On Rad's Radar? - security Archives

Are Outages The New Normal?

2013-04-24T04:12:15Z

This is a guest column from Peter Eisengrein, SVP Network Operations & Design, Evolve IP

Last week one of the nation's largest carriers experienced an outage that affected tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Voice over IP users, maybe more. At least one carrier employee dubbed the outage "catastrophic" yet the news media shrugged. While not exactly a reliable news source, even social media, which is at least a quick indicator of newsworthy events, hardly noticed.

How can it be that a "catastrophic" outage that is so far reaching never made the news? Perhaps it is because it was a busy news week covering an actual catastrophe, the tragic Boston Marathon bombing. If this had been Google or Facebook or Twitter, however, it probably would've made headlines. People that were impacted by the outage certainly noticed, though. Maybe we've just become jaded to "typical" outages that are not caused by nefarious acts of hacking, and maybe vast network outages are the new normal.

The unofficial cause of the outage (the official reason for outage (RFO) has not been released, at the time this is being written) was "the result of a DNS issue" which prevented calls from the carrier's PSTN gateways from completing for nearly two hours. The same source that called the outage "catastrophic" also suggested that this DNS issue may have actually been a denial of service attack; it seems unlikely, even if this is true - and at the moment it is pure hearsay - that it will be included in the RFO. Why? If you were to Google that carrier + DDOS you would find that there is a complete business practice focused on DDOS protection.

DNS is a particularly curious cause since some (many?) of the carrier's customers and service providers connect via IP addresses, not hostnames, and therefore DNS services are not needed. So, perhaps this had more to do with routing of calls within the carrier's network as opposed to access routes to competitive VoIP providers and enterprises. Whatever the root cause is determined to be, it is clear that there is still work to be done to prevent these kinds of problems. Is this the new normal? I don't think so. While it is still not infallible and problems with core components and services, such as DNS, can have a significant impact, a distributed VoIP network offers a greater level of fault tolerance than traditional services ever could. And it will only get better as we learn from these outages.

News Items for Your Viewing Pleasure

2012-11-26T19:36:02Z

I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving break. Thanks for reading my stuff! I appreciate it. A bunch of news items for your consumption.

Good Technologies sues AirWatch and MobileIron over patent and marketing infringements.

8x8 scored a couple more patents.

Digital Rights Group Slams Verizon's Anti-Neutrality Argument: Verizon claims that open Internet/network neutrality rules violate its free speech rights! [I won't rant here. I won't.]

Cool video hangout with some of my pals talking about the New Service Providers - with Dave Michels, Alex Doyle, Larry Lisser and Brooks Robinson.

The Idea of Office is changing! "A new survey by Intelligent Office finds that people are choosing where they want to work rather than being assigned a standard work place location." [source]

What Obamacare Means for Small Employers in 2013. Nice set of charts about expectations.

Healthcare experienced more security breaches than any other industry in 2011! "More than 21 million patients have had their medical records exposed to hackers during the past three years alone." That is a lot of HIPAA violations! Physical records have the same security needs as electronic ones. More about HITECH from the Level3 blog and from the US Signal blog.

Telephony Partners follows tw telecom with electronic signature of contracts! It's a little strange for some customers, but e-sign is easier than printing, signing, scanning and emailing.

Your Cellphone is Spying on You

2012-10-18T15:40:26Z

There is so much talk about malware on Windows computers. Apple users think they are safe. HA! It was simply a matter of volume. Now that iOS is on millions of devices it is worth the time for bad guys to turn their focus.

Funny, though that it is Apple itself that is spying on you. And the FBI via your iPhone and iPad.

We knew that AT&T was giving the NSA every packet of data that ran across its network. Some thought VZ was too. (I think so). Then we find out that VZW is actually selling your data. That makes sense for a company that needs to keep growing revenue or die.

And they want a cellphone to be a mobile wallet??? Privacy is gone. I get that. But are we really go to lay down with are legs in the air and beg for more?

I'm going to look into this.

Money, Market, Launch - News

2012-10-12T18:28:47Z

I can't always write about everything happening, so here are some tidbits:

The TCA added 17 more members at the CPExpo in Orlando as the TCA closes in on 550 members - about 200 of whom have signed up to get certified as a CTP.

The US Secretary of Defense announced that Cyber-attacks could threaten US infrastructure. The DoD is working on a response. It is a constant game of cat and mouse - and the mouse is a fixed target.

SaaS company, Workday, IPO'ed today with a 70% bump to rake in $637M. "The company has not turned a profit." And revenue last year was $134M. That cloud buzz is a hit with investors.

"Integra Telecom today announced that investment funds affiliated with Searchlight Capital Partners, L.P. have acquired a significant equity stake in the company."

Virtual Communications Express is VZ's Broadsoft based SMB Hosted PBX offering that has some integration with Google Apps and a dashboard. I know someone who is exhausted and glad it launched!

An inside look at the Sprint-Softbank negotiations. Customers? No a worry in those rooms.

Master Agency, Intelsys, blogs about the huge opportunity in sales that agents have. "Conservatively we believe the US addressable market share for the telecom services channel of which we are all part is $100 billion annually, or $8.3 billion in monthly spend. This excludes most of the Fortune 1000 on the high end, and the SOHO/consumer segment on the low end.... , Intelisys Sales Partners will own about 0.2% of the addressable net billed market share." The numbers say we need more volume to move the needle.

Grow Your Business Without Sacrificing Options

2012-09-21T21:22:24Z

One of my ITEXPO panels is on Wednesday @ 11 AM with Kevin Kelleher of ICON Voice Networks; Bobby Mohanty of Vertical; David Scult of Fonality; and Debbie Jo Severin, the CMO of 8x8.

With three leading options in the market for IP-based phone systems - on-premises, hosted (cloud) and hybrid-hosted - consumers may have a difficult time deciding which model best fits their business needs. We will be discussing four issues facing businesses today - BYOD, BPI, Mobility and Security - and how the premise and cloud options deal with those issues.

Brad Thor's Black List

2012-09-04T18:30:26Z

I like spy novels. Since James Bond, I have been reading spy novels from Ludlum, Lustbader and Jack Higgins. The new breed of authors in this gnre are very good - Barry Eisler, Vince Flynn, Daniel Silva, Brian Haig, Randy Wayne White and David Hagberg. When I was reading Richard Clarke's novels, it was said that sometimes you get more truth in fiction than non-fiction. Sometimes I don't know where the fiction ends. This is certainly true in Brad Thor's latest book, Black List.

Thor has a list of books and articles that point to Total Surveillance on his website. After 9/11, the US starting giving away liberty in the pursuit of security theater - and we as Americans stopped questioning our government. Everything has been turned into two things: It is in the interest of National Security or Aren't you a Patriot?

Thor drops a remark about the US being in a permanently renewed state of emergency since 9/11. (I can't confirm it.) Then the comment about why no one questions GPS in all devices despite the fact that the DoD (Dept. of Defense) owns the GPS system. We even give up privacy and freedom for convenience. OnStar is lojack, cell phone and GPS in one -- tracked by your car! Google has a profile on every user, predicting your every move. And.... Google voice = Free voiceprint recognition for NSA. Facebook tracks you even when you log off!

Every Breath You Take, Every Move You Make - 14 New Ways That The Government Is Watching You. I won't be sleeping this week. This stuff terrifies me, because the people in DC scare me. They are dim, not doing their job, and owned by the very people they are supposed to protect citizens from. Oh, and Power Hungry! Because who is watching the NSA?

The RNC 2012 in Tampa was just another chance for DHS (Homeland Security) to try out its latest toys as well as its power in making protestors irrelevant. Let's not forget about the drones, being launched from 63 sites.

What does this have to do with telecom? Well, a couple of things, including the Kill Switch, cell phones and the digital splitters.

The whole AT&T was tapped by the NSA never received the outrage I thought it would. Citizens have turned into sheople. In fact, one might say that the lost war on drugs, the crappy education system, the increased poverty, and even the use of social gaming (using gay marriage to deflect from real issues for example) - are all just ways to keep the masses under control. Tapping the Internet backbone at core POP's certainly helps the NSA and the Total Information Awareness project collect every website, tweet, email, and like you send over the TCP/IP. Then you get the power structure of AT&T, Facebook and Google to collect even more data per individual and hand it over.

Here is the funny part of the book - oh, wait, not funny, frightening - at any time, with all that data, you can be labeled a terrorist and poof! gone. No rights under the Patriot Act and other edicts. They can kill you without a trial.

One thing that the Powers That Be learned from Arab Spring is that they need a Kill Switch for the Internet. Too much free thought on those inter-tubes. Open communication can give way to resistance. The Congress Critters would gladly sign that bill just for some more dough to run for re-election, since most of them know nothing about the Internet (except for Weiner's weiner).

The PTB even have the Cell phone companies profiling, logging and tracking your every move through that smartphone with GPS and a hundred leaky apps! It has become a revenue stream for the cellcos - they charge per wiretap! [Remember AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile were using CarrierIQ?]

Prediction engines are almost to the point of turning the US into the Minority Report! - closer and closer to thought police. I'm going to finish Brad Thor's book and figure out how to diminish my online footprint.

Ask yourself this: Why does an FBI agent's laptop have 12 million Apple ID's on it?

Cloud Outages

2012-07-31T20:46:21Z

I have seen this headline a couple of times in the last month: Cloud Customers at the Mercy of Providers! It's just ridiculous. We left a five-nine world a while ago. Redundancy does not fix everything. And to put it into perspective, to run redundancy on your own Hosted Exchange server would be expensive from a labor and hardware standpoint. It would also be complex and not automatic.

Even when youtry to build in redundancy (like Netflix did by utilizing different sectors of AWS), it sometimes fails. We have seen outages this year by Google, Yahoo, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, twitter, Rackspace, Salesforce and probably others I am unaware of. I don't think this will slow down cloud adoption. People choose cloud for reasons that have nothing to do with redundancy. Cloud is financially efficient (as Savvis puts it), flexible, and available from any authorized and enabled device. It also removes a required skill set off the books. In other words, businesses can focus on their own business and not on tech or IT. In addition, the remote/virtual/mobile workforce grows every year, driving more cloud adoption. There is no going back.

Think about doing it yourself. You would need the following:

data center room or NOC;
generator that has to be tested and maintained;
battery backup - tested, maintained and environmentally sound;
servers, switches, routers, fiber-channel, power channels;
duplicate gear;
fire suppression system;
compliance certificates;
licensing for any software;
client software or apps for every O/S - mobile and desk;
Internet capacity for remote access;
redundant Internet pipe;
VPN or other security device with RADIUS for access authorization;
staff that knows how to handle all of this stuff, 24x7;
power usage;
air conditioning;

The CAPEX would be large (which is one reason buyers choose cloud) and the labor costs - hiring, retaining, training, benefits, etc. - would be high - and in some cases scarce. And despite the outlay of capital - human and otherwise - there is no guarantee that you can keep it up 99.99% of the time - which means about 1 hour of downtime per year.

I'm not defending the outages, just saying that this will be expected behavior, just like dropped cellphone calls and faxes that required three or more retries.

Will It Rain for EarthLink in the Cloud?

2012-05-24T04:32:20Z

EarthLink is really pulling out the umbrella to get it to rain in Cloud. EarthLink picked up XO's former CMO, Michael Toplisek, as EVP of IT Services. The press release says that he was President of Concentric Cloud, but that was for a hot minute, since XO only rolled out that brand 2 weeks ago. He's not a cloud guy - he worked at XO, Global Crossing, MCI and Frontier - all telcos. The only IT he got near was conferencing at GC. Why would you spin this resume? (Especially after the Yahoo resume-gate.)

EarthLink rolled out 4 cloud packages. "The Cloud Launch Pad, the Cloud Entry Bundle, and the Secure Email Bundle enable customers to economically partner with EarthLink to complement their internal IT resources by leveraging a comprehensive mix of IT Services and security experts in an enterprise class data center environment." [Source: PR Newswire] FYI, "Cloud Launch Pad is designed for organizations that want to leverage the benefits of a virtual environment or that currently run VMware® environments and need additional elastic computing capacity."

These products allow the business to keep things intact, but layer on Cloud Services from EarthLink to complement the current system or outsource extra capacity or services.

The Secure Email Bundle is with Zimbra, encryption and archiving.

The fourth package is Cloud Workspace, which is hosted virtual desktop.

An interesting play since it sounds like it requires MPLS. If so, then ELNK is tying their products to MPLS, probably to insure quality of service delivery.

Will they be able to sell these services against other MSP's and VMware partners? We'll see. It will depend on training - not just salespeople but the marketplace as well.

Watch this video where all the Master Agents talk about why they are choosing EarthLink.

Duopoly Now Offering Home Automation and Security

2012-05-07T19:21:50Z

Comcast, Bright House Networks, Cox, TWC, Verizon and now AT&T are offering home automation and security service. BHN and VZ are competing in the Tampa Bay market for all consumer services - voice, TV, broadband and now security.

"Bright House Networks' system does provide home security, it also helps users manage and monitor their energy, lighting and home appliances via the touchscreen. The security cameras connect to the touchscreen via Wi-Fi, while the rest of the peripherals in a home are connected to it via ZigBee." [CED Mag] BHN has a similar system as Cox, Comcast and TWC. These cablecos sure know how to volume buy this stuff. Home automation touchscreen, wireless security cameras, lighting modules, thermostat, motion detectors, window/door sensors, key fobs, and more, all available from your mobile apps. Notifications are available via email or text. "AT&T's technology comes from Xanboo, a company it bought in late 2010."

I guess this becomes the next playground for the Duopoly, competing against Tyco's ADT (which is a roll-up of Broadview/Brinks and ADT).

What is the Market Expecting?

2012-04-01T17:46:30Z

Tuesday I was in Vegas at the Channel Partners Conference mainly for the TCA events. At the TCA Channel Chief Summit, Tiffani Bova of Gartner and Rauline Ochs of IPED Market Bridge Alliance presented research. The take away for me was in perspective.

No one buys the way most service providers sell. That's why we are always searching for Consultative Sales Professionals. Because the whole industry sells what they want - and it is followed up by a series of me-too.

Just because one CLEC is selling Managed Security does not mean that the marketplace wants it or will buy it or that it will want it delivered that exact way. It also doesn't mean that the next eight CLEC's or service providers need to market that same offering.

The market is consuming technology differently. It enters the business via the consumer. About 70% of devices are owned by the consumer in the business environment. Only about 30% are paid for by the business. That means support for devices either isn't available or is imposed on the IT staff by the employees. That's a confusing (and expensive) way to handle it. Don't you agree?

Most of what Bova and Ochs presented had to do with mobility and Cloud. Mobility is a huge problem for most CLEC's as the model for cellular sales is unprofitable - whether they sign a wholesale, agent or MVNO contract - the margin on cellular is thin to none.

And what is prompting Cloud? Two things: ubiquitous broadband and a mobile workforce.

Ubiquitous is really hyperbole because even with 3G, 4G and wi-fi, you can't get bandwidth everywhere and even when it is available it is shoddy (like at tech conference hotels).

Mobile workforce means a couple of things. One that more businesses have accepted remote workers - whether at home locally, across the country or across the globe. The economic downturn (and all the consolidation) has translated into businesses having less workers but expecting more work. This means working at home, while on the road, etc. Hence, not just email, but the application data has to be available from any authorized, connected device. That is the beauty of Cloud.

Cloud changes the way business is done.

Read that again, because that means it has to be sold that way.

It's easier to sell email, because everyone has email and it is almost a requirement. Selling unified messaging gets more complicated. Unified Communications and Collaboration is just too complex of a sale, of an explanation, of an implementation, of a deployment. That's where the service providers want to go, but they neglect the challenge of the sale. There is a lack of the story, the sales triggers, the value proposition, the WHY, and of course the on-boarding.

One thing Bova pointed out was that VDI (virtual desktop) sales have grown in EMEA (Africa and Mid-East) while have stagnated in North America. One reason: VAR's have too big a quota with HP or Dell to take a 500 desktop refresh to VDI instead of selling 500 desktops. Not just the quota for the discount, but to sustain Gold level service. It's the same with Cisco, Microsoft, etc. VAR's will keep selling what they sell for 2 reasons: First, to maintain the current level of vendor support to continue to service current clients in the manner that is expected (or even contracted). Second, making the changes to shift business to an MSP or all service model is complicated and expensive. Bova suggested firing clients and employees to create the business you will need in 5 years, but that's easy to say from a consulting seat. Not so easy from a business owner perspective.

When EarthLink told its channel partners in Tampa that it only wanted Multi-Site multi-access opportunities, it didn't come right out and say that it would stop selling T1's, but that was the underlying message. (And ELNK did tell me that 1GB and 10GB private line, even ON-net, was not what they wanted to sell.) That's one way to start planning for where you want to be. Say no while being specific about what you are looking to offer.

As a whole I don't think the service providers have any idea what buyers are buying or why. Just because you WANT to sell MPLS with security or Hosted UC&C or whatever, doesn't mean that prospects will actually BUY it (that way).

When does something become a commodity? When the customer buys it directly online.

For non-commodity services, you need a well trained sales force that understands the brand, the value proposition, and the target. As an industry we aren't there yet.

I'm going to leave you with that.

Coming soon two posts: (1) Master Agents are like Pharma Reps. (2) Tech Data versus Master Agents.

The Scoop on TDMobility

2012-03-23T16:09:04Z

I spoke with Brian Kosoy, PR manager for Tech Data, and Charles Kriete, the Executive Vice President of TDMobility. Kriete is also the founder of the company that developed some of the key technology (CellManage) in TDMobility. His company was acquired by the joint venture between Tech Data and Brightstar. TDmobility launched recently as a way for VAR's to offer cellular service - handsets, devices, netbooks, tablets, mifi - to their customer base through Tech Data. Give it a listen. (embedded Flash player)

There are 2 sections. TDActivate acts just like an authorized dealer does for cellular products. Pick your device, pick your plan, activate it through the carrier - all through a TDMobility. It is not a true MVNO. It all goes through the carriers - AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.

TDCellManage is the MDM or mobile device management platform. It is similar to a TEM model, where you can see the carrier billing, the devices, the contracts. It can be more as a solutions and software pillar to provide applications control on the device, email security, remote security (like wipe), desktop virtualization and anti-virus. RIM, Good and AirWatch software is available. This is the value that the VAR can add over an authorized agent, Best Buy Mobile or Amazon.

It's all about Management - managed servcies, TEM (telecom expense mgmt) or MDM (mobile device mgmt). Get in the game!

Download the mp3 here.

EarthLink's Sweet Spot

2012-03-14T19:53:22Z

I learned a few things at the EarthLink training today in Tampa. EarthLink has 175K business customers and about 3 Million consumers, most of them dial-up customers, providing $20M in free cash flow per month. So of the $1.3B in annual revenue, about $500M is dial-up. ELNK has 4 data centers - Columbia, SC; Rochester, NY; Marlborough, MA; and 55 Marietta.)

The first (or 70+ slides) shows that Pipe is the foundation for Managed Security and other services. However, despite having 28,000 miles of fiber, they don't want to sell transport on it. Even On-Net gets the response that "This is not our sweet spot".

What is the Sweet Spot? As I wrote here, Multi-Location Multi-Access type across LEC's or cablecos.

The partner portal is in development. The customer portal, called myLink, seems cool they way that you can drill done on customer locations in Google Earth and open a trouble ticket.

Agents in the room, called T1 Slingers, asked about DSL, since EarthLink resells ADSL out of 10K end offices through 12 providers. As a resell service, a 1FB is required. And since neither RBOC is really supporting their copper plant and especially not DSL, it leaves the business DSL customer hanging for days when there is an outage. [See my post about Is DSL Done?] 3G/4G wireless backup is my answer for that. There are cool routers that even do it automatically.

The other question centered around T1. "You just are not going to make a living slinging T1's at $400 any more." PRI's are available east of the Mississippi still, which actually IS an advantage for ELNK. TDM PRI's are still the preferred reliable way to deliver voice to a PBX, especially with alarms, faxes, and elevators.

It was an hour on MPLS. I still find it amazing that almost 9 years after my first MPLS class, we are still presenting the Fundamentals of MPLS. For Agents, it will be about layering on services to the MPLS network. The sticky stuff is value added services.

Retail needs a voice line, some Internet, credit card processing, payroll and data backup. That should actually be a bundle that someone offers. ELNK has the old New Edge AX platform that connects payroll and cc processing to the MPLS Network. Add on a VoIP line and some data backup and there's a bundle. Want to make it stickier? Add network DVR to the service so that those IP surveillance cameras can be viewed from anywhere (and can't be erased locally). Bingo! (Do you have an opening in Product Management? My resume is here.)

The team mentioned POS, Inventory, HR and Loyalty programs. Do you have those on the AX platform? Those would make some excellent sticky add-ons.

"So we have an Internet T1 service that connects you securely to one of 4 data centers, Mr. Prospect. Do you currently have a payroll service? Are you looking to upgrade your POS? Are you worried about security on your credit card data (PCI compliance)?"

That's where the conversation has to go. Even though the customers just want the access - as cheap as possible - Agents will have to steer the conversation to: applications on top of that access (AOTTA).

So back to MPLS with Type II access. Ethernet is delivered over a Type II DS3 from the LEC. T1 is delivered over the ILEC copper pair. DSL is a resell of the ILEC product offering. Then for outliers to attach to the MPLS network, there is an IPSec GRE tunnel with BYOB (bring your own broadband). Blended Access.

EarthLink is a Sprint MVNO, but it is more for 3G access where there isn't DSL to attached to the MPLS. Also, for the MPLS customers that want to have one bill that included cellular.

Something else I learned: ELNK bought STS because Rolla knew the Mark Amarant, CEO of STS, and STS had a reputation for best practices in on-boarding customers in the Hosted PBX realm. That's smart, because Hosted PBX (like VDI, another product that ELNK is rolling out), requires a detailed on-boarding process from pre-sales through post-sale, including mapping extensions to desktops, extension attributes, handset type, employee training and some on-site installation. EarthLink is not selling Hosted PBX as a stand-alone. You have to buy access from ELNK.

So in summary word of the day: "Blended Access".

Key association: Multi-location multi-access MPLS.

Are Telcos Outside Their Delivery Zone?

2012-03-12T13:52:44Z

The ILEC's were really good at delivering a monopoly TDM-based dial-tone product. And later got very good at T1 and T3. Was that the extent of the research that the old AT&T Labs could provide? DSL, while slower than cable modem service, does provide for good, cheap broadband, despite its limitations in distance and speed.

Now the ILEC's are going Cloud with Terremark, Savvis, and roll your own. This is shocking to me, since I was there in 2001 when BellSouth (and other ILEC's) first attempted data center and e-Commerce. At the time, BellSouth had partners like EMC to deliver the managed servcies and IBM for the data center. But this isn't something they knew how to sell or how to market. Certainly, the market has changed to make it easier to sell, but are the ILEC's the right partner for Cloud?

I look at how they are struggling with declining wireline revenue (and mounting debt). They have been grasping at TV for consumer triple-play; tech support for broadband customers; and managed services. A managed router from AT&T is configured and managed in Singapore! The slight time difference affects support. Plus it is by email mainly.

Is that what Enterprise customers want?

Then I look at the Telecom Subpanel talks on Cybersecurity, in which reps from AT&T, Comcast, Century Link and MetroPCS were featured speakers in front of The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hearing Wednesday morning on the cybersecurity threat to the nation's communications networks. The hearings are about regulation of security of the communications infrastructure - who will have oversight, what will be required, and the like, to be added to a bill. Like that will help. Sheesh!

And, of course, the carriers do NOT want to be regulated. In fact, CenturyLink is petitioning the FCC to forbear from "dominant carrier regulation and the Computer Inquiry tariffing requirement with respect to its packet-switched and optical transmission services" for those services subject to the regulations. "CenturyLink states that, because of recent mergers, its enterprise broadband services are subject to different regulations depending on which CenturyLink affiliate - Qwest, Embarq, or CenturyTel - previously provided (or didn't provide) those services." Whatever. They do what they want anyway. There isn't any FCC enforcement (of merger conditions or forbearance conditions).

That sentiment brings me back to cybersecurity and regulations. It would be kind of joke really. The FCC took over 10 years to come to grips with VoIP, how would it ever regulate something as fluid as security? And what would enforcement look like? Would it be something like CPNI?

There are over 1000 VoIP providers in the US plus the numerous LEC's, cablecos and cellcos. Does anyone really think that enforcement is a priority at the FCC?

So back to telco cloud services.

On the one hand, I like that Savvis is still Savvis and Terremark is still Terremark (without any telco infection, no offense). In fact, "Savvis is poised to lead in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Public Cloud Infrastructure as a Service in addition to Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Web Hosting," according to Seeking Alpha. Given that every data center company from TELX to QTS have launched Cloud services, not to mention every CLEC, TWC (via Navisite) and most VAR's, would you rather sell IT services from an IT company or IT services from a telco?

The whole "I don't want to be regulated, I don't want to be a common carrier" is fine if you understand that to stop being a monopoly, you have to stop acting like one! You HAVE to provide customer service. You can't finger point when handling Managed Services or Cloud Services. You have to ANSWERS to solve problems for your customers.

I think that Cloud is going to be a bust for telcos, in general. They have been the pipe, the plumbers, for so long -- and even if you want to reach up to Layer 7 (to grab the money) doesn't mean you have the ability or will be able to deliver on it. Going into cellular was just another Layer 1 project.

Let me point out a few things. Many fiber companies (or divisions) can't find or price out their fiber. A cellco has mismanaged its network to the point of disrupting users and its 4G future. An ILEC has done such a poor job planning Metro Ethernet that it has run out of VLAN's in two major metros!

Cloud may turn out like FTTH and Telco TV: an investment that didn't work out. Or it may work out despite what I think will be glaring holes.

iPad, MDM and Other News

2012-03-09T15:12:30Z

Bandwidth.com bought DASH Carrier Services and renamed it inetwork. Apparently, inetwork is doing gangbusters in the wholesale VoIP space, the largest arbitrage space left, I would imagine. It's the new LD. inetwork offers origination, termination, e-911, SMS and toll-free. The cool thing is the TelcoTranslator that they launched to help with all the acronyms.

Birch has bundled credit card processing with its SMB services. Smart for the retail space. They might want to add 3G/4G redundancy to that. Oh, and I sure hope that are working on PCI Compliance.

So Apple's ipad3 is out. In 4Q the iPad outsold PC's in number of units sold. TDmobility told me that the future is in mobile devices not in PC's or laptops. (Netbooks and tablets are considered mobile devices.) But what is a telecom or pharma sales force supposed to do with the iPad after they plunk down $500 a piece for 50 or 100 of them? Speaking with Jody Haneke last night, it's all about interactive apps that make the sales presentation come alive. (That's what Haneke Design does here in Tampa Bay, home of some great mobile marketing talent.)

The big thing, according to both Haneke and Charles Kriete at TDmobility, is MDM: mobile device management. MDM involves more than just inventory tracking of mobile devices. It includes remote wipe, anti-virus, virtualization, application control and more. If there was a managed service that Agents would want to jump on early, MDM would be it. It only takes 50 or 60 phones to be worth it for a business. There is also room for just mobile security management. The threat to mobile devices is huge. Imagine a virus turning your phone into a surveillance device!

Rumor Mill: is DT bidding on EarthLink? Tata and Vodafone are bidding for Cable & Wireless.

What Else Are You Going to Sell?

2012-03-04T23:44:40Z

TDM is running out of runway. Agents have already switched to selling Ethernet, MPLS and SIP Trunking. What else can they be selling?

Back-up, like Conferencing, is a cash cow that Agents just don't sell. From archiving email per federal regulations to backing up laptops, smartphones, databases, customer records, billing and more "in the Cloud", online backup service isn't much different from Google (see Chrome ad) or Apple iCloud. Access to everything you need through an authorized device attached to the Internet is the beauty to Cloud services, but backing up data is vital to business continuity. How long can a business run without billing records or a customer database? Not very long. Think how flummoxed you are when you lose your contacts in your smartphone. Imagine that contact list was your business. That's why backup is important (to your customers). VAR's are already selling different versions of online backup: their own; a white-label from Remote Backup, DriveHQ or LiveDrive; and a resell of Carbonite (who is hugging Agents right now) or Intronis (who loves the Channel) or Anxient or many others. There are some like SugarSync or Mozy that backup your smartphone and your laptop to the same account.

Managed Security - most of the CLEC's (XO, EarthLink, Netwolves, Integra, Cbeyond), the RBOCs and the ILEC's (Windstream and CenturyLink) offer some type of security offering, usually Managed Firewall, IDS (Intrusion Detection Service) and Network Monitoring. As more data moves to the web (Cloud), security will become even more significant, in the form of email and application security, encryption, event and log management, and mobile device management. For example, Reflexion provides hosted email security, archiving and encryption services exclusively through the channel.

Hosting and email services - everyone has a website or blog; everyone has email. Why shouldn't you be offering those services too? XO started out as Concentric Network, a hosting company. This was Cloud before it was called that. XO sells Hosted Exchange and website hosting. Megapath just rolled out the Microsoft suite. Intercall offers Live365. It isn't big dollars, but it is a place to get your feet wet in Cloud and apps.

Managed IT - remote monitoring of servers and desktops - is a VAR service powered by software like Autotask, Connectwise, Kaseya and GFI MAX. As businesses are essentially dependent upon computers and technology to do business, managed IT services become an option when skilled technical support staff are too expensive, churned or unavailable.

A step past, Managed IT is the remote desktop - aka Desktop-as-a-service (a term I dislike) and VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure). In 1999, Wyse terminals were going to replace desktops for efficiency. It didn't happen (except in the POS space.) Now we are trying it again. MSP's offer this service - with a big fat helping of bandwidth. There are big names in this space, including Citrix, VMware, and Microsoft. There are also a number of providers, like IIS Group, who provide VDI through the channel. Navisite, which TWC owns, just chose Desktone as its DaaS partner.

Next to DaaS is HaaS, or Hardware as a Service. Don't ask me how this is different or how it isn't just leasing. Ask Chartec.

There are issues with selling cloud services - like the service provider's (SP's) financial position; redundancy and resiliency of the SP's architecture; SP's ability to scale in terms of on-boarding new customers properly and scaling tech support for end users; the end users' experiences as cloud services will change some business environmental factors; and licensing issues.

That being said, Agents should be surveying their current customers about the needs outlined here. Why? To get a bigger share of the customer's wallet.

Another way to look at it is: the customer is going to shop these services like he shops T1's, broadband, and voice. He might as well pay you to shop them for him, like he does for the telecom stuff. Get in there!

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What about selling Cloud

One addition, I interviewed VAR Dynamics (local boys from Tampa) at ITEXPO. VAR Dynamics is a private-label Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Cloud business apps provider selling exclusively through channels. Apps include Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Microsoft SharePoint, Zimbra, BlackBerry BES, email encryption, email archiving and more. There will be cross-over in what a provider sells. Just as VAR Dynamics sells the Microsoft software and email security, CLEC's that you are already familiar with - like XO and Cbeyond - offer a variety of services to sell deep into your customers.