Deutsche Telekom CTO: "We have to simplify the cloud architecture"

There is a clear need for standardisation of network virtualisation and cloud services – that was the verdict of Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, chief technology officer at Deutsche Telekom, who delivered a keynote presentation at the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam this morning.

Marxist theory made an appearance at the beginning of his presentation – Jacobfeuerborn averred that it is now easier to start up an enterprise as capital is more widely distributed than at the time of Marx in 19th century Germany.

This in turn brought comparison with internet access: “If you have network access, you are part of the [internet] community, if not then you are out”, stated the DT exec – a metaphor apt for the audience.

He then ran through the cloud services that Germany’s biggest telco has offered to date – starting with private cloud services in 2006 such as platforms as a service, and business processes as a service, then going on to public cloud services such as infrastructure as a service and desktop as a service.

Despite the technical progress that has been made however, there is a danger of complacency here, according to Jacobfeuerborn: “If you think you have everything under control, be aware that maybe you are not fast enough [to deal with new developments or change]”.

“We need professional operator and vendor forums”

Which brings us to his call for greater standardisation work on virtualisation in the packet core, which he presented as a call to the industry, adding: “What does the new standard for virtual appliances look like? We need professional operator and vendor forums.”

Answering a question on likely time frames from Mark Newman, chief research officer at Informa Telecoms & Media (organisers of the Broadband World Forum), he added that an operator must first remove legacy architecture and other blockages, which will inevitably take years to achieve.

The CTO ended by calling for greater architectural simplicity: “We have to change the cloud architecture, we have to simplify, we have to work with vendors – then we will be successful.”