Cloud Services the Buzz at PTC ‘12
What do you get when over 2,000 delegates representing telecommunications interests in the Asia Pacific region gather in Waikiki Beach? Technologies are vetted, alliances formed, and industry “buzz” gets generated in what seems to be endless cycles of conference sessions, meetings and mixers. Creative chaos ensues and the stakes are high.
January is upon us and once again, it is time for the Pacific Telecommunications Council‘s annual conference — PTC’12. On its 34th year, this event is a strategic springboard for the global telecommunications industry.
Virtela’s Follow-the-Sun Customer Support
My American and Indian colleagues have been blogging away here. I think it’s time for Virtela Philippines to be represented on Virtela ViewPoint.
The Philippines Global Operations Center (GOC) works in full tandem with counterparts in Denver, Colorado and Mumbai, India to provide 24x7x365 customer support.
Sunrise in Manila prompts the Philippine team to get in full gear, ready to perform a smooth handoff from the Denver GOC team. Shortly before Manila’s famed sunset, we pass on support functions to our Mumbai counterparts. As an integral part of Virtela’s global service delivery, the Virtela Philippines team is committed to a seamless transition in the never-ending follow-the-sun customer service support cycle.
Global Access team at Asian Carriers’ Conference 2011
If it is late September, it must be time for the annual Asian Carriers’ Conference in the island of Mactan, Philippines. On its 7th year, Virtela’s Global Access and Sales teams joined almost a thousand delegates representing over 350 global carriers in braving a typhoon that preceded the conference, airline labor unrest induced travel inconvenience and another headline grabbing typhoon tailing the event.
True to form, the island of Mactan showcased world renowned Philippine hospitality in languid lush tropical powder white sand beachfront setting. But wait. The vastly deserted idyllic outdoors belie the collective conference energy in meeting rooms, partitioned ballrooms, restaurants, bars, lobbies and hallways of the Shangri-la Mactan Resort as the conference venue.
Virtela heads to Capacity Africa on a telecommunications safari (so to speak)
Virtela goes where our customers tell us to go. Picture these: amazing wildlife, very rich culture, scenic country and great people. Virtela’s Global Access Strategy team headed to Nairobi, Kenya for Capacity Africa 2011.
As Virtela’s response to the increasing need of our customers to push the frontiers of our network even deeper into the African continent, the Global Access Strategy team actively participated in this year’s annual Capacity Africa event. Nairobi, Kenya as the venue of this year’s conference is very apropos. Nairobi is reported to be the most populous city in East Africa. As an African hub for business and culture, it hosts over 100 transnational companies and is the site of the United Nation’s headquarters for Africa and the Middle East.
Managing 500+ carriers in over 190 countries
The Virtela Global Access Team, which is responsible for purchasing network services and managing carrier relationships, is working around the clock to improve Virtela’s global supply chain through tough negotiation with suppliers and through automation.
Purchasing circuits from carriers is a complex process since there can be hundreds of carriers to choose from and literally millions of price points to manage. The team has to buy cost effectively while simultaneously designing the network with as much network uptime as possible to meet the stringent SLAs (Service Level Agreements) that Virtela commits to its customers.
Avoiding network strain when moving to the cloud
When it comes to cloud computing, we’re as enthusiastic as the next guy. But, for all the good the cloud brings, the technology is not without its challenges. As more businesses turn to the cloud to take advantage of potential cost savings, improved IT efficiency and greater productivity (the list goes on), there are issues of which a company must be mindful.
One such issue is the cloud’s effect on a company’s infrastructure. It’s understandable that businesses may be inclined to ignore their networks when moving to the cloud. After all, one of the major points about the technology is that it lets a third party deal with the nitty gritty.
Is my network optimized?
To answer this question, a thorough network assessment is needed to understand to current situation of network traffic – knowing what devices and applications are on the network and how they affect network performance.
Specifically, the first step is a Knowledge Transfer engagement where we learn about the customer’s network infrastructure, network map, configuration, etc. before beginning the network assessment, as well as a detailed configuration and performance audit. As part of the program, the entire network is scanned to identify any chronic issues, faults, configuration mismatches, patch update history, network topology, etc
Isn’t MPLS a commodity? Isn’t it all the same?
This is a question we receive frequently from customers and prospects, and we would like to clarify on this misconception. How MPLS is implemented can affect the performance of a network.
For one, choosing a multi-carrier MPLS service can overcome single provider limitations. For example, a fully redundant, multi-carrier backbone network provides rerouting and dynamic failover across the best network path – meaning that the network can withstand anything from small performance issues to major infrastructure outages. Another benefit of a multi-carrier MPLS service is the consistent CoS (class-of-service) across multiple MPLS providers.
Virtela puts its Stamp on ITW 2011
The Virtela Global Access Team descended on Washington DC for the latest installment of International Telecoms Week. As a four year veteran of this event, I know the 3 most important aspects of a successful ITW: comfortable shoes, an endless supply of business cards, and a well organized schedule. While I can claim success on the first two, the third never seems to survive the first morning.
ITW is the premier networking event in the global telecoms market, and thus a crucial opportunity for Virtela to meet with our existing suppliers to reaffirm our strategic relationships. These relationships are the cornerstone of our global managed services offering and a huge differentiator when we are compared to the competition. No cookie cutter global networks here, our job is to make certain our suppliers can support the unique requirements of our customers, and support the high level of customer service that is required of all our suppliers.
LATAM felt the presence of Virtela
Is it worth a one way journey of 24 hours with 2 flight changes to get to a conference for 2 days? The short answer, yes. Especially when it’s the Capacity LATAM 2011 show in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Most of the LATAM carriers were present at the conference and just like us, they had come with goals in mind. While some attendees focused on the panel discussions, others were already in meetings scheduled weeks in advance. The event itself triggered new networking initiatives and we had some good meetings with LATAM carriers and also discovered new partners and vendors.