Strategy - Few Perspectives

• The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.
• It's about long term consequences of your short term choices.
• Gives you focus where to put your energies and resources.
• Strategy is a "Plan" to create "Value".
• An integrative set of choices that positions you on a playing field of your choice in a way that You win.
• The imagination and logic to choose between specific alternatives; resource control beyond immediate needs; and. the will to forego current benefits in order to invest in the future potential.
• A plan designed to achieve a particular goal.
• The unique value a business provides to the market.
• Strategy is a deliberate and integrated plan or course of action undertaken by an organization to achieve a long-term goal or set of goals, considering its internal capabilities and external environment, and involving resource allocation, competitive positioning, and adaptation to change. It encompasses decisions on where to compete, how to compete, and the means to achieve strategic objectives, with the aim of creating sustainable competitive advantage. Strategy provides a framework for aligning organizational activities and guiding decision-making over an extended time horizon.
• Strategy is the response to the challenges keeping you from reaching your ambitions.
• "The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors." This core consists of "a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action."
• Strategy is a cohesive response to an important challenge.
• The most basic idea of strategy is the application of strength against weakness. Or, if you prefer, strength applied to the most promising opportunity.
• Making choices ahead of time in the face of uncertainty.
• To deploy that capital to drive growth, generate value, and create sustainable competitive advantage.
• A comprehensive process for determining what a business should become and how it can best achieve that goal.

On the flip side, IMHO the strategy often offers an illusion to still many thinking that they got a plan (though strategy and planning are fundamentally two different things) and often miss to examine problems/goals from different lenses. 

Last but not least, execution is what matters the most since just thinking, planning and strategizing doesn't really move anything and 90% IMHO couldn't cross that chasm.  

HTH...

A Tech Artist 🎨

An Architectural Perspective on Hierarchy In IP Networks - A Complex Puzzle Comprising Protocols, Topologies, Addressing & Systems (A Short Post)

 

If you ever bump into a Network Design book, course, blog or a webinar - most likely you are going to get introduced to this interesting & an important concept of " Network Hierarchy aka Hierarchical Networks Design Principle ".

Now depending upon which study materials and authors you follow, you would likely to come across different view points in terms of it's needs, pros & cons. Which in general not only contributes into more confusion among audience but also when I speak around with experiences Network Architects & Design Engineers, I often find them:

1. Having different interpretations of this concept and different view points

2. Considering this to be a very theoretical concept which you are likely to encounter in most Architecture & Design books but don't know about:

A. How to practice it (By applying theory to practice) 

B. How to measure it 

C. Missing the deep understanding of the topic at hand beside failing to understand its tradeoffs

So Idea behind this post is to offer you some architectural decision pointers to think through the problem statement and break it down into few tangible pieces by following another important network design principle " Separate the Complexity from the Complexity - Russ White " beside examining the rule 8 from RFC-1925

One of the model I personally always find handy is the SOS model from Russ White and you can use it too as a good ref. point.

So here is the quick list for you to think through in a more pragmatic manner:

1. What problems are you really trying to solve by introducing hierarchy into the Network (Go beyond theory) ?

2. Is it always possible to follow hierarchy? Specially in brown fields or during transitions (Think of old gear with still some lifetime left, mergers )

3. What are the downsides of introducing hierarchy ? (What harm it can cause and tradeoffs such us downgrade Agility, Flexibility, Organic Growth etc.)

4. Difference between Hierarchy vs. Symmetry vs. Modularity vs. Abstractions 

5. Different types of hierarchy/ layered approach to it ( physical level hierarchy,  logical level hierarchy,  hierarchy in addressing scheme, Protocol Level Hierarchy (ISIS Levels & Addressing ?) and so forth)

6. What data points you have in place to test your hypothesis to measure its impact on network

7. How these concepts are applied to different network environments - Enterprises (Campus <Wired and Wireless>, WAN/SDWAN, DC) vs Teclos vs CDNs vs Cloud Providers vs Web Scales vs Within public cloud virtual DC + Controller vs. Controller Less Architectures

8. Impact of introducing hierarchy on Visibility, Reporting and Performance mgmt. of the network

9. Impact on hierarchy on information hiding <reachability information> vs. topological information hiding (Aggregation vs. Summarization)

10. How all these choices will flow into your equipment sizing and potentially have an impact on your decision process

11. How will you apply all these concepts in a IPv10 network (IPv4 + IPv6 aka Dual Stack)

12. And if you are still brave enough :) , read through the further readings list to get to the bottom of this rat hole

Further Readings:

P-FatTree: A Multi-channel Datacenter Network Topology

Enabling Wide-spread Communications on Optical Fabric with MegaSwitch

Abstraction in Networks with Russ White

Hierarchical Network Design Overview

Engineer Versus Complexity

Optimal Routing Design

Navigating Network Complexity

Network Topologies

Five Number Summary for Network Topologies

Scaling MPLS Networks

The Side Effects Of Route Summarization

Avoid Summarization in Leaf-and-Spine Fabrics

Valley-Free Routing

Intra-Spine Links in Leaf-and-Spine Fabrics

Nonblocking versus Noncontending

Hierarchical IP Address Design and Summarization

Hierarchical IPv4 Framework

Fabric versus Network: What’s the Difference?

Liskov Substitution and Modularity in Network Design

Dragonfly+: Low Cost Topology for Scaling Datacenters

Reliability Basics- Part1

Network Centrality and Robustness

Swimlanes, Read-Write Transactions and Session State

Fifty Shades of High Availability

HTH...

A Network Artist 🎨

Overlay Networks & Protocols Tradeoffs - Aka SDN aka IBN aka Magic aka Silver Bullet

 

A long time ago I wrote a short article on what really went wrong with SDN, now a few years later the topic still pops up in a conversation with the great Ivan & he acknowledged my list of Tradeoffs (things to watch out for carefully) related to overlay networks and protocols which seems to be de-facto standard for most modern Network solutions that we see around in Enterprises & Telcos.

• Impact of overlay networks on visibility, reporting and performance management
• Additional control plane that would result in additional abstraction layers and interaction surfaces and hence cascading effect in many situations
• Impact on troubleshooting: how many solutions do we see in the market that can correlate underlay and overlay problems?
• When it comes to sizing equipment in terms of control plane or data plane, it poses a new level of complexity an architect would need to deal with and in most cases vendors themselves won’t be able to offer much help in general rather than just asking you to believe in their words
• I see lot of VXLAN and EVPN preachers, but let’s agree that mapping VLAN to VXLAN on 1:1 basis tells me you don’t know your stuff and believe too much in vendor marketing
• EBGP underlay with IBGP overlay…man we can do better
• Stitching two EVPN DCs with MPLS and SR: most of the implementations that I have seen were too complex and too fragile and thus results in a complex “policy.”

Ivan's Original Post

Further Readings:

Disjoint Path Routing and LP

HTH...

A Network Artist 🎨

Uselessness of the Network Diagrams

 

Network Engineers reading Network Diagrams which are mostly:

• Dated
• Half baked
• Capturing only what the document writers feels about " should be good enough "
• Are useless in 90% cases
• Have no orientation towards the intended audience " Whom it is meant for, What situations those will be used in, What the workflow would look like, What is the most important set of information we need to capture"
• Have no " Quality Assurance " process in place
• Serves as information fillers to maintain the status quo and useless process

HTH...

A Network Artist 🎨

Marrying SASE (SDWAN) with 5G - The Marketing, The Myths & The Fallacies & How to Get it Right (An Architectural Perspective)

When almost 3 years ago I wrote about why having an inbuilt LTE interface inside a SD-WAN device doesn't really matter, the 5G thingy was still relatively new.

During a recent Enterprise Architecture Consulting engagement, I was asked by one of my client if they should really care about 5G and 5G interfaces on the variety of SD-WAN platforms that were pitched to them by different Systems Integrators (SIs) & MSP (Managed Service Providers)/Telcos.

So let's start with a simple question - "What problem we are trying to solve?"

In general you will see a few types of customers in SASE/SD-WAN market :

1. Which have Technical/Solutions architects those are completely sold on vendors marketing (50% of the crowd)

2. Those who wants to jump on the bandwagon due to fear of being left behind in the similar industry or by the competition (25% of the crowd)

3. Those who always are either too excited by technology or have a lot of money to throw onto the problem (the next 20%)

4. Those who can really map business capabilities to technology capabilities (the rare and the last 5%)

In general, you would often find a few ways the 5G gets included into the solution by solution providers such as :

Design 1 - You have a site (mid/large size) which either has got hybrid connectivity (MPLS + Internet) or 2 x Internet connects, while keeping 5G cellular as a last resort backup link in an event of a total failure.

Design 2 - A small site that usually runs on a single internet link and keeping 5G as back for last resort.

Design 3 - 5G as backup of last resort onto your DC WAN edge

Now in general it doesn't look like a bad idea to have a 5G interface but here are few of the important considerations:

- In general your DCs/COLOs and Campus networks would be setting on racks behind thick physical building structures (remember your Wi-Fi coverage problems even while your APs are sitting inside), so very often you would expect coverage issues. Now one of the argument here might be that I can install an external antenna of some sort on top of building or floor and run a fiber cable connection from there. Fair...but:

> Now you got to get approval for installations, cable runs, have administrative processes and safety processes in place and what not (What if the lightening hit the antenna?).

- To my understanding, most SASE/SD-WAN solutions don't offer any visual monitoring, reporting & troubleshooting tools for - Checking 5G signal strength, 5G interface troubleshooting, Dummy traffic probes etc.

- Interestingly enough now you need even a more complex traffic distribution, traffic prioritization, traffic failover, traffic desired SLA/performance metrics and other set of policies into the mix. And even if you end up doing that successfully, how you are going to document it for the operations ?, Is your EMS/NMS equipped with such capabilities ? 

- From the network architecture perspective, you just added an another layer of complexity. Assuming this 5G interface is an HW module, you got to now deal with: New stack of software and protocols within your fancy WAN edge device (3GPP standards), New interaction surfaces, New potential grey failures.

- You just end up adding the more state into the network (State, Surface & Optimization tradeoffs) 

- You need to now have life cycle mgmt. in place for your 5G interface (HW/SW Upgrades, Monitoring, Management, Refresh etc.) beside that fact that the 5G specifications often vary country to country (even from Telco to Telco) and now you need to keep track of Data Plans, Data Usage, Availability & Performance Mgmt., Cost Mgmt. and what not. (Remember your data plans are pretty limited in general?)...imagine to solve these problems at a global scale deployment dealing with different MSP.

> How to you move to 6G if it comes out in the next few years ?

Now after all these interesting questions, we may still ask:

1. What are the better alternatives today ?

2. Where 5G might still make sense ?

Answering the first question, IMHO I would still recommend you to opt for a broadband connection and avoid 5G unless you have a very particular problem or scenario because:

- With broadband you are still dealing with Ethernet connection between your CPE and broadband router/device which is a pretty familiar connectivity model and protocol stack to deal with.

- In general your broadband data plans are much bigger 

- You don't need to deal with another MSP for service management perspective as in general your ISP would have a common portal to give you a view of all MPLS, Enterprise Class Internet and Broadband based Internet connections. (Also mind that historically your SPs were building two parallel networks for ISP (Internet Service Provider) and MSP (Mobile Service Provider) business units, though those are converging now more and more)

- With everyone hit by pandemic that accelerated WFH culture, in both developing and developed countries you would expect to have broadband being available very easily and at the affordable prices. The only places you might still face availability issues are Tier-3 cities and so forth. But for most part that is not a technology problem but your SPs wanting you to stick with cellular connectivity to drive more profits (So its an intent problem rather)

- My own research suggests that in many developed countries getting a broadband will cost you far less compare to the enterprise class 4G/LTE/5G/Private 5G connection

Answering the second question, here are few use cases for your consideration:

- 5G as part of your SD-WAN transition plan (Legacy to SD-WAN)

- Your last mile hybrid or other wired connectivity model still runs on same fiber or shared media (true path diversity problem)

- One or both of you last miles are on Microwave (Should be pretty rare now)

- 5G as a OOB (Out of Band) management option

- Movable workplace and offices (Eg. Marketing/Sales & Promotion offices or moving semi-trailer trucks often used in variety of businesses)

- Specific operating conditions such as in Oil/Gas & Mining industries

- Edge compute/Cloud

- IoT Platforms

HTH...

A Network Artist 🎨

Further Readings:

SD-WAN Leads to $96,000 4G/LTE Bill

Improve Your Home Internet Performance Using CoDel

More Bandwidth Doesn’t Matter (much)

Are Networks Really Complex ?

Enterprise QOS Design & Deployment - Good, Bad Or Ugly ?

Focus on Your Business, Not Fancy Technologies

Are You Solving the Right Problem?

This Is What Makes Networking So Complex

Are Business Needs Just Excuses for Vendor Shenanigans?

The Three Paths of Enterprise IT

SDN Will Not Solve Real-Life Enterprise Problems

Why Intent Based Networking (IBN) will Not Save Your Network Anytime Soon ?

Complexity and the Thin Waist

It’s Most Complicated than You Think

Details and Complexity