This is the first in a new series of Service Provider focused topics. We had a lot of choices on where to start but this jumped out as my favorite. Tail-f brought us some incredibly successful work that dovetails nicely into our SP strategy.  

Tedious CLI and home-spun scripts continue to characterize a boom of network growth that is now struggling under its own weight. SP networks, and many enterprises in fact, just can't keep up with the demand for services.  This now affects their ability to compete and thrive.  

It has been impossible to implement network management and/or automation from the outside in. Even if our networks were all from one single vendor, the number of updates, traffic characteristics and unique configurations would still make it an uphill battle. SP networks are multivendor and full of legacy equipment that continues to have value. Cisco's NSO is now offering a way to work this problem from the inside out.  Standards and protocols that have been grown and tested over the last decade are now ready to turn this into one of those great 'why didn't we do this before' situations.

-Watch the full 20 minute show now -

• Wayne Cullen walks us through Cisco's Evolved Services Platform (ESP), the vision and the updated roadmap.
• Carl Moberg explains NETCONF, YANG and the benefits of a model driven architecture.

This is a core set of open technologies that are worth understanding, not just for Cisco.  Juniper, Brocade, Ericsson-LG and others are rushing to at least appear to support these.

Four Points:

1. SDN and NFV can now start to make sense.
2. Netconf and Yang are already being adopted by multiple tier-1 telcos.
3. These capabilities are deployable right now.
4. These are standards in support of open networks.

These capabilities will start to make their way into RFP's soon. No matter which side of the fence you find yourself on, this is definitely worth understanding.

Regards,

Robb

@robbboyd

Note:Product naming can always get confusing with these things.  As of the point this blog was posted, the Tail-f website explained that their NCS product was in transition to its new name 'Cisco Network Orchestrator (NSO) enabled by Tail-f'

Cisco NSO enabled by Tail-f will be commercially available from Cisco later in 2015. Until that time prospects can continue to purchase NCS from Tail-f and contact the Tail-f sales team for additional information.

The first NSO enabled by Tail-f product release will be the next version of NCS plus an optional default VNF Manager (VNFM), the Cisco Elastic Services Controller (ESC). NSO enabled by Tail-f will therefore be backward compatible with the prior NCS version. Therefore all of the current data sheet and informational details on NCS will still be valid.