Video and Slides
Outline: Delivering the Future of Networking with Hyper-scalable Connectivity
Liang Dong, Senior Product Manager, Epsilon
In recent years, Service Providers across Asia are looking at capturing new growth opportunities fuelled by the rapid pace of digitalisation in the region. This has led to an increased adoption of some form of cloud services and hybrid cloud strategies. However, it can be a challenge when connecting these infrastructure without the right networking expertise and cloud knowledge.
Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) addresses this challenge through software-defined networking or programmable networking, by enabling connectivity through the platform and the use of API. This presentation will cover the challenges of accessing and connecting to Asian markets and how service providers can leverage on NaaS to deliver connectivity on-demand. You will also learn about:
- Landscape of complexity for service providers in Asian markets (including Mainland China)
- Traditional networking vs NaaS model
- API and Networking – Introduction to Epsilon’s NaaS platform, Infiny
- Use case – DCConnect
- Infiny demonstration
Presentation Review
You can ask Liang questions in the comments section of this weblog, or contact Epsilon directly.
Epsilon is a NaaS (Network as a Service) provider, an API for your networking needs. They make it simple for you to interconnect yourself or your customers globally with an on-demand network orchestration capability.
Liang reviews the importance of NaaS in Asia, as businesses use regional cloud services, rather than those in North America for lower latency and costs. In Asia this trend is accelerating, though the diversity of local regulations and service maturity mean Epsilon plays a crucial role in helping businesses successfully network across Asia.
I really like the review Liang provides of the long history of APIs in telecoms across standards and implementations in voice, messaging and networking. Including ForCES (FORwarding & Control Element Separation from the IETF) and OpenFlow. I feel a little guilty I’ve not created a slide like he shows at 4 minute mark in the video.
The Communication API landscape is also great in mapping the standards bodies’ API recommendations, independent telco API (e.g. Epsilon), vendor APIs, Internet exchange APIs (e.g. PIX-IE: A Programmable Internet eXchange In Edo), PaaS/SaaS APIs (e.g. Twilio), IaaS APIs, and community APIs. I’ll be reusing that slide as well 😉
Liang then focused on INFINY, on-demand connectivity and communications services at the click-of-a-button for enterprises and service providers. He reviews common use cases:
- Data Center Interconnect;
- Direct Cloud Connect;
- Access to Internet Exchanges; and
- Global Inbound Numbers (it’s not just SD-WAN).
The demo of INFINY is particularly impressive, and clearly shows the ease with which a data center connection (Equinix 10 Gbit) can be provisioned and connected to Microsoft Azure cloud (200 Mbit/s with network protection implementing Office 365 VLAN). Anyone who’s been involved in doing this knows this is saving days/weeks and as a bonus has monitoring and reporting built in. It’s a great example of how the Epsilon NaaS API can be used to create easy to use and powerful NaaS web interfaces.
Thank you Liang for sharing several slides I’ll be re-using 😉 And a powerful demo of INFINY.
Thank you Liang for a great presentation, I have a few questions:
1) Which regions in Asia do you see significant challenges for enterprises to implement interconnect or cloud connect? Specifically, what are those challenges and how does Epsilon help?
2) The London Internet Exchange has proven important in building a vibrant and competitive ISP market in the UK. Is the success of Internet Exchanges being repeated across Asia? SGIX is well known, but outside Singapore are the incumbent still in control?
3) Who are the customers of INFINY? Is it mainly other telcos, or cloud service providers, or multinational corporations?
4) With the rise of UCaaS and other SIP-based communication services SIP trunking has also risen in importance. What’s happening across Asia in SIP trunking? (sorry, I know the answer to this is not short, a few highlights would be great)
Thank you for the questions. Here are my answers.
1) We believe currently south east Asia region has significant challenges for enterprises to interconnect and connect to cloud. For other regions like North Asia, South Asia and Australia & Pacific, there are cloud regions within domestic unlike South East Asia. In South East Asia, most cloud providers have opened up regions in Singapore, some have opened in Malaysia and Indonesia. The majority of the south east Asia countries are under served. Customers have to establish a cross country connection and it is challenging. Epsilon has build up the network infrastructure in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia and extend the coverage through our partner eco-system. We are able to provide one stop shop to our customers and ensure the service experience. With Infiny, we can automate some services ordering and provisioning via API. This helps customer to enjoy an easier and accessible telecom service.
2) In Asia, Internet exchange ecosystem is less developed compare to Europe and Americas but it is growing rapidly. Majority of new Internet users are from Asia, like south Asia, south east Asia and Greater China. The surge in local and global Internet traffic in the region has accelerated the Internet community to adopt a better model of interconnecting. Peering is usually a more direct and inexpensive connection method compare to Transit. And Internet exchange points helps to simplify the peering for ISP, CDN and content providers. There are many well established IXPs in the region, some are local in the region such as KINX in Korea, SGIX in Singapore and HKIX in Hong Kong and some are from other regions like AMS-IX in Hong Kong.
3) Infiny customers mainly from three segments, carriers, channel partners and enterprise users. We have local telcos, DC provider, managed service providers, PaaS and SaaS companies and multi-national corporations.
4) The answer is not short indeed. 🙂
– According to the latest market study on “SIP Trunking Forecast to 2021-Covid 19 Impact and Global Analysis by Deployment Type, Enterprise Size, and End-user,” the market was valued at US$13.44 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach US$30.22 billion by 2021; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.8% from 2022 to 2027.
– China, the world’s second-largest economy is forecast to reach a projected market size of US2.6 billion by the year 2027 trailing a CAG of 8.7% over the analysis period 2020 to 2027. Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan, each forecast to grow at 8.6% over the 2020 – 2027 period.
– The market in the Asia Pacific is expected to witness growth with the most lucrative CAGR in the coming future, owing to the rising inclination of companies toward the technology, the presence of high potential growth prospects in the region for the SIP trunking services market due to large population coupled with rising penetration of the mobile phones in the region.
– The growth of the wireless communications infrastructure is surging the demand for SIP trunking services due to their cost-efficiency. SIP trunking is continuously supporting voice & video communications over the internet. Thus, companies are broadly using such solutions for high business performance.
– The telecommunication industry is growing at a faster rate in the Asia Pacific region and others with the advent of 5G network. Major contributors for the growth are China, Korea, Japan, India among others are these countries are strongly adopting digital technologies
– Internet service providers and users are growing at an exponential growth rate due to the supporting infrastructural growth and demand from the market. Internet traffic, specifically voice, is increased at a significant rate with the rise in international voice calling from retailers, businesses, and personal customers. Telecom operators are adhered to provide high-quality service for the customers to sustain and grow in a competitive market. Carrier service providers consistently monitor the traffic to assure the highest quality of IP-based voice calling services. Growing demand for low-cost solutions from small and medium businesses has highlighted the importance of hosted SIP trunking solution deployment in the market.
– The reduced TCO, rising adoption of cloud and UC and ease of integration with PBX systems are the factors driving the growth of the SIP trunking services market. Security and privacy concerns and increasing concerns over QoS are the factors restraining the growth of the SIP trunking services market.
Thank you for organizing the session.