{"id":1425,"date":"2015-12-08T21:36:25","date_gmt":"2015-12-08T15:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.subex.com\/blog\/?p=1425"},"modified":"2015-12-08T21:36:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-08T15:51:25","slug":"the-legacy-network-is-dead-long-live-the-legacy-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/?p=1425","title":{"rendered":"The legacy network is dead, long live the legacy network!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I was recently asked by a Tier 1 client in North America if Subex can use our network discovery technology to retrieve information from D4 channel banks.\u00a0 I honestly had not crossed paths with these relics of the voice network since my days doing central office engineering in the late 80\u2019s. \u00a0So you may be wondering, in a day-and-age when the buzz is about SDN\/NFV, IoT and everything in the \u201cCloud\u201d, why is someone worried about the humble channel bank?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As it turns out, there\u2019s plenty to worry about.\u00a0 End-of-life technology can be a significant Opex drain.\u00a0 Operators incur costs for energy (power, HVAC), maintenance and real estate to keep such equipment in place.\u00a0 Compounding the problem is that much of this old equipment typically sits racked, stacked and powered\u2026 and idle (no traffic).\u00a0 \u00a0Channel banks are just one example.\u00a0 Arguably, the entire fixed-line TDM network is retirement-age (I\u2019m talking about SONET\/SDH DACs and ADMs, voice switches, local loop equipment, etc.) and needs to yield to IP\/MPLS and VoIP.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In a previous <a href=\"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/network-transformations-survive-thrive\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">blog post<\/a>, I wrote about what operators need to consider when planning a transformation from legacy technologies to future state.\u00a0 \u00a0For this post, I will stay grounded in the present and focus on this question: <strong>What strategies can operators employ to reduce their Opex and Capex burdens when operating a legacy network? <\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0For starters:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>Use network discovery techniques to determine the operational status of your actively deployed network assets.<\/li>\n<li>For all unutilized assets, apply a deliberate strategy to <em>disposition everything<\/em>.\u00a0 Too often, because operators don\u2019t have adequate visibility to operational status and utilization of assets in the legacy network, they default to what I call a \u201crust-in-place\u201d strategy.\u00a0 Since they lack the visibility, they ignore the problem.\u00a0 Equipment sits idle or underutilized and costs add up.\u00a0 My suggestion is to proceed with purpose\u2014if an asset is carrying adequate revenue-producing traffic, fine.\u00a0 If not, do something about it!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For assets with reuse potential, then the options include:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>Harvest and reuse elsewhere in the network.\u00a0 Benefit: Avoid Capex for new purchases.<\/li>\n<li>Perform grooms to more densely pack some assets and free up others for reuse or end-of-life monetization.<\/li>\n<li>Allocate as spare.\u00a0 Benefits: Reduced maintenance costs when spares are optimized in terms of count and location.\u00a0 \u00a0Customer experience is improved and exposure to SLA penalties is reduced when spares are well managed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If there is no reuse potential, then consider:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>Reselling on the secondary market if there is still industry demand for the asset.<\/li>\n<li>If not, then recover and sell for salvage value.<\/li>\n<li>In both cases, remember that the NPV of averted monthly energy and real estate costs may actually exceed any direct cash received when the asset is sold or salvaged.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t overlook other possible financial benefits from disposing unneeded assets such as tax write-offs and reduced insurance premiums.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Most importantly, seek an asset management and logistics partner who can help you squeeze the most value from legacy assets.\u00a0 <strong>Elements of a legacy network cost reduction program include:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>Automated audits via network discovery<\/li>\n<li>Asset evaluation and disposition recommendations<\/li>\n<li>Capacity utilization trending and related analytics<\/li>\n<li>Asset tracking<\/li>\n<li>Turnkey asset recovery services<\/li>\n<li>Resale valuation and brokerage services<\/li>\n<li>Eco-friendly recycling<\/li>\n<li>Analytics for sparing level optimization<\/li>\n<li>Spares management<\/li>\n<li>Warehousing and related logistics services<\/li>\n<li>Warranty and annual maintenance contract management<\/li>\n<li>Test, repair and engineering services<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Subex provides industry-leading asset management solutions and services.\u00a0 With our forward and reverse logistics partners around the globe, we can help you to establish a <em>turnkey<\/em> and highly effective legacy network cost reduction program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was recently asked by a Tier 1 client in North America if Subex can use our network discovery technology to retrieve information from D4 channel banks.\u00a0 I honestly had not crossed paths with these relics of the voice network since my days doing central office engineering in the late 80\u2019s. \u00a0So you may be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,130,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capacity-management","category-capex-optimisation","category-network-asset-management"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.enki.studio\/test\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}