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Dan Johnson and I will be demonstrating the Cloud Communications Platform at Mobile World Congress 2014 in just a couple of weeks.

I wrote most of the following abstract for a technical audience in the telecommunications industry. If you happen to be new to this topic and wonder what all of that jargon is about, it actually boils down to plans for companies in the telecommunications business to get an unprecedented boost from embracing the internet protocol and cloud computing technologies. This is the discussion that is now dominating most aspects of next generation systems in that sector.

We are talking about architectures for telcos and, therefore, the twist here is that these are solutions engineered and optimized for sophisticated networks characterized by very large loads and real time communication services that can be bursty in terms of network traffic. At the receiving end, what most of us get to experience is a growing supply of digital voice, video and data applications to choose from. Our Cloud Communications Platform demo sets the conversation in the context of mobile users.

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“Where mobile meets cloud- we help you transform your network and operations to an Open IP environment with industrial NFV and SDN.”

“Innovation is flourishing at the intersection of mobile broadband’s ubiquity and cloud computing’s agility: VolTE and WebRTC coupled with NFV are set to yield  a fast-emerging breed of application and revolutionize telecommunications in the process. The most visible outcome entails mobile services that create new value by engaging in quality experiences.”

“Alcatel-Lucent’s Cloud Communications Platform (IMS, CloudBand, NFV Management and Operations System and Cloud Nodes) is a modular solution engineered for multi-vendor environments. Conceived as a versatile architecture from the ground up, the Cloud Communications Platform injects programmability and dynamic automation to right-scale on demand, intelligently optimizing capacity and network resources by design.”

“The result is an application driven system that is carrier grade, extremely lean, cost effective and readily available to network operators and enterprises worldwide.”

Alcatel-Lucent’s e-brochure – see page 6.

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Here is my take on the underlying concept in a nutshell:

1. IMS is engineered to deliver a pool of shared network assets that developers working on multimedia services would not need to replicate.
2. That is a perfect match for cloud computing’s dynamic delivery of also shared pools of compute, storage, database and networking resources.
3. Moreover, IP is the primary protocol across the board yielding further simplification in an environment comprised of  a complex suite of protocols.
4. Last but not least, this encloses virtualization enabling software defined assets, which are  programmable and benefit from extensive automation.

The relentless pursue of operational efficiencies is the start point and becomes a leading indicator for what follows:

• the chain reaction involves unparalleled agility that is, most importantly, very cost effective; this can be experienced as faster reaction times and accelerated time to market to advance, meet and even generate new demand curves, growing and degrowing as needed
• return on investment is based on elevating productivity to new levels by streamlining operations and seeking high asset utilization levels, where virtualization supports an extremely lean environment that is better suited to innovate, capture and create value while dynamically right scaling in the process.

The Cloud Communications Platform not just bridges, but fully integrates leading edge network and IT technologies. If this is of interest to you and happen to be in Barcelona, I hope that we’ll see you at Alcatel-Lucent’s booth in Hall 3, Booth 3K10 – Zone 2 – Demo A. Otherwise, I’ll be happy to meet at these other venues.