Spiceworks Presents: On the Air with AT&T Business
What's. Up spice heads welcome, back to another episode of on the air the right that's right the show that's all about getting IT pros and tech vendors together to geek out over technology as always. I'm your host Justin, dong we have another great show for you guys today I'm really excited for it well we're gonna be talking all about SD, Wham and the. Different deployment, models that you can use, to get that into your network and including, a new one from AT&T that's, not unlike an, app store for your phone so what, are we talking about just, have to stick around and find out for, more on this we've got a great panel of experts for y'all today including an IT pro from the Spiceworks community, as well, as an expert from AT&T so, without further ado let's go ahead and get started meeting, them our first guest that you guys just saw him on the pre-show. Back, by popular demand please, welcome back mr. Simon Locke Simon welcome back all right guys thank, you for having me back Simon. Thanks. For joining us for, those who haven't met you before do you mind telling us a little about yourself, and what you do I run. A company called RG nets I've been running a company for about 12 years now before. That I did VC back stuff in the Bay Area before, that I did, a PhD in computer science and before, that I was an IT guy it was Microsoft, Certified cisco certified also it's a fun stuff like that and nasa as well apparently, so yeah so that was a very, first gig very faithful few people know that about me, so yes dr. Simon we're, excited to have you guys probably, aware that the today's show we're starting a little bit earlier we're trying to new time zone our time slot just, to see if it works a little bit better for our West Coast audience, and so Simon got to the office. A little bit early he was unattended. In the set and he kind of got up to some antics maybe, we can bring the security camera footage on on, the screen. Yeah. Here he is sidekicking. Giving, Sweet Chin Music to our very own spice racks and this, is why we're not we might have to move the show back just because of the, destruction that Simon caused to this assignment, thanks. For joining us and thank, you for having me and thank you for letting me use your t-rex, as a kicking target I've, always wanted to do that too, kick it to your ass yeah absolutely I mean when you see a tear it's like what else can you think but man I, need to put a sidekick right into that guy's nose, just. What happened all right we are excited, to have you back Simon all. Right let's go to our next guest he's joining us from AT&T, everyone. Please welcome mr. Rupesh chachi. Thank. You thank you so you, know Rupesh shocks, you with AT&T. You know based out of Dallas over world headquarters, I run the product, management marketing organization. Global, for kind of focusing, on emerging, technologies so, software-defined, networking, virtualization. Estevan. You know AT&T flex wear and we're, kind of going deeper, into the edge with the customer, with our ed solution, so you know thrilled to be on the show today and looking. Forward to the conversations, thank, you for having me thank you for joining us as well of.
Course What would on-the-air be without you guys the viewers so for more on that we're gonna kick things over to our favorite chat desk coast and yours miss Chelsea Chelsea what, is going on hey, Justin, hello spices, long time no see, that's right is me Chelsea your chat desk coast further, huge you, have questions and we have answers so, be sure to get those questions into. Queue a day and if I ask your questions live on the air we'll be in the running for some super cool swag and prizes from AT&T, business. Now, do y'all want to know what you're gonna get hooked up with today yes, already so AT&T, business has sent over a couple of t-shirts and some, golf balls 18, tea business branded of course so. A lucky for you with either gonna get a t-shirt and some, golf balls along with the $25, Amazon, gift card we've got a few of these to give away so it'll, be either, the balls or the t-shirt along with some digital, dough so, stick around for that if you want to be in the running again get those questions into Q&A and then later, on we're gonna be also be giving away our grand, prize which is going out to two very, lucky, attendees, now this grand prize is a big Samsung bundle so I'm going to read it to you it is, the Samsung hmd honestly mixed reality headset, with two wireless, controllers so, you can get your mixed. Reality on, we're. Hooking up two very lucky guests. With, that bundle, so you'll want to stick around until the end of the show find out if you're one of our lucky winners I'm then coming up later in the show we're bringing back one of our favorite segments cuz it of course includes one of our favorite people that's right Spiceworks. Very own Lee Jung he'll be calling in with questions of his own own, in, the segment that we call Lee's. Got questions too this is gonna be his opportunity to fully take over the show and ask our panelists, any questions, that are burning on his mind and then later on we will be covering my, poll so it's.
Becoming Like a weekly poll about. Every week before the show goes live I post. A poll in the community asking you something topical this. One this week's question was, if, you could add a new feature technology. To your network which would it be so. We're gonna talk about some of the results of that poll and see what our panelists think but, that's all that I got for now I do want, to give a big shout out to everyone in chat I'm really looking forward to seeing a lot of you at spiceworld, for those of you that are like watch chat check out the widgets below you can come say hello if chats not for you feel, free to close it back out and for those of you that are gonna hang out on chat for the rest of the show just remember keep the pro and professional, and keep it spicy, but that's all I got for now so I'm gonna send it back over to Justin and our panelists, to get this conversation, going all. Right thank you guys again, make sure to get those questions into Q&A and don't. Forget to stick around till the end of the show we'll be announcing the winner of those prizes the winners of this prizes at the end repression. Are those those, golf balls are they software to find the golf balls the. Fine. It's all connected you know so, it, automatically, route your ball to the closest. You. Define, that you've defined over, be alieve. All. Right let's get started I did want to talk first about SD. Win it is you know I think in terms of this day and age the. Networking. Project. That folks are doing, research on most, likely, but also still kind of a heavy lift. Maybe. You've repressed you mind starting to talk a little bit about from. A teen tease perspective, SD LAN and. Where you're seeing kind of the customers, that you're talking to really drive. Their interest from right, right so, as you mentioned right so software-defined. Widened networking, it's a hot space, right there's a lot of buzz around it you, know we've been in that space for a number of years, supporting. And working with, our customers, so you know from a high-level definition. Perspective, you know we're entering an age where, software. Has the ability, to kind of you know control, and deliver on the, digital transformation that, the enterprise's are going through right so with, Estevan you can do things like application-aware. Networking. You have the ability, to you, know use multiple, links and do dynamic policy, routing, so a lot of feature functionality, that ultimately. Kind of boils down to business. Agility right the ability for the enterprise to be more competitive with. Networking, as the foundation, gets. Into sort of in a total cost of ownership improvements. That are delivered for the customers, and, where we are with the customer base you know depending upon the. Customer's journey in terms of how they're approaching their digital transformation, we have customers, that are you know deep into the deployment, where next, number of sites have already been turned up they're, adopting, the technology kind of unified secure, networking, around the globe and, you have customers, that are still, evaluating.
It Right in terms of trying to understand, what is it all about what, do i do how does it fit where do I go so, a lot of you know work. That we do with our, technologists. And the engineering talent that we have is to guide the customers, through the architectures, the blueprints. And where, they need to go next. I mean, what about from your perspective I mean it sounds like from repression. Saying it's it's really about adding, a layer of intelligence, to just your network traffic over a wide area, is, it really just a matter of getting data, from point A to point B in, whatever. You. Know way makes the most sense not just the fastest, so. I think I've said this on previous, segments, where we talked about this right my definition. Of what. SD when today, means, is. Simply, when you make a routing, decision, that's, not the, standard routing, decision you have because of the round table you have right so you know the packet says it wants to go here and you're, going to send it there through. Some place other than what the routing table has defined. By default right that might be because, you've detected, that the source of that packet, is a, device, that belongs, to a policy. Or something like that which says that that device needs. Priority, or needs to, be D priority, because it is has, the tech been detected to exhibit, some kind of aberrant behavior right or maybe, that device has been, selected. As being one which requires an enhanced, level of security so when we're gonna send it that destination we're gonna encrypt it first something like that but we're making a routing decision, for something other than routing, that's kind of my simplistic. Definition of, it and in. Terms of from the IT perspective, what, this actually means. More. Than half the time if not more than, three-quarters, of time the people that are buying these things that people are really doing it for one and only one reason which, is multiple, upwind control specifically.
For Carrier diversity, which is to say I'm going to get a drop from, one guy I'm gonna get a drop from another guy it might be an ATM tea and a Verizon it might be depending on which area you are a CenturyLink. And a Cox right or nowadays what we're seeing a lot more of is because of the high, bandwidth, available, and the reasonable, cost of things like 4G, LTE and now 5g, coming out is I've, got my primary, you, know fiber optic blink and then I've got some kind of backup. Link, going to a 4G or 5g you, know modem, you, know in case that goes away right now what so I would say represents half, if not three-quarters. Of what. They want the. Rest of it some, of it is about encryption, and then, everything else is stuff that everyone likes to talk about but we, don't. Yeah. Yeah. But you know like really what with the problem, that most people are looking to solve is multiple. Uplink control with carrier diversity, without, the need to run something like BGP, and screw around with a s paths to kind of make that happen so I mean it's a redundancy then is that we're talking about so an aggregation, right so in, some cases aggregation, but actually redundancy, would be number one but that aggregation with, the redundancy, might be a number two in the case of having the 4G LTE or, 5g kind of backup you obviously don't want aggregation. With that right that's pure, backup. And before that what, was kind of popular, was the HughesNet thing, I don't know if you have. Ever messed with that but like the satellite stuff, you know so like when you can only get one one, drop in some places then you just go get it Hughes and that satellite make that you're your, backup, so. Repression I mean would you say in your experience that this this technology, yes you win I mean, for folks that are heavy leveraging, cloud I mean is this another. Layer of importance. Especially if you're relying on it for business critical workloads how, do you feel like Sdn, plays into that that's. A great question because you know what's happened in the cloud space over the last sort of you know five to seven years is that the adoption has gone up significantly. Right there's data, out there that talks about you know 90%, plus enterprises. Are adopting, public, clouds private, clouds you know you name it right and. This. Whole concept, of, you know the edges, connecting, to the cloud has, become very mission critical and, very important. Right and. Estevan. Does, play a very important, role in that in terms of the ability, for the, edge or the enterprise, location, whether it's a branch or a storefront or, a sales office having. The ability to kind of private, secure, connectivity into. The cloud, and. Delivering. On some of the concepts, that Simon mentioned in terms of whether you have a high availability or. Redundant. Paths kind of going to the cloud because your application mission. Criticality needs, to be maintained, right, so kind of the, cloud if ocation that has taken in. This kind, of like networking, space it's kind of further fueled, with, the adoption, in the deployment, of the Estevan technology, any assignment would you say that, you, know the technology as a whole is it the same concept, if you're utilizing it, to connect to the cloud versus, other, sites absolutely, yeah you know what what is the cloud the cloud is somebody else's computer right oh but it costs more because it's because. I don't know it makes rain or something right but, you know it's somebody else's, computer this is not any different in the past we connect it to somebody else's computer we used to call that you know renting a data center right you, know it's the same thing it's just now, I think we have this label. SD, WAM as a term. That describes, when. I want. Multiple. Up with control with carrier diversity, and then in some cases maybe I want to make a site-to-site VPN, between. My site, or sites, and that. Dood' site which, happens, to be called or the cloud but it's just some, other site right it's that hence site-to-site, VPN right so this combination, of you, know site to site VPN with, multiple point control we. Have a new word for it and it's fun and we can charge people more money for it welcome. To the world of tech market. The. Industry term is you know cloud VPNs right yeah well, and that was gonna ask about that cuz there's a lot of providers like 18t but other other providers as well that have offered things like express routes to, things like Azure and AWS, I mean is this similar, to sd1 are they mutually, exclusive. Do you pick one or the other or they kind of work together what's, the route I think they work together right you know AT&T, offers a capability, called AT&T net bond in, that case what we have done is we put facilities.
Into Each of the you, know Microsoft, Google Amazon Cloud. Locations, and you, have the ability to build these you know Sdn. Enabled. Virtual, network functions right so you can say I want to go east I want to go west I want to go to this location etc and, it's part of your corporate VPN network, so it's kind of like seamless, right and what, we're seeing with Sdn, is you. Have the same kind of architectural, need and, that is driving it right and customers, are looking for both utilizing. The private networks that they have to connect to the cloud and leveraging. The public internet to, connect to the cloud, and but, again in both cases it's all about you know highly secure, kind, of underlay overlay, networking. To, support, it. So. Let's not talk next about how you actually get SD win into, your network I mean Simon you've been we've. Talked about this in the past you've been working in SD, win in some capacity for, almost 20 years before it, was even called Sdn what, was it like when you were getting started how do you actually implement some, of these policies, and and intelligence. It was like. Hacking into your routers or well that that, would be the expensive, way to have done it right 20 years ago right because 20 years ago you know the cheap Cisco router that would run BGP, was like, $27,000, as I recall, right. And you need to so. You know back, then it was a lot easier to, buy two pcs, before. $1000, each run, FreeBSD. On those two pcs for what you know for $0, and then, because it runs FreeBSD now you've got stripping languages, and stuff like that and if you really wanted to to, kind of go crazy you maybe you'd install Perl on it right you know which wasn't, the default package back then I think it's still not you know but, you know it go write an aux script go write a tickle script go write a Perl script right and then, instead. Of having the packets simply, flow because, of what's in the routing table of that PC running FreeBSD, you change. Which, uplink it's going to go because of some decision that you make maybe its source IP address maybe its destination, maybe you can go and establish a VPN, tunnel in which case another interface comes up you know say ton zero and then you go and do a packet forward to ton zero which then sends us I mean things like that right or is it very easy to do that and, very, affordable, and you. Know that approach you, know has been. Great for me you know I've been like I said 20 years or so I've been doing exactly that and it's a, it's. Not, really any different today now instead. Of buying, a $1,000, PC you know they're very large installations, that I do you, go and you buy $100,000. Worth of multiple. Pcs and you run VMware, on it and then, you go when you do this with VM guests right but fundamentally, it's still the same thing, right you're creating. Scripts, creating. Automation. To.
Change The flow of packets and, that's. Other than the default, so. I mean how, is it deployed today I mean is it typically an appliance with the you know so it isn't a plan so most people, I would say. In. Excess of three-quarters, of the people are, going to acquire, this, by, putting in a device, that, sits between their, land and their way and which is typically their router but you're going to get a router that's, sd1. And able right. So and that's going to give you this kind of technology, right so you're gonna put, some device there the alternative, of course which. Is the one that I think both of us promote is, instead. Of putting an. Appliance, there, or some kind of specialized. Device which only does that is to basically stick, a VMware, server there and then, on that VMware, server run, guest VMs, that can do this stuff because then you can choose you. Can choose oh, I want, to use this particular flavor, of SD when for some reason today. And then tomorrow I can switch it to another one as opposed to needing to forklift, out that, router when you need a different thing and, then so so. You plug the appliance in and. Then actually, getting it to do all these cool things that we've been talking about what's the incur for that hi hi, so, the, problem. That that, I found, with this is that you're. Trying to give people a, tool that's. Extremely, complex and they're often not ready for it I think an easier, way to understand. This is let's. Say you, were to try to deploy, a V, land-based. Land. And. You're, talking with people that don't exactly, know what VLAN is or how they've heard the term VLAN, but they've never actually programmed. A switch port to, be accessed, hybrid, or trunk, and they've, never you. Know they don't understand what it means to have something native versus, tagged yeah right so they know they want VLANs, because they know they want segmentation. Or you, know when some of my stuff they want micro segmentation or, an extreme that works that hyper segmentation. Right something like that and, but. They don't actually, they've never actually programmed a switch port right well that's what's going on with this Sdn, stuff right so I want. Multiple. Upland control with Carrio diversity that sounds like a great thing but. Like you. Know then you end up with details, well you know this link. Right is a DHCP. Driven. Link and this one is a static IP address link or worse, you. Want aggregation. And so, you've got two links coming in and they're, both statically, addressed, but, because, you're aggregating, them in some, way that let's say it's the same provider they have the same default gateway, on the other side right, and so that that's like the equivalent of, I want, VLAN, segmentation. But I have never programmed, the switchboard well I want, multiple. Often control but I've never really screwed around with what happens with the default gateway on the other side and this and that and so there's a lot of complex in there that's why, the. Solution that. You know he's talking about is great for the service provider because it makes it so much easier for a service, provider to get their job done it, doesn't, necessarily.
Make It easier for the guy that's on the southbound side of network to do anything because that requires a level of understanding of this data may or may not have but, it does get allow. The service, provider to provide a higher level of service because it is managed in most cases right it makes it easier faster more agile, those alerts that he was using and things like. Let's. Talk about that repair so flex. Wear that's that's a 1880s. Deployment. Model and this isn't something that's you know specifically, dedicated to, st when it was a little bit more versatile, gives. You a lot more options for some other things can you talk to us a little bit louder sure, so you know AT&T flex we're right in, in 2016. We kind of brought this, to. Market, in the, whole idea at that time was to kind. Of you know virtualized, network. Functions right and what do we mean by that is. Traditional. Appliance. Based approach, whether you have routing, security. Ran optimization. You go to any kind of a branch you go to any kind of a storefront and you, see racks and stacks of equipment, different vendors different products, different maintenance, contracts, all of that put, together created. A lot of complexity. Right and, and, Simon, touched upon the sort of you know the land complexity. Is even further more right because you have a lot of different applications whether. You're running you know Wi-Fi, or other things in that environment to, where we came in with is this concept of a universal CPE which is an x86 kind, of platform, you, know Linux KVM it's virtual. Machines and, now we have a choice of the application. Write to software, the virtualized, network function whether it is routing whether it is firewall whether it is van optimization. Whether it is Sdn, and the. Best of the breed vendor choices whether it is juniper at Cisco, riverbed, Palo Alto Fortinet, you know voilá cloud the list goes on and what. We differentiate. Ourselves is, that we have the ability, to not only bring this kind of platform that is orchestrated. Instantiated. Software, control but, we are able to do it in you know 200 countries around the globe we provided as a managed service and the, service chaining, so we have you know hundreds of labs, engineers, that, are working, on all, of these different templates, and how do you service chain different configurations. So. It has been you know great great, adoption. With the customers, whether you are a small, medium business or you are a very large you know fortune ten or a fortune 500 enterprise, and. So. Earlier. I kind of described it a little bit as like the App Store for the iPhone or the Android store, or. Has to take out many like we've we talked about at the, in the title how accurate is that analogy, it, is it is very true and it's, a great example to, kind of get the concept, through right which is you know you have a smartphone and what that device does is that it has the ability to have multiple applications and, a lot of choice right, so, it's the same concept that you have a app, store, which is best of the breed ecosystem, that gives you choice, and you, have a common, platform. That, is future-proof, and you. Know we can do upgrades of the software, similar to what the smartphone providers, are able to do we, can sort of you know put. In new applications, you can take out applications. A lot of flexibility, and control is available, to the customers, and it's a great example to, sort of you know also. Talk. About you know how the, smartphones have taken over you, know you don't need a calculator or, you don't need the maps kind.
Of Devices, or you don't need you know the flashlights right it's. The same approach over here is that a lot of these software, virtualized, applications, come. Together right and the next generation, or the next phase is all about edge computing. Because the same platform then, can be expanded to do you. Know beyond network functions, right so you can run applications, that are localized, for processing, and. So Simon mentioned you know with respect to SD lan that multiple carrier uplink, support is a, large, driver for majority, of folks looking at as the LAN you, guys are a provider does. A solution, play well with other carriers absolutely, absolutely that's a great point right so most of the customers you know historically, you would have you, know MPLS, networks, with you know wireless, backup right as an example or you would say that I'll bring in some, kind of Internet connectivity but, it was more in that backup, type of a architecture. With. Software-defined, wide area networking Estevan, what we see customers do is you. Know hybrid, networking, so you have multiple link choices, right you can have a choice of MPLS. Link you have a choice of an internet link whether it is broadband, or dedicated Internet, you have a either, choice of a wireless link LTE and with 5g, or more capacity, more, throughput better. Latency, kind of a thing and. It's, also from, a strategy, perspective what, we have done is that it's not our solutions, for Estevan or flex where are not tied to only, transporter. Connectivity, so we are you know open and we welcome bringing other service providers, to build that, sort of you know homogenous, secure network, and. As, far as the, the applications. The apps that we've been talking about you brought up some security options for, net riverbed, Palo. Alto where, else do you see the, the. Flux where. Application. Universe expanding, all right so we will continue to sort of you know on board what we call vns right works will network functions and will continue to expand, the portfolio, the, couple, of themes that we're seeing is that especially in the security space right so there's this concept, of you, know virtualized, security, at the Prem and the concept, of a cloud, based security right to Z scalar Palo Alto Connect blue code kind of come into that picture. Over there and a lot, of the edge traffic, is going through, those, you know cloud, gateways or cloud security platforms. As you, offload, traffic, to the Internet or you go to certain cloud so if I'm a user. Consuming. Box as my, collaboration, tool and I need to have a secure path than we see from the edge Estevan. Providing, their routing intelligence. To, go through a Z scalar into box and back right so that's it, that's quite you know popular from a design perspective. Very, cool now speaking. Of applications. And features that folks would want to add to their network I believe Chelsea, you posted a poll in the community, asking, that exact question you want to talk about what folks we're saying absolutely. So, as Justin said earlier this week I posted a poll in the community, asking, if you could add a new feature technology, to your network which, would it be and y'all didn't disappoint, we have over three hundred and fifty-six. Votes and Counting. Reading. Through some of the the fun add-ons, that you some. Spice heads added to the list to vote on network. Mapping and monitoring, came, out on top with 13%, of the vote intrusion.
Protection Was, a close second, along, with free beers for admins I had 8% of the vote. Free. Beer free, beer I like that I, as. Soon as you know the printers can give you the Mexico vacation, with. What. Else we go then. We have better users, 5%, of the vote I feel like any poll we have better. Users always something, that is on an IT pros mind, instant. How-to documentation got. 4% of the vote I thought that was interesting one, and. Then with three percent of the vote we have a four. Or five way tie we, have redundant, internet solution, running 10, plus gigabytes, per second, web, filtering, syslog, and ipv6. Support. So. Those are some of our, top results, some of the real results, because we have I think a shot-caller. So. Well maybe, I don't know if 18 AT&T. Can help with that I want to talk a little bit about the results amongst yourselves. Yeah. How do these results compare to what you guys are looking to do with, 18 d flex wear so, I think you know the couple. Of things that I picked up around sort of you know the. The security aspects, right are, very relevant I, think the transformation going, on with you know ipv6. Right so we support ipv6. We, support dual stack so giving the customers, the ability to sort, of you know adopt in that space change their schemas, etc, the, other thing that is also of interest is, you. Know how do you kind of go high-speed, right so high speed internet links you know 10 gig was mentioned, so. That is going, to require a, little bit more kind, of processing, power and what we're doing is we're expanding the Flex web platform, to. Enable, that sort of you know 10 gig speeds and part of it is driven by just. The sheer volume of. You know unified communications, or multimedia rich type of application, so a lot of video traffic, that. We see so. Those winds are good ones somewhat, over your thigh I mean do you feel like any of those I mean are those available. Now I don't think any of that matters yeah no, I think that what you talked about first matters what was the major thing that you asked me is this actually gonna work that's, my answer yeah it's not gonna work you know why because we can't make it usable so, everything, that was on that list is fine but, that doesn't solve the fundamental problem, the fundamental problem we have today is that networking. Technology, is completely, unusable because, all of it is designed by, other propellerheads, for other you, know propeller heads for propeller is used right there is like, person, who's sitting, around architecting.
A User experience, thinking about well, you know what should, the. Process. By which I, configure, these things do you know what should it look like why, should it make sex no one's doing that and so because no one is doing that that's. Why you know you ask me hey is this gonna be any good and I'm like no it landed me a damn thing because, you. Know we're not making that, decision. That conscious. Decision to do that we're, running around you, know when you take a look at the answers all those polls not none of that's gonna move the needle significantly, it's, like you know a little bit a little bit a little bit but if you want a huge difference. We. Need to change the way that we configure these things we need to change the experience, that we have when. We, everytime. We log in when, have you ever logged, in to a piece of networking, equipment and liked, it or wanted, to when, have you ever woken up and said you know what today I'm gonna log into my router oh. My. God it's not working. That's. The case right then you know that that's a pain point right I mean it's painful, to have to do that therefore something, is wrong the only time I've ever interact with is when it sucks, something's. Wrong with that world right and that kind of global, scale thinking is not taking place right now and until. We see a shift in that we were going to have a list like what you saw there which is you know it's okay but it's not going to make a big difference. Well. Some. Great responses yeah, let's. Go to some more questions. Yeah. I do I do I do um well lots of passion their assignment loving it loving. It already, so. As promised, Lee, Jung Spiceworks. Very own is in the virtual, house he, has dialed in because he's taking over for a segment we call Lee's, got questions, too so, without further ado let's. Um let's phone. In late Lisa this is the perfect like background music, for Lee by the way I'm just digging this we. By. Lee. Howdy, everybody what's going on Lee oh. Not. Much just got some questions here for everybody. What. You got. So. We're, talking about this solution here and one. Of the first questions I want to ask because I know our NTP pros are always wondering it is, is, this solution targeted, more at the enterprise, level the, XMP, or the MSP, market, level who, should really be most interested, in this so. You know from an AT&T perspective. Right so we are supporting. The full kind of spectrum, of the customer base you know we have you know three million plus customers, so I see, you know SMB, customer is deploying flex where I see them deploying Estevan. I see you know enterprise, customers, you know fortune 500, customers so, the, good, thing is that the technology, can. Be adopted and deployed for. You know different use cases right, whether it's a small, business or, a, very large enterprise, this. Concept. Around kind of having the distributed, networks, and connecting, the sites or connecting the edges to the cloud is, relevant, and I think the advantage that the technology, provides is that it gives some. Of the medium and small customers, kind of like the same you, know technology, that the big guys have right and have, the ability to compete. In. That space from a differentiation. Or a user experience perspective or, the agility that. We talked about so you. Know again we work with the, broad customer base. And. In. Looking at the Flex where I did, see that in, the past ATT. That I had, offered a separate, solution called network, functions, on demand is this just, a rebranding, of that solution, have there been enhancements. If this is, rebranding. What what's kind of the difference between the Jew that's, a great question right if we again go back to you know 2015-16. Timeframe, we, started. With this sort of you know network, on-demand platform and. Then the virtualized, functions, were network functions on demand so it was sort of like an early internal. Name in terms of how we worked. On the project the capabilities, etc, and then, when we brought to the market we went with a sort. Of you know service mark and and branded. It AT&T flex, web and the but story, behind it was all around taking. The word kind of flexible, as a value proposition, in having. The software, control or software centric approach was. Put together and, flex wear was born so you know think of it as a kind, of rebranding off the internal project. Name to, what is now available, for market, and the customers. And. One. Of the things of course this is the software, Software. Defined Networking. Solution, and. We see you've got multiple modules.
From Different providers out there how does AT&T, decide. What vendor, or what other you know software vendors to include in there what's, kind of your process for doing this, would be a good addition it's. A great question right and you know we kind of go through this whole you. Know virtual network function onboarding, process, we kind of take a very strategic, approach, in terms of you know what. Is the market opportunity, where is the growth right what are the right kind of partners both from a technology perspective but, also long-term financial. Strength and viability right there's a lot of new entrants coming in but, we want to provide services, to our customers that scale that global scale right I talked, about the 200 countries where flexpay is available before so. We look at the commercial aspect we look at the technology, aspect, and then we're also constantly, thinking about what. Are the connections right so if you are trying. To do you know virtualized, routing, is virtualized, security, and adjacency, play which we see day-in day-out right so you kind of start to think about expanding. On that adjacency. As networks, you know become more, complex. And the land complexity, comes in visibility. As an example is very important, to customers right so we constantly, are evaluating. What, is the adjacency, and how do we sort of you know expand, so a lot, more sort of you know coming on to the platform you, know we've been very successful with with. The partners that we have announced publicly so, Juniper Cisco, Palo Alto Fortinet, Belo cloud riverbed, checkpoint. All available, on the platform today. Cool. And. Kids. Since we're, talking about software-defined. Wham. So much here especially in regards to the ATT, flex resolution why. Would, a. User. Choose. The ATT flex wear solution, over, the street ATT, SD, win solution, they seem to be separate solutions when. You look online, why. One over the other is there is, there some secret sauce to the Flex where that, you're straight st win doesn't really offer that's. A great question and I think you know I'll help you clarify a little bit too right when you go to att.com. You. Can go to the Flex web page it talks about you know what, we offer there you go to AT&T comm, on the STI on page it talks about Estevan, and then there, is a you know commonality. Between the two so from a platform perspective, that. Is available at the edge is the, AT&T intellectual. Platform. Estevan is writing as the application, and we offer you, know two very prominent and, differentiated. Services, in our Estevan portfolio, and, we define them as AT&T Sdn network-based which is sort of you know more tied, into having.
The Gateways and the orchestrations. And the capabilities, into, the network in the AT&T cloud zones and, we also offer AT&T, SD ban over the top which, is building sort of you know overlay networks, and will provide both of them as managed services, or co-manage. With the customer, but the underlying platform, from. The device at the edge is flex. Wear in both cases so that's. What's kind of like you know happen we started with flex well with the virtualization. Estevan. Came in as a killer app and now the Estevan, solutions, are leveraging, the underlying platform which, is flex wear but, there is a lot that Estevan offers with you know the gateways, the virtualization, and, the cloud aspects, of it the orchestration. The portals, etc, and that's kind, of the full service, great. Question thank you for that clarification, question. I've. Got, one more question as you've noticed I can only compare, sincere, just as. Mighty Pro would we like to look at different. Things at the same time. Looking. At the hardware for flex, where I see, that if I said aunt AT&T. Is designed. And you know you buy it rather than buy software, on, that. You add to a solution then there was your marketplace so is, there a reason that eighteen team decided to go the branded. Hardware wrote rather, than licensing, a software, solution on, top. To. Where IT, pros would spec out their own hardware so. You know when, we started, the service right again it was a very disruptive concept. And the customers, at the, end of the day are still looking for, service. Level agreements, and the ability, to deploy the capability, at scale right so yes, we did you don't have AT&T Labs work, on the design. The specifications. Of that hardware, platform, and you, know we don't make the hardware platform, our partners, and vendors do, but, the orchestration. That, we do and the instantiation that we do is the AT&T, ecomp. Capabilities. That we have that allows us to then deliver to. That experience. Right with the customers, in terms of service level agreements, you, know global scale. Etc. So the, core idea is that you know we started, with the platform, the other thing to be very, mindful about is that the AT&T flex were at the edge provides. A, very kind, of robust kind of security, profile. Right so the ability to have. Secure networking, comes with you know nobody having. The way, to get into the base OS or try to do certain things that might be malicious from, inside or outside right, so that plays a big role in, that, I think you, know as this evolves we will continue, to expand, the platforms. That we have whether it is the CPU the processing, the memory the, throughput etc. But. We look, at it as the extension of the overall service. Right. So those are all my questions thank, you for the the answers today you guys gave. Some great info crazy, thank, you thanks. See you soon thanks Lee. All. Right so great questions from Lee what, does the audience have for us today already.
I Promised, you QA was coming people so, reminder, for those of you that have submitted questions via QA if I, ask your questions live on there you will be in the running for a super cool swag packed from eight TNT, business. Now let's get down to business the first question on deck of course is coming from percussive, maintenance hello, p.m. what's up p.m.. Wants to know how, would s, DN um how would be when technology. Work for an NPLs, set up it's. A great question right you want me to take that yeah so here some Simon after that but so. You know MPLS, networks that have been around for a number of years right so the whole evolution. In private networking you know with frame ATM to IP to, MPLS, to now kind of Estevan and what, Estevan does is that it has the ability to in, in my earlier hybrid example. Leverage. Both sort of you know MPLS, links or connections, and, internet. Links and what we have done with AT&T, Estevan, network based solution, is leverage, the MPLS, network that we have AT&T, VPN and, build. The hybrid network for our customers, so the, relevance, of the MPLS, network continues, to be there it offers features like multicast. Class of service and will provide an underlay. Infrastructure. And it'll be a lot more from, a SLA, perspective, because it's a private network versus, kind of public internet networks that, are put, together so that's where we see we see a big role for, the MPLS Network Estevan is the sort, of overlay with intelligence. That can do a lot more sophisticated feature. Functionality, with application-aware, networking, as an example so. I mean anything you'd add the, relationship, between SEO and MPLS it's. Just one of many up links pretty simple, he. Had a lot of words. Much. Less words simple, links. MPLS. Is a link yes Internet is a link. MPLS. Is a. Little. Pre-show inside, joke for, those of you been. Already. I next question this, one's coming in from Trent the gent what's up Trent Trent. Wants to know what is the relationship between the the, SD when and carrier, when services. Alright. So you know carrier. Why did our network services, right again going, back to you. Know we offer AT&T. VPN that would fall into a wider, network highly, secure private, networking capability. Available. Again you know hundreds of countries and, that. Portfolio, is. Is available continues. I think Estevan think of it as sort of you know the next generation, of the technology, that is still providing, the. Business need for the customers, to connect, the endpoints or connect to the cloud right and. They both kind of work together so, we're just expanding, our. Networking. Options and, the services that we provide with, Estevan, added, to it so you know why did our networking will continue, to be relevant very. Relevant oh. Man. Yes wicks. Carrier. When MPLS. Keep. On going tells you okay. Let's. Go into, a little bit more about flex, where this one is coming from J Bell's J what J wants to know is flex we're dependent, on the win or will, it work during a win outage. Again. You know the. Great news with flex where does AT&T, flex word works with again, multiple links right so whether you have an MPLS link an internet link wireless, link or wireline link, etc. So you, know we see a lot of high availability designs. Where the customers, are future. Proofing for that kind of physical link failure to finding sort of you know alternative, hats so yes the short answer is it'll. Work with. The high availability design. Deploy. It at the location. Okay. This, one is in from Frank it's an interesting one and it's. Something that I've kind of heard before is I learned a little bit more about flex wear and just some other different different software's, out there different. Pieces of hardware different platforms, things like that but, it's a common one Frank, wants to know do you see this technology and related technologies.
As Making the network admin more obsolete. Simon. Let's get your thoughts on it in a perfect world yeah I. Think. I told you over the various, iterations that, I've been on the various kinds of shows you have right I mean where did I get started in this I got started in this because I was, that dude that I had to type commands. Into the stupid router and I hated that life right, so, obviously I. Wanted, to make my, life easier and so I've spent the last 20 years of my life making my, life, here I suppose eventually in. A perfect world then you know you wouldn't even need a person, but that's obviously never going to be true someone has to like design this thing right but wouldn't it be magical, which goes back to the thing I was saying before right we had that big list of questions and you know we're like oh well what do we want to add what I want to add is. Given. A design in my mind that. That just becomes so right, so that would be perfect, because you know I think we all got better things to do with our lives and the type the same command, into the router like 47, times right it's just we. Have better things to do with our lives you know. I. I agree in terms of like you know what we see is this kind of trend around, intelligent. Automation right, so virtualization. Software centricity, is gonna continue to automate. All, of these sort of you know mundane tasks right if you want to push a certain, profile. Or policy, at 200, locations or 2,000. Locations right software, should be able to do that software. Should be able to have the intelligence to react to catastrophic events, right in the network so all of that will continue to happen when, I see, kind, of like you know the opportunity, for the network administrators, or you know folks in that space is more in the design. And architecture but, also kind. Of understanding. The business right, and what is the business process, needing, where, network, can help really, make a differentiation, so. There's a lot of opportunity, over there because you know communications, are powering, a lot of business processes, right and how, do you make that differentiation. Take. Place and we see that you know customer, base starting, to to, look at you know what can I do differently. So. The answer is potentially. But there's a lot of mundane things that we need to make obsolete first, that's. Our primary goal right at least that's been my primary goal, was making that, obsolete. I, think a lot of people including myself, have, done a pretty good job at that I, think the next leap is the thing I was talking about before which is to move from getting. Rid of them mundane stuff to getting rid of the next layer where you know you could translate this is what I want in my mind and then it just have it happen you know obviously that's science fiction you know but one, can always dream and if we don't dream about these things you know yet we'll never will never take steps towards it that's. The punchline right from a network administrator to. A dream, yes. Like. That all right tell Z let's keep going, all righty I've got another good one in from J bells I've got a few undec from him actually he. Won't so can I use AT&T flex with my current hardware.
Routers. And so. I think you know the switch is fine, you know because it's kind of more a adjacent. Platform, on the land side you know from a routing. Perspective, again you have to make a design choice because, the flexure platform, offers, virtualized, routing. Capabilities, right so you, will have to make some choices, in terms of you know how, much of the existing, Hardware existing, infrastructure, that you have that, you want to virtualize an on board onto the platform right so we have customers, who virtualize the routing but, the firewalls, they want to sweat it for two years three years you know depending upon the, contractual, obligations. All. Right what, else we got all righty I've got one from brian in CA. Brian. Wants to know how was the port for flex were hand handled, I had a physical layer of fiber outage, last summer and it took 36, hours to resolve. So. Going back to you know we talked a little bit about the high availability designs, right redundancy, resiliency, etc, so you know those will play an important role I think with the advent of you, know more and more kind of 4G going to 5g, you have the ability, with the throughput and the speeds that you need with sort of you know much more. You know better latency, on the network so flex wear will continue to identify what. Links are up and running and shift, the traffic, to meet the business criticality, that. Is needed I guess. To build off that are. You limited, to AT&T fiber. As the provider or can, you work with other fiber providers, we can work with other fiber providers, we can work with other service providers you know was again a big strategic, decision, that we made as we went deeper into the edge with AT&T flex where rst ran solution, is to bring in what we call as third-party networks, right and. From, a global perspective it's, even more relevant because there are a lot of countries where we don't provide services.
All. Right. This. One's from George Sol what's up George George, wants to know I am sure you can't tell us on when, 5g, will be rolled out, but how much emphasis, is flex for pudding on 5g Phil over functions. Exclusive. So. You know, obviously. There's a lot of public information in terms of you know the 5g rollouts etc, in, last week you know we had the AT&T, business summit right in Dallas that some. Of the customers attended, a lot of conversation, on on 5g. And and, what's gonna happen and I think it's all about you, know going from a, b2b. To see kind of an enterprise, use case right is where we see the opportunity, and high, availability designs. Redundancy, designs are going to continue, to be more and more and there are customers, we're talking about if I have a location, so if I'm in the oil and, mining type of an industry, you know I have, locations where I don't have wireline. Connectivities, can I just go wireless and, you know 5g, will enable that right so those are some, of the use cases that we see with customers. Okay. I have a couple more tasks this, next one is from. GIS. Six zero zero eight five can, we use the Flex where as a backup, for existing, dedicated, hardware. Yes. Why, not you know again it's like all about the architectures. And designs that you have right. You. Can use it as a backup you can use it as a primary you can create a whole sort. Of you know backup, plan in terms of you know keeping your existing, environments, and then you know bringing in fluctuate, and then phasing out the, virtualization capabilities, as, you need and we call that a kind, of Trojan horse type of an approach yes. Already. This. Is a question that we get on multiple, topics it's about talking to the, decision-makers, so Angie wants to know if you had to describe your offering, to a non-technical, boss how, would you pitch your product. We. Do that every day right. And. You know we'll, go to the example that Justin, mentioned before right in terms of, what's. Happening in the industry is. Virtualization. And you know the example of the smartphone, and the app door right something. Which is easy to explain what. Also works I think you know with the decision-makers were non-technical, is to have you. Know examples. On what is the business value, right so what does agility. Yield, the, business right so if you go to somebody and say I can. Turn up that location, that new clinic, or that new hospital or that new imaging. Center in six. Months versus sort of you know two weeks right the. Business person will understand, because that gives them the concept, of yes I can generate more revenue, at that location right if you go and talk and and say look you know what these networking, capabilities, are going to do is deliver, on the digitization, that, we're looking for so a lot of the banking, financial services, retailers, are, thinking, about you know digital signage, right so you walk into any kind of restaurant you see digital signage, you walk into any kind of a bank branch you, see digital signage, so digital signage, puts a lot of burden onto the network because, you have to have you, know agility, in terms of the the high bandwidth the throughput but also deciding. If there, are certain weather conditions do you promote certain products, right which is very localized, so the market ears are thinking, about all of these things and the underlying network, acts as an enabler so kind of talk about that. With the business decision, makers. Sdn, how have you had conversations. With non-technical. Decision. Maker is a kind of explaining the. Technology, and business man of few words apparently. Decided. Today so, it's like it's about how many you want to links yeah there, you go here's the way. One. Wing don't need it two links needed, simple. One. More we could do more, provided. Simon keeps to his word that he is a man of few words yes. Not. Always true this question is for you Simon it's, from little IT guy, Simon. What, is your vision of a perfect, network. That.
Depends, On what, you're doing with that network right so I mean I can't answer that in a few words unfortunately, unless you want me to just give you that one answer, perfect network because what you doing with it right you're doing business yeah, but I mean like which part of my business the part where I sell the rural telcos the part where Samsung is no we mine the part of where I do hotels like which one you know you got to decide right you, know if you want to pick like MD use and like the Samsung, thing that I do right well in that world, right the perfect network is the one where we've built a facility wide, network that, provides micro, segments for every person, that's living in that right, which means the different v-line and then in that micro segment we're putting their Samsung TVs we're putting their Samsung Refrigerator, we're putting their Samsung smartthings in that and that no one has to touch any of that you know so that's the perfect network, we've come up with the perfect way to do that, network but that network has absolutely, nothing to do with the, network that I would want if i sat in a stadium because. I think we talked about this some one of the web ones right some dude was talking about oh let's go run a stadium and you know put ACLs I'm like no that's a load of crap right if, you're sitting in a stadium what you want is it as if you had your own residential, gateway under your butt under your seat right. But that's obviously too expensive right so what we're gonna do instead is we're gonna in software build a residential kit you know build a gateway for you and every person is gonna get their own so every network has its own perfect network right so that, was way too many words. We. Haven't had and it depends on this episode yet which is rare, so that though Simon, will take that for us depends, all right well thank, you guys so much we're running out of time and I did want to give you guys a last, opportunity to share final advice Simon. For folks that are trying to kind of make sense of all, these evolving, network technologies, any final words of wisdom for them. The. SD Wang word, it's. A, new. Fashionable. Term for it's just lengths we're, gonna make decisions about links and you, know what happens whenever we get a new fashionable, term it, means someone's gonna make a whole lot of money from that right and it's usually not you, or me. So. You know it's kind of like when. We started running, stuff on someone else's computer and, then called that the, cloud and, oh did you know that you can store, your own, data, at your own house in, your own cloud. I might have data, on your, computer in, your own car I'm gonna charge you extra because. It's you're an. Edge community. You know I'm gonna run a process, that. Actually uses, a processor. In your, house, it's called edge computing. It costs, extra. But, it's my computer, so. You know what SDM, what is this like I said for not for everybody but for 75%, of the people I would say right SD, when really means multiple, up like control carrier diversity, application, affinity not even that really multiple, coupling control carrier, diversity, and aggregation. That's like 75%, another, 20% means, that plus site to site VPN as, soon as you call the site to site VPN a cloud reap en or some garbage like that. Double. Price. Right. That's, what's going on right because it's a fashionable, term right but you got to understand what is this fundamentally, about it's, about putting, a few more links it's about let's go run some site to site VPN it's, about one of those sites is, you.
Know A cloud. Service you know that's what this is really about and then we, have a whole bunch of other esoteric stuff that's really good for very specific verticals, but most people are never gonna touch those all. Right so we could have a whole show just about I think we will we should definitely do that repair, for, folks any, final. Parting, takeaways. That you'd like for folks as far as SD win and plus, we're sure so you know a little, bit of a call to action you know go check out the content. That we have at att.com. Slash. Flex where slash st r annual you'll be able to see we have some reports from analysts. Over there kind, of like some videos that explain what it is yeah and, you know i think i think you know the error that we're in right now you know networking is cool again right so there, was a lot of kind of static networks early on now we're entering into dynamic, networks so, networking is cool again take, a look at what you can do for your business, with everything that is available so, that's, my well, thank you guys well speaking. Of links let's find out who's walking away with some golf balls you guys get it i. Mean. You're talking to someone who didn't even know what a golf game, was called so. Yes. Prizes. Are up we've got our 18 t business swag pack we've got our grand prize. So. Let's just jump right in our. Grand prize which. Is going. To be a combination of a $25. Amazon gift card plus, this. 18 the AT&T. Business t-shirt or these. 18 T business golf, balls, we've. Got three of those going out we've. Got transit gent gi. S60 zero eight five and Angie. Congratulations. You are the proud winner of our a teen teen fitness, backpack. And twenty five dollar Amazon gift card and. Then our grand prize which is going out to two, very, lucky attendees, that grand prize is of, course a samsung 8h, MD, Odyssey mixed reality headset, with two wireless, controllers. That. Is going out to Dragons, rule and gym WH. Congratulations. To, all of our winners golf, club right okay. If. I announced you as one of our winners today please be sure to email us your contact, info at on the air at Spiceworks, comm now straight winners I want you to email us so that we know where these prizes should go again, I will put all that information in chat the email address is on the air at Spiceworks comm but don't worry I'll put that in chat momentarily. Big. Congrats thanks for hanging out with me and chat thanks, for letting Lee ask his own questions, Lee, and I always love to see, what you guys enter into Q&A I know. That there was one last question on the deck and it is for Simon Simon. Everyone. Wants to know are you gonna be at spice world. We'll. Get, you set up with do you want me to come back. It's. More just to hang out you know on. The air there's nothing special, going on except for the big event but there's no on the air you guys want me to come I'd be happy we'll talk after this okay, all right well, guys thank you guys again for hanging out with us today let, us know what you guys think about the 11 o'clock central, time slot we're thinking about doing this, next. Year for all the shows especially. You West Coasters hopefully this is a little bit easier for you guys big. Thank you to Simon, and repair as well as 18t, for sponsoring today's event, and, for all you guys for hanging out with us and asking such great questions we, will be back here after spiceworld. We're, gonna be talking all about the office of the future and, what that means for IT but. For all of you guys that are gonna be at spiceworld make sure to pop by and say hi to me and Chelsea and Lee and Jeff we'll all be around mic. Well my favor that I asked of you guys is make sure I don't, know your faces I sometimes I just see your profiles in the community, so make sure those nametags are turned around the right way so I can say hi y'all today so. We, reduce yourself as. We love that too and, so, yeah make sure to say hi we got a lot a lot of fun stuff planned for next week we're gonna hopefully get slamming back as well but, make sure to check out we'll have some podcasts from spice world as well as promoting our next show. For. More information about that episode and all things on the air you can follow us at community dot Spiceworks comm slash on the air and until the next time guys stay safe keep it spicy and we will see you all back here next time so long everyone. Thanks. For watching for more videos from AT&T business, click Subscribe.
2019-01-09 02:53
