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batye
batye
6/13/2016 5:06:45 AM
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Platinum
Re: building reefs
@clrmoney I would say we must copy  mother nature, one way or other... 

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Mike Robuck
Mike Robuck
6/3/2016 1:33:48 PM
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Author
Re: Typical "engi-preneur" thinking
John, maybe I'm reading this wrong, but it sounds as though you are agreeing with Feger to some extent that the kludgey systems of the past need to be replaced? I can't speak for Feger, but I think him saying he wanted to toss them in the ocean is similiar to your own frustrations? And on the plus, side he did say new, viable OSS/BSS are being built. Hopefully, big data will turn a lot of this OSS/BSS info into something meaningful. 

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JohnBarnes
JohnBarnes
6/3/2016 7:46:47 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Re: Typical "engi-preneur" thinking
Mike, yes, absolutely, and eventually telco networks will indeed be nearly all virtual and nearly all software-driven (at least from the IT administrator side) and far outperform the kludgey systems of the past.

The trouble is, the kludgey systems of the past are not only kludgey because people didn't know better (though that's some of it) or had no other options (though that's much of it).  They're also kludgey because they record a great deal of the business sense of their firms: every form and every database is a list of things someone thought it was important to ask, for example.

Or for a more archaic telco example, right now in my B2B sales job, the piece of paper on my desk I grab most often is a 3-column printout that matches area codes to states and time zones. A fully automated system would need to display that information on the screen, and the one in design at my firm undoubtedly will -- but until it does, I need my little cheat sheet, and so do most of the people working around me.  The software team doing our design thus needs to think not "we have to get that silly piece of paper out of their hands" as "we have to provide background on area codes as quickly and reliably as the existing paper system."

And where did area codes come from in the first place? They're left over from rotary dialing, when the number of clicks represented the number of digits (except 0=10). So the most populous cities in telephones of the late 1940s got the smallest-number-of-clicks area codes (NYC was at the time the most telephone-intense place on Earth, hence 212 -- just five clicks in all. Wyoming got 307 -- twenty clicks).  A portion of 10-digit dialing will inscribe, possibly for decades yet to come, the telephone populations of 1947 -- but those also inscribe when business people are apt to be available for teleconferences.

Things don't disentangle easily, and wanting to throw out the bathwater because it is dirty ignores that the dirtiness comes from the presence of multiple babies.

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Mike Robuck
Mike Robuck
6/2/2016 12:03:27 PM
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Re: Typical "engi-preneur" thinking
John,

I thought he was making the point that all of the new "toys" (SDN, NFV, big data, etc.) would not reach their full potential with the legacy OSS/BSS systems that are in place today. I don't think that view is unique to CenturyLink, and certainly the service providers know this can be a painful tranformation in some areas. The trick is balancing legacy systems with newer technologies and services without dispruting customers. 

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clrmoney
clrmoney
6/2/2016 11:10:18 AM
User Rank
Platinum
building reefs
They really are want to or tyring to build reefs like the reefs from the sea lets see how that turns out.

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JohnBarnes
JohnBarnes
6/2/2016 7:29:28 AM
User Rank
Platinum
Typical "engi-preneur" thinking
Because nobody actually maintains the content/processing or data/construct distinctions the way they tell you to in research programs (quite possibly they can't because it's not clear that a fully separated system would be able to develop into anything effective), there is a vast amount of organizational memory, knowledge base, and collective skill embedded in those systems he wants to throw out summarily. It will take a long time to tease that information back out, and meanwhile the company almost certainly runs better with it than without it.

But the true engi-preneur defines "running well" as "running on our toys," so the accumulated experience of decades, coded in a form that is usable today, must be dumped in the ocean, so that we can start afresh on something that will soak up as much billable vendor consulting and coaching as possible.

I really hope that enough business people are reading this so that CenturyLink's sales force can notice that no one will return their calls and they spend a lot of time asking receptionists when someone will be in to see them.  "We're going to urge you to destroy your expertise base so you can rebuild it with our keen toys" is not an approach that deserves any respect at all.

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Ariella
Ariella
6/1/2016 4:00:31 PM
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Author
Re: Six is better than 5
@Mike so they would do what old subway cars have been doing? See http://www.viralforest.com/subway-cars-dumped-coral-reef/



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Mike Robuck
Mike Robuck
5/31/2016 8:18:18 PM
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Author
Re: Six is better than 5
I'm sure 6 makes for better advertising than 5. The five nines have been the standards for so many years that I think CenturyLink is looking for an extra edge. 

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Michelle
Michelle
5/31/2016 7:00:18 PM
User Rank
Platinum
Six is better than 5
Oh wow, I hope the extra 9 is that much better. Hopeful for a more reliable future.

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