Most of the focus in cloud computing technology over the last 10 years has been on deploying massive, centralized data centers with thousands to hundreds of thousands of servers. The data centers are typically replicated with a few instances on a continent-wide scale in semi-autonomous zones. This architecture has proven quite successful in economically scaling cloud service for Web applications. But it is as yet unclear if a centralized deployment architecture is the right one for NFV applications. There is another architecture for cloud deployment, however, in which cloud service is provided by a decentralized network of medium to small sized data centers distributed around a coverage area, located closer to metropolitan areas in order to reduce end to end latency for users. Both architectures may have advantages and disadvantages for NFV deployments from the technical and business perspectives. In this panel session, we will explore the advantages and drawbacks of both approaches and hopefully come to some conclusions about where one or the other might be appropriate.
Moderator
Puneet Sharma
Puneet Sharma is Distinguished Technologist at Hewlett Packard Labs, where he conducts research on software-defined networking, network function virtualization, cloud and datacenter networks, mobility, and network monitoring. Prior to joining HP Labs, Puneet received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California and a B.Tech. in Computer Science & Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He has delivered Keynotes at various forums such as NFV World Congress 2016 and IEEE LANMAN 2014. He was recipient of best paper award at IEEE NFVSDN 2015 for his work on VNF performance characterization. He has also contributed to various standardization efforts such as co-authoring UPnP’s QoS Working Group’s QoSv3 standard and the IETF RFCs on the multicast routing protocol PIM. Puneet has published 60+ research articles in various prestigious networking conferences and journals (Transactions on Networking, ACM SIGCOMM, ACM HotNets, USENIX NSDI, IEEE INFOCOM, etc.). His work on Mobile Collaborative Communities was featured in the New Scientist Magazine. He has been granted 30+ US patents. He is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Scientist.
Panelists
Tom Anschutz
Tom Anschutz is a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at AT&T. In his role as a network architect he is instrumental in the development of AT&T’s SDN and NFV architecture, called Domain 2.0. He is the editor and chief contributor to AT&T’s public white paper that describes the vision of what is becoming a large transformative initiative to improve public networking and cloud computing; and continues that work through collaborative R&D engagements with academia, industry forums and other carriers. Tom has been working on various network and data center architectures for most of his career, but has also gained experience in product management and standards development, where he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the Broadband Forum.
Geng Lin
Geng Lin is Head of Infrastructure Engineering and Operations for Emerging Markets at Google. In this role, together with his colleagues, Geng develops technology solutions to bring internet access to the billions of unconnected people around the world. Previously he was the CTO for Enterprise Networking and Infrastructure Services at Google, where he is responsible for the development and support for global scale, hybrid enterprise network and infrastructure services. Prior to Google, he was CTO of Networking Business (and Dell Fellow) at Dell where he led technology strategy, system architecture, product innovation, and partnership and acquisition of key technologies. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia.
Tetsuya Nakamura
Tetsuya Nakamura serves as Principal Architect, Strategy and Innovation Group at CableLabs. Tetsuya is leading CableLabs’ open source research efforts on NFV and SDN, the Board member of OPNFV, and OpenDaylight Advisory Group. Before joining CableLabs, Tetsuya worked at NTT for about 17 years. While at NTT DOCOMO, Tetsuya was in charge of NFV investigation for mobile networks, and actively involved in the ETSI NFV ISG as ISG Vice Chair, Vice Chair of Technical Steering Committee, and Chair of Software Architecture WG. Also, he was a founder of OPNFV and the initial Board member for NTT DOCOMO.
Kaladhar Voruganti
Kaladhar Voruganti is the Vice President for Technology Innovation at Equinix. Kaladhar graduated from the University of Alberta with a PhD in Computer Science and is a graduate of the UC Berkeley Engineering Leadership Professional Program. Previously to his position at Equinix, Kaladhar has worked at IBM Almaden Research and as a Senior Technical Director in the CTO Office at NetApp.