OREANDA-NEWS. January 28, 2016. Misha Tchernuhin has 28 years of experience in the telecommunications market, working with global enterprises, telecommunications (telecom) vendors and multiple network service providers (NSPs). In his free time, he likes to travel “history-rich” paths, skiing, researching and tasting wines, and following the F1 circuit and major soccer cups.

In this two-part interview, Misha shares his experiences “playing” in the telecom industry and the strategic moves he’s helped customers make in that market.

What are the top challenges you are helping your customers solve today?

I’ve been working with the three verticals: network service providers (NSPs), tier 2 cloud service providers (CSPs) and large multinational enterprises. With tier 2 CSPs, things are less complicated, as many of them follow the model of our tier 1 CSPs on the Equinix Cloud Exchange – Azure, AWS, Google, SoftLayer, Oracle. On the other two fronts, enterprises are increasingly challenged by new business models that require adopting evolving technologies, while NSPs’ challenges mean embracing these technologies and repricing and retooling their enterprise portfolio to stay relevant to the success of their enterprise customers.

Understanding modern solutions gives the enterprise more ways to write a new page in its history. But software-defined wide area networks (SD-WAN), SDN in data centers, hybrid WAN, point-to-point high-speed links, and multi-cloud access often overwhelm an enterprise’s conventional network planning agenda and confuse procurement departments. That is where Global Solutions Architects (GSAs) can help dissect what’s gained by a technology, reveal real benefits, present a solution-oriented strategy, and collaborate on transitional phases. In some cases, the latter stage involves our Nimbo cloud consulting services.

How are you helping your enterprise customers manage rising networking costs?

When we talk to our enterprise customers, we learn, not surprisingly, that a big percentage of their annual budgets are locked into their WAN contracts, typically their NSPs’ MPLS connectivity. SD-WANs promise to significantly cut the costs of transporting data by shifting traffic away from expensive MPLS connections to cheaper ubiquitous broadband. When SD-WAN can be deployed, mostly in hybrid WAN architectures that use a combination of inexpensive public and moderately-priced private point-to-point connections, enterprises become increasingly reluctant to make further long-term MPLS financial outlays.

It’s a gutsy move for many enterprises to depart from something they’ve known for years, while embracing the brand new domain of WAN operations. However, Equinix GSAs are well-equipped to show them transitional steps where hybrid WAN models are less impactful and less painful if the Equinix Performance Hub and selective WAN technologies are combined and securely housed in our IBXs.

How is Equinix helping NSPs through this networking technology evolution?

If one takes an enterprise’s challenges and puts them on the NSPs’ table, it’s a huge wake up call for NSPs ̶ they see the immense importance of staying relevant in the new world order of the digital economy.

I think one frequently executed NSP formula is three-pronged: First, offload sunk costs by selling old data centers and moving into more cost-effective colocations to leverage the economies of scale. Then, if successful, re-invest profits in Network Functions Virtualization/SDN and Optical Transport Networks technologies to lighten up heavy, manually configured MPLS backbones dominated by provider core routers. Finally, retrofit provider edge routers and provisioning systems for agile, multi-cloud access at Layer 2 and 3. The latter uncovers new net revenue NSPs never had or knew how to attain, and Equinix is helping our customers harness that revenue as well.

In the next blog article, Misha discusses Equinix customer use cases that demonstrate innovation and winning strategies using interconnection.