Vodafone’s Flett offers insight into networking vision

26 January 2015

Vodafone is trialling a new device which will enable data to flow faster and more efficiently on its network. The company says its “enterprise hub” – or ehub for short – is currently in beta testing and will be launched in the first quarter of this year.

Vodafone’s Angus Flett says the old way of designing networks is disappearing, and the endgame is realtime network policies.

“It’s in customer trials in the UK at the moment,” says Angus Flett in an interview with Networking+. The head of business products and service at Vodafone adds that he is not willing to give too much detail about the device until its official launch.

But he did explain the basics about the new piece of kit, which is designed and software-engineered by Vodafone. “The boxes are from third parties,” says Flett. “It's a mix of industry equipment.”

The newly appointed Flett is regarded as the architect of the Vodafone’s “next-generation, application-aware network”, and is specifically responsible for optimising the company's enterprise network. And the ehub is a key piece of equipment in his plans.

“We’re launching a device, which we call the ehub, which links to the 4G network,” says Flett. “This allows us to use the 4G network and the DSL network, but intelligently manage the traffic.

“So, for example, if you have a problem on the DSL network, but you have some heavy-duty graphics you need to send, the ehub will switch the traffic to the 4G path.”

Sounds like a simple enough device, but Vodafone has high hopes for it and the company is guarding all the details until launch.

Flett also mentioned another innovation he believes will help create his vision of an “application-ready network” at Vodafone. “We’re the first in the market to launch Application Visibility Control, which gives a really granular view of the applications running across the virtual network – when they're being used, how much bandwidth is being used, and so on.

“That allows us to manage on behalf of the customer, or allows the customer to see what is causing pinch-points on the network, see high-bandwidth usage, and they can dimension the network and optimise on costs, so they're not just throwing bandwidth at it.”

The endgame, says Flett, is the idea that, “If I can measure, I can manage. And if I can manage, I can start moving to realtime network policies.”

Flett says his philosophy is about recognising that “the old, historic way of designing networks was very static… you know, you put X amount of traffic over MPLS and Y amount of traffic over another type”.

It’s not like that any more, says Flett. “It's becoming far more dynamic.”