More modest alternative to Oracles New 32Tb Database Appliance

I was following Oracles OpenWorld event this week and one of the things that caught my eye/ear was the launch of the new Oracle Database Appliance that is reckoned to run a 100x faster than anything seen before; delivering what Larry Ellison called  'ungodly speeds,' processing 'billions of columns per second.' though with prices ranging between $3.8 and $9.6m you had better have some deep, deep  pockets.

This resonated with me because here at BackChannel we use MySQL and recently we got to the point where our 'Big Data' needs got so big that we were just not able to process reports at an acceptable speed - you can only go off and make a coffee so many times in the day before you need blood pressure medication.

So with health insurance premiums in mind we approached our sister companies HPC team to design a "Big Data" platform and whilst it doesn;t have the multi-terrabyte capabilities of the new Oracle M5, the staggering performance we are getting from the VMCo designed system with 64 cores, Gbyte SSDs and 512Gb of RAM specifically designed and tuned for our application has delivered what appears to us to be pretty ungodly performance for less than $50k...

So, if you'd be interested in something similar for your business let me know and I'll put you in contact with their design team.

Another Mediterranean cable cut disrupts Internet Traffic

Good post regarding the current outage of the SeaMeWe-4 submarine cable, from our friends over at Telegeography - purveyors of fine mapping, graphics, data, etc.
The Middle Easts overworked networks rely on just one major connection to the Web – an underwater cable known as “Sea-ME-We 4” that runs from Europe to the UAE and was last week accidentally severed in the Mediterranean Sea.

The damaged cable carries the majority of the regions internet traffic today but according to Stephan Beckert Director of Research at Telegeography this will drop to around 40% by the end of 2010 as more capacity comes on line.

Rackspace Customers in Bristol

We have been improving the mapping in our Market Intelligence product. Here's a screenshot showing a selection of Rackspace customers in the Gloucester area.
In the software you can drill down and see details on both the customer and the services they buy.

Don;t pay for 0870 to contact Government helplines: Robbed by the DVLA

I've come over all Martin Lewis today! I've just spent £3.50 on a 20 second conversation with the DVLA, @49p/min.

I wasn't aware that public service help lines had become a government profit centre; but apparently they are.

According to Hansard: The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has received the following amounts from its use of revenue sharing phone numbers for each of the last five years.

		£
2007-08		3,381,649
2006-07		2,894,284
2005-06		2,423,517
2004-05		1,945,131
2003-04		874,965

What a great scam! Apparently premium rate numbers were introduced in 1999 to "Not there to raise money but to flatten out discrepancies in the amount paid to call Swansea from different parts of the UK"

Well as a reader of On the BackChannel I'd like to introduce you to SayNoto0870 and if you ever need to phone DVLA here is the number you should call to get around the rip off 01792 782341.

Wall Street Crash: Upcoming Telco Chaos

With the sudden and forced mergers of some of the worlds largest financial institutions, Telco and ISP major accounts teams will be preparing themselves for several months of travel, client meetings and late nights as they try to make sense of their position in the combined entities.

As overnight bags are stuffed and expense forms dusted off; here are some highlights of the fun to come.

Lloyds TSB has strong links to both C&W and BT.However, the major accounts team at C&W will be less than pleased to find that BT's position has been enhanced by virtue of BT being IP Services provider of choice at HBOS.
On the voice & legacy data side, things are likely to be more complicated, as with 3yrs still to run on Lloyds $1Bn outsource agreement with IBM, you can be sure that the IBM account team will be lobbying hard to get access to HBOS' branch network; currently supplied by "...strategic partner, BT"

New Heatmap feature shows installed services

Following customer feedback we have added a new Heatmap feature to the BackChannel Account Manager. This makes it possible to see not just where your customers offices are located, but where they have services installed.


This screen shot from within the application shows where HBOS have their primary IP services installed.

That C&W takeover of THUS Telecom people are talking about

As the 30th June deadline looms and THUS Management remain coy about their plans, we take a look at how a combined CW/THUS entity would address the IP services market in the UK.
In this graph we see the customers of each player by turnover. The first thing that strikes you is that where CW is weaker than the market average (0 on the 'Y' axis), THUS is stronger and vice-versa. A combined entity would have a significant increase in market strength across the whole business IP services market.

CWs undeniable success in controlling costs, reducing unplanned churn, and bringing its customer base back to those it finds most profitable to serve; has led to a fall in its 'overall' market strength. It's position in the profitable £2m-£20m Turnover bracket is particularly effected, see below.
For CW being able to leverage THUS' position amongst this group could quickly address the concerns that some analysts recently expressed that CW has pulled back too far, too fast.

Given that unlike India, Big Vision in UK Telco sadly took a pasting in the 2001 crash, What is the Pluthero vision that is big enough to accommodate the acquisition of THUS?

THUS is a strong company, has a lot of potentially profitable customers, a UK wide NextGen powered network, and growing reputation for delivering value to customers & shareholders. CW, is a global brand, has a focus on increasing profit per customer, and access to a global network which makes them increasingly attractive to multinationals transitioning from legacy to all IP NextGen services.

My opinion is that both companies are growing in strength and left to it would thrive independently; together the potential is extraordinary.

Where is the next VANCO

In May 2008 respected stock watchers The Motley Fool rated Savvis as the worst stock in the world like Vanco they offer VNO services and boy have they had a rough year.

I thought it was a little harsh; at least they have some of their own network real estate. But we're already pulling reports off our systems on Savvis' customers, alongside those of VANCO, so watch this space.

Overall, we think 2008 will be a difficult time for VNOs large and small, they are effectively margin traders, and the big network providers seem pretty hostile to them just as their customers are putting the elbow on them to keep their prices down.

Many of the larger players have started offering VNO style services themselves and I am picking up quite a lot of undisguised glee from the bigger ISPs.

New Corporate ISP League Table for 2008

Our New Corporate ISP League Table for 2008, can be picked up free from our here.

This is our January 2008 baseline. It shows you exactly where the UKs largest companies sourced their Internet Services on the 20th of January, 2008.

Your chance to catch up with BT's ongoing battle with Verizon for the top slot. The new league table has been widened to include the Internet services of the companies that make up the "FTSE All Shares Index", including BAe, Tesco and Tomkins.

The big news is, that as the Internet services market suffer it's heaviest downturn since the Tech' Crash, UK based service providers are once again struggling to compete with their US counterparts.

Register when you pick up the league tables and we will send you the figures as soon as we have them.

Julius Baer backs down over Wikileaks

A good day for free speech as Bank Julius Baer (BJB) decides not to pursue further action against the whistle blower site Wikileaks. If you recall they won an injunction in February to close the site down, that caused a mixture of concern about restrictions to freedom of speech and high entertainment over the inept methods of both Bank Julius Baer and the California courts to get the information off of the web.

But we shouldn't be too pleased, the law found in BJB's favour. BJB, has decided not to proceed because of the negative publicity the exclusive Swiss financial management company has received from the story. It has been posted on thousands of blogs and news feeds around the world, reaching in turn 100's of thousands of people who had never heard of either party - a sort disastrous viral anti-marketing!

CW: PanAm or VirginAtlantic

This weeks analyst call was a toughie for CWs pilgrim and his team of Energisers. I just watched webcast; skip the bit about the Caribbean, it's all phone minutes.

Times Online reported one analyst saying: “Their plans are far too long term for this market. They need a quicker fix than this.” Mate! Go find something else to analyse! If you haven't worked out that there is no quick fix for telco, you're' in the wrong job.

It's not a CW specific problem; it is the same for all the Telco's: After 100yrs of selling voice minutes somebody invented the Internet, and that's having the same effect that airliners had on oceanliners. Massive increase in traffic, loads of competition, and a huge drop in revenues per head as customer choice expands.

In todays financial markets this is a recipe for volatility, and volatility = risk. SO, vicious circle; everyone's risk averse, so everyone's looking for the quick fix, and there isn;t one. The answer for the service providers is to sell core services, to valuable customers over their own networks, and, once they have those customers keep them. Not so simple as it sounds.

After years of volatility, crashing stock prices and stranded passengers; the airline industry introduced Revenue Management in the '80's. They filled their planes with the customers who provided the best economic return. First class, business, early bookers, flexi-tickets, block bookers, loyalty card holders, late bookers all became categories that were given quota's, and managed using sophisticated booking models. They didn't invent anything, or come up with fabulous new killer services! They just provided a core service and managed their customers more effectively.

Telco's must do what the airlines did, introduce Revenue Management and fill their networks with valuable customers. It was realising this fact about 4 years ago that caused us to give up the day job and start BackChannel.

So, CW, PanAm or Virgin Atlantic? Personally, left to it's own devices I think CW has the potential to become a truly global telecoms provider; they have the network, the services, the contacts and the mindset to do the job. Question is; Do they have the time?

BackChannel has new products and a new website

Just a quick note to say thanks very much to those of you who were able to provide feedback on the new BackChannel website it was valuable, valid and consistent.

So, we learnt a lot and made some changes. Thanks to one particular mega value reviewer for his excellent critical analysis - " you really know how to mangle a metaphor !?" Regular readers will also have spotted I can't spell ether.

The release of the new product is driving this change, beta trials at number of carriers have been completed and initial feed back is that it both saves a great deal of the sales peoples time in gathering customer intelligence and reveals a lot of otherwise un-knowable detail on the use of IP Services by large organisations and within Fiber served buildings.

We will of course be continuing with our regular free reporting and market intelligence services: when you're monitoring nearly a million companies you learn some interesting stuff.

Google take stake in Unity TransPacific Fibre

Google has taken a stake in the Unity TransPacific super fibre linking the US Westcoast to Japan.

This is the Google that purchased a 270,000sq ft interconnect facility in New York in 2005. The Google that has a division engaged in acquiring dark national, international and metro-fiber. Is investing heavily in consumer WiMax, a mobile phone platform, mobile applications, oh and spectrum

Still think Google is a search engine and advertising company? Read on...

In 2006 Google was recognised by the American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN) as an ISP, when it was granted a large allocation of IPv6 addresses.

At the time of the allocation ARIN's director of external relations , Richard Jimmerson, said. "Any organization that has received (IPv6 addresses) has met that criteria -- and that would include Google,"

Note: IP v6 will enable the Internet address space to several trillion, trilion addresses, more than enough to absorb the current 4 billion IPv4 Internet addresses several times over. They must be planning an awfully big grid network, or is there more to it than meets the eye?

Nervous now? Get in line behind Microsoft; a queue is forming.

UK ISPs to face legal sanction's over downloads

The British government has given ISPs till April '09 to "get on board or face legal sanctions".

The moves follow similar legislation in France due to come into force this summer.

The Media folks will identify the file down-loader by joining BitTorrent storms, then pass lists of offenders to the ISPs and then require them to identify repeat offenders and cut them off from the Internet, probably by invoking breach of contract.

As Tiscali found - If it goes wrong, (surely not) you're on your own.

Judge in WikiLeaks driven Dyna"dotty" as archives go P2P

The Wikileaks train now seems unstoppable. As due to massive pressure on their remaining servers the Whistle Blower has posted it's archives on a number of P2P sites including the notorious Piratebay.

Some good comment over on El Reg regards the Julius Baer/Dynadot/Wikileaks debacle, which shows that the judiciary have no clear understanding of how the Internet works, or even that its geography extends beyond the bounds of their jurisdiction.

Being a working guy, and unlikely ever to need their services, I had hardly heard of Julius Baer and their spat with Wikileaks. If you want to know more about the "due process" take a look at Cryptome it has chapter and verse including all the legal two'ing and fro'ing


This is the kind of viral marketing JB could do without.

ISP Executives in firing line as Governments move on online privacy

Senior Executives within ISPs will be calling in the lawyers this week.

Why? well it's been an interesting week for on-line privacy, freedom of speech and data protection; with the ISPs being moved firmly centre stage again.

In the UK, the Labour government has presented a Green Paper that will coerce ISPs to monitor their customers Internet traffic for illicit content. Recidivists will have their connection cut off, and to stop them doing it again, their names could be entered into a central database of law breakers, to be circulated to other ISPs, government agencies and potentially even to the owners of the content.

In the USA, the Protect America Act has been passed allowing the NSA to filter the day to day emails and web content of both Foreign and US Citizens, in the ongoing search for Al Queda.

Finally, Tiny Californian ISP Dynadot which hosts whistle blower site Wikileaks was forced to hand over the site, contents, supporting literature and all log data to the courts.

So what is the potential fall out for the service providers?

The US government has stated that ISPs who voluntarily co-operate will be protected from litigation by their customers. But we know from experience that won't stop the lawyers having a bash at a few multi-billion$ class actions.

The UK Government has also promised protection for the ISPs. But refusal by the media industry to indemnify the likes of Tiscali against costs involved in fighting prosecution, has already caused that company's attempt to implement the "three strikes" proposal to collapse in disarray. As the process is equivalent to asking the postal service to open and vet every package and letter in the system, there is surely plenty of scope for litigation.

Even after the legislation I foresee many IT Illiterate parents carted away as their kids continued to download music without their knowledge, as well as the media industry choosing to pursue teenagers for individual criminal actions.

It's just a matter of time before ISPs find themselves under siege from the lawyers of those prevented from accessing the Public Internet, email and possibly even phone services, or for abetting the media companies in malicious prosecutions.

Dynaspot shows that ISPs will increasingly being held accountable for the content and themes of web sites that they host, and the authorities will support action against them.

So why should the Senior Executives worry; well there is currently little protection in law that will protect them from irate customer. Reviewing the 2002 Electronic Communications Act (figleaf) passed to protect ISPs who remove content from customers websites.

The Dynaspot case is the final proof that if ISPs don't co-operate they will face court action, heavy fines and even jail.

Oh you're outside the US / UK! "Don't get comfortable folks" - the gaming industry thought they were safe until their CEOs started finding themselves held in US jails for wire fraud and racketeering.

Those ISPs in hosting havens like Finland and Norway should bare in mind that a US arrest warrant cost Swedish Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom $100m, he can afford it, but can you!

Managed Hosted Service in USA: Comparitive strength of vendor

As part of a wider survey of the use of Internet services by over 500,000 organisations in the USA we surveyed the Messagelabs/Postini/MS Frontbridge market for Managed AntiSPAM - AntiVirus services.

Courtesy of our friends at ManyEyes (IBMs visualisation business) Here is something for you play with; just click on the charts title.



The Control is the normal distribution of organisations by state.

Pipex Business to lose prime asset - It's name!

Tiscali's acquisition of the Pipex Broadband last year, has had an interesting knock on. It appears that as part of the deal Tiscali acquired the PIPEX brand; so the business end of the operation has got to change it's name. The new name for PIPEX Business is apparently Vialtus .

It's been a long journey for the PIPEX name, since the Monday morning in 1991 when the original founder, Peter Dawe, bounced into my office and said "hey Steve; Public IP Exchange - PIPEX, what do you reckon?!" I doubt it mattered what I thought, but he was clearly excited. For weeks he had been struggling to find a really "meaningful and pointy" name for the UKs first commercial Internet services provider.

Despite many changes of hands, PIPEX has remained a benchmark of the UK internet scene; justifiably known for it's quality products, support and services ethos. Pipex continued to grow business customers even as it became better known for its consumer offerings.

Losing such an established brand identity is a big issue for any business. But for an established ISP, ouch!! Ofcom reference over 500 ISPs in the UK; even when you take out those who are just reselling other peoples services, it's still over 170 competitors servicing UK business.

The market is overcrowded, economic situation is tightening and competition for corporate customers is now from international players like AT&T, Colt, Verizon and Rackspace. Even with a big bag of money from the sale of the consumer business; it's a brave time to launch a new brand.

So what next, well with the PIPEX name gone we think another power brand is likely to step in and pick up the business; as well as a lot of customers it has some very desirable physical assets.

Cable & Wireless, THUS, and Oakley Capital have all been named as possible suitors. Given their stated strategy of shedding customers, it would be mixed signals to the city from C&W, Oakley would probably want it for "parts", increasingly successful UK operator THUS would seem to make much more sense.

Who knows, BT might even re-enter the fray; our latest research data, published next week, shows it could sorely use a couple of percent more market share in it's ongoing battle for corporate IP customers with US giant Verizon.

Managed Hosted Service in USA

More Visualisation trials: This shows the distribution of sales of a Managed Hosted Service by six service providers. In the drop down you will see companies 1-6 and a Control. Control is the distribution of businesses in the Continental USA.


The sample data are 552,000 US Organisations, excluding Micro-Business. Use the zoom facility it is very cool, hopefully we will get it down to City level on this sort of public interface; In our client systems we are there already and can map down to street/building level.

Visualisations role in data presentation

We are more and more experimenting with visualisation tool kits to find ways of representing the huge data sets we are working with.

Here is a small data set of 203, presented with Many Eyes; part of the IBM visualisation project. It represents a raw count of the IP services consumed in 5 major London office blocks including Tower 42 in Old Broad Street and CityPoint 1 Ropemaker Place.






This was part of a project we undertook earlier in the Year for a company on that list who wanted to take some business off of their competitors.