Evolving Network Management Strategies for Carrier Ethernet

Wednesday, June 18 • 12:10 PM - 12:55 PM • Room S115

Over the past few years the Carrier Ethernet market has seen very strong growth with compounded annual revenue growth exceeding 40% according to Dell'Oro Group.  This technology is now an integral part of all Carrier's existing or planned service offerings.  However, carrier Ethernet encompasses many sub-technologies, products and implementations, hence, network management strategies continue to evolve.

Our panel will examine new control plane methodologies, evolving network management standards, and provide examples of how carriers are tackling the management, provisioning, and monitoring necessary to handle the explosive growth of these new Ethernet services.  Furthermore, the panel will also discuss which areas within carrier Ethernet are seeing the most growth and change, and thus potentially need newer network management tools.

Moderator

Seamus C. Crehan, Vice President, Dell'Oro Group

Seamus Crehan is responsible for Ethernet Switch and Carrier Ethernet market research programs at Dell'Oro Group. Mr. Crehan's research in the field of telecommunications and networking is the most extensive in the analyst industry, and is widely considered an authority on the Ethernet Switch market. Prior to Dell’Oro Group, Mr. Crehan worked at Intel Corporation.

Mr. Crehan is recognized as a market expert and has made presentations and moderated at numerous conferences, including Interop, Gigabit Ethernet Conference, DesignCon and various investor technology conferences.  Mr. Crehan has contributed industry commentary to many technical and business publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CBS MarketWatch, Investor’s Business Daily, Business Week, Network World, Lightwave, San Francisco Chronicle, and EE Times.  He has frequently authored articles in publications such as LANLine, Business Communications Review, and Lightwave.

Mr. Crehan holds a B.S. in Economics from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University.

Speaker

Dr. Larry Dennison, Senior Vice President, Research and Development/CTO and Founder, Soapstone Networks, Inc.
Greg Gum, Vice President – Marketing and Business Development, ANDA  Networks, Inc.
Chris Purdy, Chief Technology Officer, Nakina Systems, Inc.
Brian Smith, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Research & Development, Gridpoint

 

Dr. Dennison is responsible for the company's technical roadmap and plays an active role in the day-to-day product design and development. Dr. Dennison founded Soapstone Networks in February 2007 and co-founded Avici Systems in 1996, playing a central role in the architecture, design, and development of each company’s business and platform. Prior, Dennison was with BBN, where he held senior management roles and served as divisional scientist in hardware design for advanced communications products including the government ACTS earth station. Dr. Dennison holds over a dozen communications patents and has a BS, MS, and PhD in computer science and electrical engineering from MIT.

 

Greg Gum , Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, manages ANDA’s overall product strategy, marketing and development plans, marketing communications, PR, and business development activities including channel development, OEM relationships and strategic partnerships.
 
Mr. Gum brings over 20 years of product marketing and business development expertise in both start-up and Fortune 500 companies.  Before joining ANDA, Mr. Gum was the owner and founder of Tsunami Ventures International a consulting and early stage investment firm focused on networking and software companies. Prior to his investment firm, Mr. Gum was the vice president of Business Development at Ishoni Networks a $65M communications semiconductor start-up (acquired by Philips). Formerly an executive director at U S WEST (acquired by QWEST), Mr. Gum managed corporate investments for the Telco’s Internet Investment Fund and held several management positions including: ADSL, frame relay, ATM, private line, customer premise equipment (CPE) product management and corporate strategic planning functions.  Mr. Gum holds a BA/MAPREP degree in Sociology & Statistics from the University of Minnesota and has completed the Wharton School of Business Executive Program.

 

Chris Purdy brings more than 20 years of relevant OSS, EMS and NMS experience to his role as chief technology officer at Nakina Systems. Prior to Nakina, Chris was vice president of Product Management at DIATEM Networks and served in professional services and as director, Product Line Management with Nortel Networks. During this time he established a highly successful track record leading the cross-corporate project to create Nortel’s end-to-end Optical Ethernet Network Management Solution and the creation of Nortel’s TelePATH product (now known as PSP), which has been deployed in Tier 1 networks worldwide for managing some of the world’s largest TDM voice, VoIP and Ethernet networks.

Besides his extensive knowledge of carrier operations, his deep knowledge of networking technology and protocols is adding great value to Nakina’s customers and he is often sought for consultations on carriers’ OSS strategies.

Chris graduated from the University Of Toronto with a BASc (Electrical Engineering) in 1985.

 

Brian Smith has 24 years experience leading innovative technical teams in designing first to market products in the field of Ethernet services & provisioning systems. Formerly CTO at Diatem Networks, Senior VP R&D at Syndesis, and AVP R&D at Newbridge Networks, he has delivered over 16 products to the telco market from 8 product families.