we actually wrap of these certain boxes with plexiglass so they don't leak all over everything else Exactly some of it is no upgrade that don't touch it if it's working Some bad news by the way, but talk about that later I don't I we need stable releases because it I guess it will take some time and testing was mentioned before I mean if you go through some test cycle and so on you want to have a certain stability for a certain time specifically for the open stack and to really the infrastructure layer I Mean if it's about applications and VNF surrounding on top of it It's probably even a different discussion also where agility might be even helpful, but the baseline infrastructure should be rather stable Mm-hmm I think this is the really the paradox or the problem that we have to address is if we don't do continuous integration then we have to live with a lot of past sins and We have to find the right balance between the two two because that's you know as was said How do we get to a really stable thing that is being changed all the time? Okay So what's the interest in having the same level of openness in your network hardware that opens that gives you? That's very very high I mean I feel like this is another very essential point to what we're trying to get to we've suffered in the past with being railroaded or and stuck in a dead end with one one vendor and one proprietary solution and then I think we're realizing how Important and sensual it is to be more open and collaborative the various telcos around the world are having solving the same problems There's not a lot of differentiation in what we're trying to solve for I think Collaborating being open transparent about what's going on is is a great way to help the customers ourselves try to get Get better value out of the telcos. So I think it's it's key Yeah, I think as telco operator. We are of course interested in hardware Standardization but not till the point of Open compute for the moment. I think it's very satisfied to use 186 servers standard it's already sufficient for telco operator Looking at more Twitter questions Are there any specific challenges you face with your open stack initiatives? Is there anything you'd like us to do that we haven't already discussed? I Was listening to a team before and it was sort of reminding me to our challenges if it comes to the organizational issues I mean yeah in in telecommunication You have a box typically you have somebody responsible for exactly that box or that service or that feature or something like that And if we start changing that you also need to change their organizational structures And you need to take away something from somebody and give something new So the whole Personal issues around this topics I think are are a big hurdle and that has nothing to do with whether it's open stack or not But that's sort of coming a bit with the horizontalization and a bit with the sort of open way of doing things and doing things Different which also means a sort of a mental change which is required in the company that will take quite a bit of time Yeah for us, I mean a Key area that needs work is performance through x86 boxes as hosts Especially network the number of packets per second Getting something that's more deterministic and low latency through boxes So work around integration with open b-switch and making open b-switch hole Integration with a various SDNs that are coming to make the whole An overlay solution performance these things I think are essential as we try to scale Trying to continue to do networking. That's all on dedicated physical hardware We want to get away from that as much as possible. So that area of performance of networking and then this key Plus plus the network grows out of the data center or integrates with the network outside of the data So it comes basically together with what you're saying. Yeah, I couldn't reiterate that point more the when and the LAN are The really integrated in the future So Toby you mentioned open v-switch what sort of networking model at Elko is running Does it tend to be something open like open v-switch is or is it a proprietary SDN? Well, we've we have Instances of we have three or four different variations. Almost all of them have open v-switch as a part of the picture so You know we have examples that are flat using physical VLANs and physical hardware and then we have we've been using the GRE Open v-switch model first quite a number of sites We have a number of other SDN vendors in our picture as well It's still not any one of them is is a perfect solution quite yet Yeah, I would I would agree. I mean we we put a lot of belief in that this Movement on SDN open daylight might help But it's not there are there yet at them at the moment and we run at the moment we run Plum grid in the data center thing. It's sort of v-switch based solutions for data center bit I Think this is still open question There's a lot of discussion around here And I I see a lot of Swiss come people in the audience talking only about this particular issue Okay, cool. So we only have a couple of minutes left Is there anything else you'd like to say to us that you haven't had a chance to say yet? Well one thing certainly is pushing on the VNF vendors the people that make the software to think more like my new favorite term midget cattle instead of the pets way because I Telco NFV solutions have the same problems that large enterprise back-end systems have had where things get stuck in very monolithic way Breaking that out into a scale-out model and and in a way that is truly scale out using smaller disposable components and not relying on a big VM or Essentially replicating the vertical integration that you had in a piece of hardware in a VM Getting to scale out for those things is keys and I think that's a huge opportunity in the ecosystem That's forming around us is the startups that are showing up that are actually Building telco solutions in a in a more truly scale-out way. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it seems like it's not just Performance that you guys need you need reliability and upgrade wheels and all that other stuff We need to do for everyone else as well. Exactly. Cool. Yeah I would like also emphasis on the importance of NFV for telco operators Since I think without a career grade really cloud infrastructure and we could be the reality So we are glad to see that in open stack community. There is already a work group open stack NFV work group is created and Is focusing on these issues and we will be glad to see some Concrete results in this work group So Marcus you have eight seconds eight seconds So I I really would love to see more in work in the sort of the packaging of the VNF And how you bring it on to the platform with certain guarantees or certain requirements this VNF has and have these sort of for a reliable system at the end of the day Cool. Well, we're out of time. So if you could all help me, thank the panel Thank you very much. Thank you Everybody participating, you know the telco market is a trillion dollar market. So if we can get open stack Helping them. That's pretty that's a pretty big impact for all the work you guys do So I just want to say that We have people here as I said from over 60 countries So please enjoy the rest of your week make sure that you meet People from other companies and other countries get to know them share your stories And when you go back home to those 60 countries that you came from Please bring back a little piece of the future and help bring open stack to your country and Help me prove William Gibson wrong The last but not least and most importantly, I just hope you all have a good time with open stack. Thank you