Evolving
Network
Security
resilience
Peter Cochrane & Mohamed Abdel-Maguid
www.petercochrane.com

A TESTING TIME
People, Organisations, Networks
Everyone, every industry, sector and
society is being stressed by this silent
killer spreading by mechanisms we
have yet to fully understand
A bigger global change
agent than war ?
“ITC & global networks are being
stretched to, and beyond, the limit, and
have become core to the support of
healthcare, education, and every aspect
of society including economic recovery”

“We are looking at the survival of the most adaptable”
Charles Darwin
What he might say if he were here

cataclYsm(S)
No way back to Q1 2020 ?
In general we have all the capacity
and capabilities that a society could
ever need now in the wrong place
with some almost abandoned

A TESTING TIME
People, Organisations, Networks

A TESTING TIME
People, Organisations, Networks
Almost everything has changed and
the ‘New Normal’ has yet to emerge
- but it will be one that makes new
demands on networks of all kinds!
Home working++
Video conferencing++
Business virtualisation++
New production/distribution chains++
Reduced travel
On-line anywhere services
New economies/business models
Improved work model/productivity
Greater efficiencies and far less waste

B I N A R Y C H A N G E
W i n o r L o s e a n d n o g r e y a r e a s !
SLO
W
D
O
W
N
Downloads +Downloads -
Active Users -
Active Users +
EX
PLO
SIO
N

B I N A R Y C H A N G E
W i n o r L o s e a n d n o g r e y a r e a s !
SLO
W
D
O
W
N
Downloads +Downloads -
Active Users -
Active Users +
EX
PLO
SIO
N
Some sector changes may be permanent
or experience very limited or protracted
recovery over several years…
ITC and networks are
certainly going to see more
demands along with very
different traffic patterns
and user behaviours

i n s ta n t G r o w t h
Demand pushing networks to the limit
Video Conferencing
has one clear winner
and it happened in
less than a month!

i n s ta n t G r o w t h
Demand pushing networks to the limit
Video Conferencing
has one clear winner
and it happened in
less than a month!
The right product and service at the
right time with the needed facilities in
advance of the rest of the market …and
all by chance ’timing/luck is everything’

N e t w o r k C r u N c h
N e w a n d n e v e r s e e n b e f o r e d e m a n d s
Clustering transforms to Dispersion
Working ‘on-campus’ and ‘in-office’ goes-to working from home
Networks
Vast amounts of congested core goes-to congested/inadequate periphery
Mobile
Dense city cell concentrations coping well goes-to spread rural cells overloading
Realisation
It is time to review and reconsider how we design networks for a new and more
uncertain age/environment where almost anything might happen, and most
likely, the potential mutations will be endless

% Path
Fails0 100
100
0
% %
Net
Connectivity
N E T F a i l S
G r a c e f u l & n o t a b r u p t !

More To Come ?
CV-19 The first of many perhaps!
The chances are that this event is not
an isolated happening and societies
should not focus on short-term
patches & fixes
“We need to rethink and redesign
networks on the basis of the disruption
experienced and the assumption that there
may be more, and perhaps different, yet to come”

k n o w l e d g e
What we now know for sure
Networks
What we have today falls short of new customer/user demands
Demand
Continues to evolve and significantly change shape
Security
Both connectivity and cyber risk now reside at the network periphery
Habits
Individuals, organisations, devices, networks, and services see new modes
Solutions
Network & adaptability-flexibility via over provision/intelligent control (AI) are core

H y p o t h e s i s
O u r n e t w o r k s h a v e t o ‘ l i v e ’ i n
o rd e r t o a d a p t t o c o n t i n u a l c h a n g e
Resilience
The ability to recover from disruption or a failure
Efficiency
An indirect measure of wasted resources
Resilience and Efficiency are not wholly related in
a detrimental manner, but focusing entirely on one
will negatively impact on the other
Two critical parameters are now ‘prime’ in the
networks that live equation:

S E G U A E
M o t h e r N a t u r e
Mother Nature gives us a few design clues!
“She never creates complex centrally controlled systems -
resilience is achieved by dispersed and highly disposable
entities acting independently…individual and behaviours
are defined but community outcomes are not - they
emerge”

Blind SY STEMS DE SIGN
N o g e n e r a l t h e o r y o f E f f i c i e n c y - R e s i l i e n c e

Blind SY STEMS DE SIGN
N o g e n e r a l t h e o r y o f E f f i c i e n c y - R e s i l i e n c e
Most natural: physical: biological: life
systems exist on the edge of ‘strange
attractors’ - on a precarious knife edge
between life and death, stability and chaos,
success and failure…and that is where our
engineering designs may be headed…

E f f i c i e n c y v F a i l s
Serv ice life from ye ars, hours, min s to seconds
High efficiency/performance
sees reduced reliability,
resilience, safety, and higher
costs

E f f i c i e n c y
Re l i a b i l i t y a n d Re s i l i e n c e
Low efficiency/performance sees
greater reliability, resilience,
safety, and far lower costs

EU-US-CANADA
O p t i c a l F i b r e C a b l e s 2 0 1 9

EU-US-CANADA
O p t i c a l F i b r e C a b l e s 2 0 1 9
Physically diverse, optics and electronics
affords inherent security + links have
designed-in adaptive/diverse routing
By and large this infrastructure is so hard to
attack it is free of the threat, but that does
not mean it is 100% safe and secure

D I V E R S I T Y
M u l t i - O p e r a t o r C a b l e s
F i b r e s , R o u t e s , S e r v i c e s
R i n g s o n l a n d & a t s e a

THE NET CORE
By far the most secure sector
NationalRegional
Network/
International
Network/
Cloud
National/Regional
Network/
Cloud
Local Loop
Last Mile

THE NET CORE
By far the most secure sector
NationalRegional
Network/
International
Network/
Cloud
National/Regional
Network/
Cloud
Local Loop
Last Mile
Resilience
Reliability
Network
Failures

THE NET CORE
By far the most secure sector
NationalRegional
Network/
International
Network/
Cloud
National/Regional
Network/
Cloud
Local Loop
Last Mile
Resilience
Reliability
Network
Failures
Path and routing diversity the
norm with physical, virtual and
service provision rings the norm

LAST MILE
N o r i n g s p o s s i b l e ?

WiFi, 4,5,(6?)G to the rescue
P r o v i d i n g t e m p o r a r y / i n s t a n t c a b l e b r e a k b r i d g e s ?
C e n t r a l
O f f i c e
H u b
D u c t
Tr a c k
F i b r e D r o p s

WiFi, 4,5,(6?)G to the rescue
P r o v i d i n g t e m p o r a r y / i n s t a n t c a b l e b r e a k b r i d g e s ?
C e n t r a l
O f f i c e
H u b
D u c t
Tr a c k
F i b r e D r o p s

WiFi, 4,5,(6?)G to the rescue
P r o v i d i n g t e m p o r a r y / i n s t a n t c a b l e b r e a k b r i d g e s ?
C e n t r a l
O f f i c e
H u b
D u c t
Tr a c k
F i b r e D r o p s
I n s t a n t m e s h a n b u i l t
i n f e a t u r e o f 6 G a n d
a n A p p f o r 5 G & W i F i

4 & 5G to the rescue
P r o v i d i n g t e m p o r a r y c a b l e b r e a k b r i d g e
C e n t r a l
O f f i c e
H u b
D u c t
Tr a c k
I n s t a n t 4 G a n d 5 G f a l l
b a c k f o r m o r e s p a c e d
o r i s o l a t e d h o u s i n g
C e n t r a l
O f f i c e
H u b

The MYTH 0f 99.99 9%
T h i s a n d o t h e r t a r g e t s a r e h a r d t o a t t a i n
5 x 9s was the standard up-
time of electro mechanical
telephone exchanges
It was never intended or
used for other aspects of
telephone nets including
short, medium & long lines
up-times
This demanded vast battery
banks plus generators with
c i rc u i t d i ve r s i t y a n d h o t
standby equipments

The MYTH 0f 99.99 9%
T h i s a n d o t h e r t a r g e t s a r e h a r d t o a t t a i n
5 x 9s was the standard up-
time of electro mechanical
telephone exchanges
It was never intended or
used for other aspects of
telephone nets including
short, medium & long lines
up-times
This demanded vast battery
banks plus generators with
c i rc u i t d i ve r s i t y a n d h o t
standby equipments
Today we have migrated
this 99.999% target to full
end-to-end connectivity and
the supported services on a
global scale….this is not an
easily achieved target!
CV-19 has revealed several
weaknesses in our designs -
especially in the local loop/
last mile

t h e m o d e r n v e r s i o n
M i n i m a l t o M a x i m a l S e c u r i t y
S e c u r e E n t r y S i t e & B u i l d i n g
D u p l i c a t e d /
T r i p l i c a t e d
P o w e r / F i b r e
B r e a k F r e e
P o w e r w i t h
B a t t e r i e s
G e n e r a t o r s
2 / 3 U t i l i t i e s
S u p p l y S i t e
5 0 k m f r o m
a n y A i r p o r t

0.001
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
1,000
10,000
100,000
1,000,000
1 10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000
MTBF - hours
MTTR - seconds
99.999%
99.99%
99.9%
99%
90%
0.1
1 year 10 years1 month
1 week
1 day
1 minute
1 hour
1 day
Availability
MTBF = 11.4 years
1 second
T h e c h a l l e n g e
M a d e e a s i e r b y p a c ke t s w i t c h i n g !

New N orm?
M o r e a d a p t a b i l i t y !
We have to rethink ‘the last
mile’ and the fibre-wireless
dependency and relationship
Greater resilience & better
QoS are key to supporting
future industry and society
L e s s t r a v e l
F e w e r c l u s t e r s
G r o w i n g d i s p e r s i o n
M o r e h o m e w o r k i n g
F a s t e r p a c e d c h a n g e
M o r e :
F i b r e
W i r e l e s s
D e m a n d s
R e s i l i e n c e
F l e x i b i l i t y
I n n o v a t i o n
N e t T r a f f i c
C h a l l e n g e s

Things that Think want to Link
and
Things that Link want to Think
T h a n k Y o u
www.petercochrane.com
https://www.slideshare.net/PeterCochrane