Enhancing the Service Provider Supply Chain

It was a great opportunity to get a sense of a large service provider’s strategy and to talk with the people responsible for Bell Canada’s transition “from telco to techco.”

So, we discussed software focus, disaggregation, network collapse (layers 1-3), and all those typical discussions I typically have with operators around the world. But there was one discussion that made me realize an important benefit of moving to a unified, disaggregated, software-based infrastructure. This conversation was not with the technology group, nor was it with the operations people – it was with the supply chain experts!

Disaggregated Distributed Chassis (DDC) uses common hardware

The concept of disaggregation, in general, and of Disaggregated Distributed Chassis (DDC), specifically, involves many pillars, elements and benefits. One key element is the use of common hardware for different network functions and required scale.

The basic building block of any network element, in such an environment, is a 2 rack-unit (2U) box. This box can work as a standalone box (for small sites, towards the edges of the network) or can grow, in a cluster formation, to nodes of 100s of Tbps capacity. This means that whether you build an edge site (with just a few 100Gbps or 400Gbps required interfaces), an aggregation or peering site (with 10s of Tbps required capacity), or a core site (with many 100s of Tbps in capacity), your hardware building block remains the same. This 2U box is common to any site, with any functionality and in any size.

This is a bit simplistic, because you have different boxes for packet forwarding and for fabric functionality. You also have a few options for white boxes coming from different original design manufacturers (ODMs) with different port fanout. But the bottom line remains that, in a typical scenario, across your entire network, you end up with very few box-level stock keeping units (SKUs).

Service provider supply is complicated

And this is the story (well, a shorter version of it) we were discussing with the group from the supply chain office. When they heard this story, their eyes lit up.

Supply chain is a complicated business. Very complicated. This is mainly because of the huge numbers of balls in the air, at any given time. Making sure each of them falls at the right time in the right place is a kind of art. The thing is, those balls are actually SKUs that can be in flight, at sea, in the warehouse, on a truck, on site, in the factory, at customs, or, in some cases, missing in action.

Reducing the number of SKUs exponentially reduces the complexity of supply chain work. Today, the number of different types of networking elements is enormous! Even if you are sourcing networking equipment from a single vendor (which is not done typically), there lots and lots of types of boxes, cards, cables, accessories and so on.

DDC makes the service provider supply chain a reality

If you change the way you build your network and adopt DDC, you can accommodate any network function at any size with the same white box building block, as already mentioned. Then, on top of that, you can collapse an optical layer (i.e., transponders) into the same box. The achieved significant reduction in the number of SKUs which leads to easier planning, spare and RMA stock management and sourcing management, is, practically, the dream of any supply chain expert.

Now, this supply chain dream has become a reality, with DDC.

FAQ for network supply chain

• What is one key element of disaggregation?
  It is the use of common hardware for different network functions and required scale.
• What is the size of the rack?
  It is a 2 rack-unit (2U) box. This 2U box is common to any site, with any functionality and in any size.
• What is a way of reducing complexity of the supply chain work?
  Reducing the number of stock keeping units (SKUs) exponentially reduces the complexity of supply chain work.

Related resources for network supply chain

• Why Service Providers Are Rethinking Network Architecture
• Service Provider Software Updates: To Update or Not
• Network Disaggregation Shifts the Balance of Power to Service Providers