TeleDynamics Think Tank

In today's virtual world, telecom and network services have come a long way, from being offered using locally installed, standalone monolithic servers to ethereal entities residing in the cloud. This evolution has touched every part of network service provisioning, and one of the most fascinating facets of this trend is that the network infrastructure itself can be virtualized.

Network function virtualization (NFV) is a network architecture philosophy that virtualizes the network infrastructure. In this article, we take a look at what NFV is, how it works, how it fits in with other virtualization technologies, and how it can be of benefit for enterprise networks.

Redundancy and scalability are important for VoIP systems. Virtualization makes both of these easier, less costly, and more efficient. Coupled with cloud services, virtualization has revolutionized how network services are provided, and in particular, how VoIP deployment is executed.

In this article, we explain what virtualization is, the trends governing its newest technologies, and how all of this can be leveraged for use with VoIP services.

Software-defined networking (SDN) is changing the way networks are managed and designed. In this article, we take a look at how an SDN approach can be of great benefit to VoIP and video telephony deployments in particular.

A major challenge inherent in designing and maintaining an enterprise network is the administration costs. Software-defined networking (SDN) can dramatically reduce both the hard costs (money) and soft costs (time) of managing a network. Although this tends to be the most compelling argument in favor of using SDN, it in fact offers may more advantages than this. In this article, we introduce SDN and examine some of its key benefits.

For most organizations these days, WAN connectivity is so mission-critical that investing in a redundant WAN infrastructure is well worth the extra cost and effort. In this article, we explore the available options for WAN redundancy so you can help your customers decide which is the best for them.

Many administrators resist implementing VoIP over Wi-Fi, often citing security and quality concerns. The truth is that if implemented correctly, voice can be safely and reliably deployed on a wireless network. This article examines some best practices for optimizing voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi).

The choice of WAN technology and how it is deployed have a huge impact on the reliability and quality of voice services. For this reason, precautions must be taken to optimize WAN services for voice. In this article, we review best practices for achieving this.

For those familiar with commercial-grade WAN technologies, connecting the internal network to the outside world may seem straightforward. However, large enterprises with thousands of employees and internal services whose existence depends on connectivity require more advanced WAN technologies, which can be far from simple. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the most common high-grade WAN technologies and the characteristics of each, to help you decide which is right for you.

Whether you’re preparing to deploy a new wireless network or upgrade an existing one, understanding wireless network design and deployment strategies is essential. In this article, we describe some strategies and best practices for getting the most out of your Wi-Fi network.

An enterprise network is not truly functional unless it is connected to the internet. The types of technologies that can be used for network edge connectivity can broadly be separated into two groups: commercial-grade and high-grade WAN connection technologies.

The distinction between the two has to do with available speeds, reliability, services, and cost. High-grade WAN connectivity technologies include Metro Ethernet and MPLS, while commercial-grade options include cable and xDSL.

In this article, we examine the commercial-grade WAN technologies (cable and xDSL), how they function, and their most typical implementation scenarios.