It used to be that when a married woman kept her maiden name, in whole or hyphenated, it carried with it a flair of feminism. When my wife and I married, we had a very short conversation on the topic. I would've been equally happy and supported whatever choice she made. And she didn't feel a strong need to hold on to the maiden name (it would've made one heck of a hyphenated name: 19 letters plus the dash).
It occurred to me that social media - Facebook in particular - is perpetuating this trend. Think about it, most of the married women you know on Facebook show both their maiden name and their married name. Not necessarily because they are feminists, but because it is easier for people to find them. The friends of their youth knew them by one name and their post-nuptial friends by another. Simple as that.
I don't think Facebook, or any other media for that matter, is taking an activist's stance, nor do I think women are necessarily becoming more feminist. But I do think this will cause a cultural shift that in, say, 20 years, will just seem natural and not feel like activism. Call it "accidental feminism."
What do you think?
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
The Bastardization of 503
I've been noticing a trend with some SIP carriers and it troubles me. They've begun to configure their gateways/SBC's to use the "503 Service Unavailable" response code at their discretion. As a whim, if you will. The RFC states that, "The server is temporarily unable to process the request due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server." And, in my mind, we should accept that as the literal meaning, that there is an actual network problem. We measure the volume of such response codes so that we can get fair warning when something is acting up. And it is through those measurements that we've come to know that the 503 has been bastardized.
After pursuing with at least a couple different carriers on the topic we've found that they return the 503 when their routes (presumably their cheapest routes) are full and they send the 503 because, also according to the RFC, "a client (proxy or UAC) receiving a 503 (Service Unavailable) SHOULD attempt to forward the request to an alternate server." And it does. So, the offending carrier believes, no harm done. And technically they're right. The call attempts the next route and completes. No biggie, right?
Not so much.
In this scenario, [1] we've overflowed to a less preferred route (if the second route were preferred it would've been the first choice) and [2] it completely bastardizes the meaning of the 503 because it now means "Service Unavailable" but it also means "Go Away We Don't Want That Particular Call At Least Not Now." In my mind, this is the bigger of the two problems.
So what should these carriers do? It would seem there is a shortcoming in the SIP protocol. If they were to return a "480 Temporarily Unavailable" or a "486 Busy Here" then the client would likely return a treatment to the caller, which is not what we want. To reliably bounce the call to another route we typically would want a 5xx response, but none seem to fit the bill. What we need is a "5xx Temporarily Busy" or a "5xx Not Now I Have A Headache" sort of response code.
After pursuing with at least a couple different carriers on the topic we've found that they return the 503 when their routes (presumably their cheapest routes) are full and they send the 503 because, also according to the RFC, "a client (proxy or UAC) receiving a 503 (Service Unavailable) SHOULD attempt to forward the request to an alternate server." And it does. So, the offending carrier believes, no harm done. And technically they're right. The call attempts the next route and completes. No biggie, right?
Not so much.
In this scenario, [1] we've overflowed to a less preferred route (if the second route were preferred it would've been the first choice) and [2] it completely bastardizes the meaning of the 503 because it now means "Service Unavailable" but it also means "Go Away We Don't Want That Particular Call At Least Not Now." In my mind, this is the bigger of the two problems.
So what should these carriers do? It would seem there is a shortcoming in the SIP protocol. If they were to return a "480 Temporarily Unavailable" or a "486 Busy Here" then the client would likely return a treatment to the caller, which is not what we want. To reliably bounce the call to another route we typically would want a 5xx response, but none seem to fit the bill. What we need is a "5xx Temporarily Busy" or a "5xx Not Now I Have A Headache" sort of response code.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Truth
I read a really salient quote yesterday, one which exemplifies the benefits of the cloud: "Work is an activity not a location."" Author unknown.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
How the Election Could Affect Cloud Services
With yesterday's election behind us, I started wondering how the different presidential candidates might influence the adoption of cloud services. Not directly, mind you. And obviously this is pure speculation; no crystal balls here. But here goes.
The Case for Mitt Romney
Romney's economic policy, based on traditional republican views of tax cuts, with a slant toward larger cuts for the wealthy, believes that the trickle-down effect creates jobs. Additionally, tax incentives for businesses may have sparked economic growth, or so the theory goes. In short, more small businesses, more people employed, more wealth. And these things might spur capital spending. That said, there is a chance that such an influx in capital might actually slow the growth of cloud services. Besides the obvious advantages of uptime, scalability and elasticity, one of the financial benefits of the cloud is that you can reduce your capital expenditures in exchange for a predictable monthly operational spend. If there is more capital available then there is a chance that businesses would reverse course and start buying hardware again. On the other hand, there might be more businesses to adopt the cloud.
The Case for Barack Obama
One of cornerstones of Obama's 2008 campaign was to invest in renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions. While his achievements in this area have been arguably weak, and he has been widely criticized for the country's investments in failed green energy companies such as Solyndra. However, focus on new technologies and green energy might mean tax incentives to businesses that reduce their energy consumption and to those, such as cloud services providers, that invent and foster such energy reductions. That could be very positive for the adoption of cloud services. But, one could argue, that the growth of the businesses that demand those very services might be slower under the president's watch.
Would the selection of a president make a difference in the cloud? It's hard to say. In either case, cloud services are here to stay and their growth, I believe, will continue to be strong over the next four years.
The Case for Mitt Romney
Romney's economic policy, based on traditional republican views of tax cuts, with a slant toward larger cuts for the wealthy, believes that the trickle-down effect creates jobs. Additionally, tax incentives for businesses may have sparked economic growth, or so the theory goes. In short, more small businesses, more people employed, more wealth. And these things might spur capital spending. That said, there is a chance that such an influx in capital might actually slow the growth of cloud services. Besides the obvious advantages of uptime, scalability and elasticity, one of the financial benefits of the cloud is that you can reduce your capital expenditures in exchange for a predictable monthly operational spend. If there is more capital available then there is a chance that businesses would reverse course and start buying hardware again. On the other hand, there might be more businesses to adopt the cloud.
The Case for Barack Obama
One of cornerstones of Obama's 2008 campaign was to invest in renewable energy and reduce carbon emissions. While his achievements in this area have been arguably weak, and he has been widely criticized for the country's investments in failed green energy companies such as Solyndra. However, focus on new technologies and green energy might mean tax incentives to businesses that reduce their energy consumption and to those, such as cloud services providers, that invent and foster such energy reductions. That could be very positive for the adoption of cloud services. But, one could argue, that the growth of the businesses that demand those very services might be slower under the president's watch.
Would the selection of a president make a difference in the cloud? It's hard to say. In either case, cloud services are here to stay and their growth, I believe, will continue to be strong over the next four years.
Saturday, November 3, 2012
It's Time the PSTN Grew Up
As I write this, five days after Hurricane Sandy dealt a devastating blow to the east coast, there are millions that cannot read it because they still have no power. The effects of the storm will be felt for years to come. And in the wake of Sandy there will be many lessons to be learned. One of those lessons is that it is finally time that the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN) grew up.
Back in the 1990's when the FCC granted competition in the local telephone market (in exchange for local carriers' ability to get into the long distance game) it became necessary to devise a way to know where to route a "ported" local number. Thus the notion of local number portability (LNP) was born. And to achieve this, a ported number would use a Local Routing Number (LRN) which is used to uniquely identify on which switch a number resided, and therefore where to route a call. Hurricane Sandy magnified the weakness in this approach.
One of the largest examples of such a failure was a Verizon switch in lower Manhattan that lost power due to flooding. With the switch, a Nortel CS2K (which is essentially a DMS with an IP head end), out of commission for several days so were the thousands of numbers that were served by it. The PSTN was designed to allow multiple routes, or trunks, to get to any given switch in order to give redundancy to the weakest link in its chain: the transport. And within the switch itself all hardware is redundant. But it still assumes that switch will always be up. An epic single point of failure.
In an IP world it has become possible for a number to be hosted virtually anywhere; you can literally serve a number across the globe from a server in your basement. Smaller competitive phone providers have been serving distant locations (probably not across the globe, but certainly across state lines) since LNP began. And Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSP) have extended this reach. In many - perhaps most - cases these ITSP's will still home a number from a single location. Some redundant Voice over IP (VoIP) architectures allow for geographic redundancy; that is, that single point of failure may now be spread over thousands of miles, or truly all over the world. To take it a step further, large scale IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) networks allow an even greater level of geographic redundancy and roaming. Though they still rely on a centralized IMS core, that core can be geographically disbursed.
Verizon and the other large carriers have already invested in such VoIP architectures. So, how could such a failure occur? Why are we still being served by switches that were designed in the 80's and refitted for LNP in the 90's? The answer is simple. They want to squeeze as much out of their existing investment as possible. I am not saying it is easy to migrate to the new architecture or that it can happen over night. But it can and should happen.
It's time.
Back in the 1990's when the FCC granted competition in the local telephone market (in exchange for local carriers' ability to get into the long distance game) it became necessary to devise a way to know where to route a "ported" local number. Thus the notion of local number portability (LNP) was born. And to achieve this, a ported number would use a Local Routing Number (LRN) which is used to uniquely identify on which switch a number resided, and therefore where to route a call. Hurricane Sandy magnified the weakness in this approach.
One of the largest examples of such a failure was a Verizon switch in lower Manhattan that lost power due to flooding. With the switch, a Nortel CS2K (which is essentially a DMS with an IP head end), out of commission for several days so were the thousands of numbers that were served by it. The PSTN was designed to allow multiple routes, or trunks, to get to any given switch in order to give redundancy to the weakest link in its chain: the transport. And within the switch itself all hardware is redundant. But it still assumes that switch will always be up. An epic single point of failure.
In an IP world it has become possible for a number to be hosted virtually anywhere; you can literally serve a number across the globe from a server in your basement. Smaller competitive phone providers have been serving distant locations (probably not across the globe, but certainly across state lines) since LNP began. And Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSP) have extended this reach. In many - perhaps most - cases these ITSP's will still home a number from a single location. Some redundant Voice over IP (VoIP) architectures allow for geographic redundancy; that is, that single point of failure may now be spread over thousands of miles, or truly all over the world. To take it a step further, large scale IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) networks allow an even greater level of geographic redundancy and roaming. Though they still rely on a centralized IMS core, that core can be geographically disbursed.
Verizon and the other large carriers have already invested in such VoIP architectures. So, how could such a failure occur? Why are we still being served by switches that were designed in the 80's and refitted for LNP in the 90's? The answer is simple. They want to squeeze as much out of their existing investment as possible. I am not saying it is easy to migrate to the new architecture or that it can happen over night. But it can and should happen.
It's time.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Amazon's Cloudshare
In this October 10 Information Week article, it states that Amazon's share of government cloud computing is accelerating. This is good news. And the news isn't just good for Amazon but for all cloud services providers because it shows an increased adoption -- or willingness to adopt -- of cloud services. While the "public cloud" that Amazon typically delivers isn't right for all businesses, and many require a private or hybrid cloud, it certainly has its place, and it should be noted that some form of cloud services is right for every busines. So, the more news the 800 pound gorilla, Amazon, makes, the more it drives home this message. And that is good for us all.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Evolve IP named to Inc. 500 fastest-growing privately owned company list
As I said in my "very first blog post" you can expect a bit of self promotion here. So here it is. Evolve IP made the Inc 500. I'm pretty darn proud of this accomplishment. A lot of people put in a lot of long hours and hard work to get us here and this recognition is the culmination of that effort. I am very proud to be a part of something great. And it will only get better.
Here's Evolve's official press about it: http://www.evolveip.net/news_08-22-2012.asp
And here's the list itself: http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/2012
Congrats and many thanks to my coworkers that helped us get there.
Here's Evolve's official press about it: http://www.evolveip.net/news_08-22-2012.asp
And here's the list itself: http://www.inc.com/inc5000/list/2012
Congrats and many thanks to my coworkers that helped us get there.
The very first blog post
Ah yes, the very first blog post, always a steep hill to climb. The blank page staring at you. So, let me give you a heads up on what might show up here. Given the name "Somewhat Cloudy" you can expect things that are generally about "the cloud" (oooohhh!) here. Generally speaking, it will be tech related stuff sprinkled with a little self promotion for me and my company. But hopefully you'll also find the occasional thought provoking nugget to discuss with fellow nerds around a cup of too-strong coffee.
So, without further adieu...
So, without further adieu...
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