Architecture System, Platform, Software Business Potential Success Analysis

1. CBIR Consulting
Anil Sharma
sharma_anil@yahoo.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anil-sharma-592754/

2. Need for strong focus on good software architecture in software systems based business
Contents
Basic Definitions:................................................................................................................................3
Section 1: Software and systems architecture:..................................................................................3
Academic abilities and experience needs:.....................................................................................3
Envelope skill set needs for architecture work on complex software based systems:.......................5
Knowledge on highlevel architecture, quality/operations, modules/components, subsystems:........6
Knowledge of Modules and Components:.....................................................................................7
Section 2: Potential analysis of software systems based businesses:................................................13
Future leadership “Talent” selection and hiring for software systems based businesses: ...............14
Overall hiring in industry(Internet service business):...................................................................16
Total “P&L” potential of comparable high tech software systems and other businesses: ...............17
Business analysis of an” internet service business”: Major considerations: ...................................19
RESUME:..........................................................................................................................................24

3. Need for strong focus on good software architecture in software systems based business
Those who can’t do teach. But some of these guys even go further and do write as well!!
 Anonymous
While talking about software based products, systems approach to architecture and
business context is paramount in solution development work, especially for those business
products which are highly specialized, scalable and are big sells. Let’s start with some very basic
definitions and set our stage for discussions on software and systems architecture first. Then we
would move our discussion to potential and viability analysis of businesses which are built on
such software enabled products and systems.
Complexity of solutions which address needs of a big and diverse customer base and do
also show global market potential would dictate:
 how they would be priced and sold
 how big the field organization, that helps customers, needs to be
 how big an organization needs to be build around overall product development and delivery
 how distributed the organization has to be
 what needs to be required talent level for the organization for productivity maximization
 benchmarks for business costs management, products’ pricing and profitability
 requirements for comparable P&Ls and industry appropriate operating cost structure
 product knowledge management and product use expertise development
 economics of total product value chain and drivers for industry competition management
 innovation needs for product leadership or even business survivability
Basic Definitions:
Section 1: Software and system architecture
Section 2: Potential analysis of software systems based businesses
Section 1: Software and systems architecture:
Basic Requirements: “The Team” and “The People” i.e. team makeup
Academic abilities and experience needs:
Benchmarking for academics and “work” ability is must for talent selection in developing
fields such as systems or high tech, as a combination of learning ability and work performance
(both??) is needed for good output at work. Once you have running businesses and working
products, need for learning ability along with day to day decision marking and problem solving
subsides and work delivery becomes essential. It is as sort of you have been given pre-defined
job steps that you follow on day to day basis and you have become expert on following them i.e.
job output is good if all the cogs work in good harmony if not perfectly. Talent needs for this
later stage of company’s life is very different and is a self screening process that an employee
would have to go through on each and every day of his “future” work life.

4. Talent selection for initial stages of a company though would need special type of
employee screening processes. A process that would test candidates’ day to day leaning ability,
attitude for constant improvement in output along with quality work and long term planning
ability, would essentially select better employees for companies’ initial entrepreneurial and rapid
growth phase specialized “project jobs”. For later stages of company though you would need
resources which are highly content with steps of given jobs and happy with day to day challenges
at job even if job is now drudgerous. You would have to start staffing your departments with
such “job centric” people from the beginning itself though so that you would have just enough
history and needed experience as is sufficient for smooth functioning of corporate machine. For
technical or business architecture level work, and especially when company is building out its
processes and product portfolios, it would need people who are problem solvers, learners, honest
workers, quick decision makers and collaborators.
Since we are talking about startups staffing here i.e. initial phase hiring, even fresh talent
out of college is good employee pool as experienced people for company’s new technology and
products would be hard to find. Quick learners, creators and collaborators are more import over
just plain “jobs”. Example of one such talent selection process that focuses on persons test
taking skills, learning ability and academic breadth is as follows:
Exam, academic performance and effective “growth phase employee” performance needs:

5. May test folks:
High memory retention ability and consolidated understanding of many years of course
work. Mark sheet is important for this class of folks. Subject matter connectivity would show up
in work. Long term learning and research projects are more suitable for such folks. This ability is
more useful for jobs where high “day to day” work expertise & knowledge level is important.
 Very important skill for SME or architect kind of roles
 Performance orientation and decision making roles
 Need for knowledge at every “instant” of your job and task
 Executive roles, surgeon’s role and know-how roles
 Question-answer roles and on-the spot decision marking roles
 Administrative work, frequent job change and moves roles
 High “n” connectivity roles (i.e. .8n*.8n*. 8n*…. and so on, one term for every “May”)
Examination preparation (“drive”) folks:
Some of them might have low memory retention levels and almost “C” grade level
performance at 60% in their “outside” of routine task (70% being US B grade, 80% US A grade):
 Subject matter “under study” can only be core expertise at “job”, may store more steps.
 “Job or task” oriented work i.e. Marksheet is useless in most cases (Pre-defined steps)
 “Tasks” with sufficient “preparation time” roles
 Good for deadline oriented but easy to do work mostly with “incomplete” knowledge
 Work orientation over “quality delivery every day” or ethical “complete” solution orientation
along with time window need all the time for “quality” delivery
 Non-administrative work, no job change and moves as they are tough
 Delivery oriented work with given calendar and “printed manual of steps” is best fit (because
for risky & challenging work every day, every month and every year of learning “counts”)
Software architecture work that governs the overall process of defining, creating, building and
delivering software with proper business models and quality standards would need diverse set of
skills in employees encompassing the “whole” solution area. As one would have already noticed,
on-the spot thinking, creative aptitude, decision making, multidimensional and multidisciplinary
personality is almost primary need for delivery on such work requirements. (May test?)
Envelope skill set needs for architecture work on complex software based systems:
Top level requirements for software architecture work are outlined in below diagram

6. For core systems, platform and solution architecture role, person has to be a “8x8” person
i.e. a person who is not only good in core subject matter needed for product development such as
software programming and communication engineering but also has very good understanding of
processes, procedures, interactions and interconnect between software subsystems and between
releases and versions. Knowledge about stakeholders, responsible resources and owners is also
important. Macro focus person with good subject matter understanding and effective learning
ability/capability can be equally productive resource as a micro-focus person with good intent
around competiton, quality, business targets and goals etc. But a good “macro” well rounded
technical resource wouldn’t shy away from following proper and standard processes, following
architectural blue prints and keeping good documenation of development structures, modules
interactions and “use” information. Well organized, properly segmented and perfectly engineered
software system product should do well on quality standards and user acceptance tests. In next
section we would discuss some standard divisions of software systems for its better organization.
Knowledge on highlevel architecture, quality/operations, modules/components, subsystems:
Along with high level architecture, focus on quality, organization, user perspective,
proper module design and component division is essential for good well functioning products.
Standard practices and component blueprints for some of these needed system views are:
High level architecture:
Important items to take care in definition of high level architecture are
 Product Requirement Document, Requirement Manager, System Requirement
Spec/Functional Spec, data structures, algorithms, API interaction, box-and-line diagrams
 Design and process (Modules, component and interface relationships), Change Manager
 Testability and debug-ability, implementation and maintenance, ATAM (architecture
change process), Incremental architecture change management
 Reliability, availability, serviceability, maintainability, usability, security, repudiation
and logging etc.
One example design organization is “4+1 Architecture view”
(Source: Internet)

7. Process view: User view, OS view (process interaction such as scheduling, communication)
Physical view: Running view (machine view with running system on it; RAM, Processor)
Development view: For software development resources (static organization of code)
Logical view: Architectural view (components, objects, modules)
Knowledge of Modules and Components:
Design and proper information management of modules and components when it comes
to their functional requirements and interactions is equality important. Some of the important
aspects to ponder on and innately consider are:
 Core software function
 Software interfaces
 Third-party, external & internal dependencies
 User interfaces
Some standard software architecture blue-print categories for modules and component design
to reference are (Major Architecture Categories under Computer based systems, Software
systems and Enterprise software services):
a) Client-server architecture (Assisted, Proxy’ied, Load balanced, Virtualized, Scaled )
b) Component-based (Cobra, RPC, COM/DCOM)
c) Data-centric ( Data based, Intelligence, Visualization/Analytics)
d) Application programs (Spreadsheet , Music Player etc)
e) Application framework and add-on configurables (Browser and plug-ins)
f) State management framework with open set of transaction APIs (3rd party?)
g) Embedded Systems (Nano, Micro and Mini-systems)
(Source: Internet)
Highlight of a sample “enterprise” service architecture:
Example diagram of high level enterprise architecture with its components and processes:
CBIR consulting – Engagement Model
 Delivery Relationship: Service Management
• Cloud
• Comm.
• Collab.
• HR
• Ops.
• Finance
• Automat
ion
• Apps
• Physical
safety
• Storage
• Network
• Desktop
• IT
ITSM ESM
BTMBPM

8. Test of architecture’s maturity level on digital transformation
Corporate digital transformation technologies stack is sufficiently deep and enterprise
architectures usually have lots of room for further development for their improved end users use
as shown in diagram below.
Test of architecture’s maturity level on data technologies
Data sophistication of an organization can be mapped on a moving scale of data
technology use as shown below:
These days some companies carry full end to end product portfolio and there is enough
talent available to sell, bundle, implement and use their products that they have power to define
their own architectures around software and computing solutions. Some examples would be
Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Cisco and Oracle. By now Microsoft technologies expertise is so
wide spread and user base so big that it has become a technology school in itself. There are so
many products in portfolio and in-built technologies in those products that new technology
experts can even get their full BS and MS degrees in Microsoft technologies studies themselves.

9. However, there is also plenty of adjacent business available along with solution needs for some
niche, creative and very specialized requirements that need for general purpose computing and
software technologies knowledge is going to be paramount and wouldn’t be economized.
Example “software” system architecture:
Here is an example software based system architecture (Telephony platform),
defined at very high level.
a) High level architecture and core modules
Vertical layering:
Layers in product software organization (project work and organization staffing would
mimic software architecture layers in normal sense)
a) Platform and system resources: Product, Team, Company orientation
b) Tech expertise resources: Engineering/technology orientation, Source of knowledge
c) Support work resources: Quality & support work orientation (bug-fix, code maintenance etc)
d) Customer representation resources: Product use “expertise” orientation, Knowledge
management material needed
e) Delivery, release and ad-hoc effort resources: Operation and job orientation, process people
Horizontal Layering:
a) Core design, OS, Hardware, Technologies, System interface, User interface, Devices,
Electronics, Communications
b) Modules, sub-systems and components, dependencies and APIs, security, regulations, federal
requirement, standards and protocols control bodies, software, circuits
c) User interface, tools use and process know-how
In the example system architecture: vertical layers are separated in three core groups of
system or technical expertise level:

10. Core module sub-systems:
Subsystems can be divided into multiple modules and components. In the example
architecture three high level subsystems (Core, Infra and New Tech) have been divided into
multiple components and modules. Core modules main components are:
a) DSP & Analog/Digital electronics management and software interaction: Electronics, AD-
DA, Voice/Video codec, Voltage/Current Management, Battery tech for telephony
equipment/backup, E911 requirements, communication equipment regulations, multiple devices
connectivity, persistent storage
b) Telephone Control (PBX mode): FXS/FXO/E&M/PRI/BRI/Crypto/Ethernet/WAN/LAN
c) Protocols & Standards (Signaling etc): SCCP, SIP, H323, Q931, ATM, FR, TCP, IP, RTP
d) Call control (Gateway mode): Dial peer database management, pattern matching, security
TLS/SSL/SRTP, AES, DES, MD5, federal requirement, lawful intercept, media routing, CDR
Block diagram of core sub-systems:

11. OS Infra and User Interface sub-system:
“OS” and infra modules main components are:
a) Operating system tweaks/new developments/tuning : Process management, OS internals
management, data management, communication management, service management, performance
management, uptime and upkeep management, install and configuration improvements,
hardware interface management, run-time process space and static-dynamic stacking
management
b) Command line interface/product use interface infra: Telephony information management,
telephony routing management, State monitor and repudiation data management, system
hardware and software configuration and information summary
c) Platform and system management software/interfaces: SNMP, RMON, CMIP, TL1, NetConf,
Yang, Telemetry, Radius, AAA, NAC. Authentication/Certs, Authorization/NAC - CAPF,
Accounting/Secure registration and communication
d) Software release management tooling: Incremental build, Pseudo CI/CD tooling, defect
tracking, release quality documentation and summary note, Life cycle management process,
Automation/regression coverage, metrics and KPI-MTTR/MTTF

12. New software technology and API Sub-systems
New tech modules main components are (last 20 – 25 years of “newer” development)
a) Web Infra (Web server, Web apps, Web configuration, HTTP based device management infra,
Phone apps & apps web interface, HTTP stats collection for infra management tool interface)
b) Voicemail & CTI (SMDS-Analog/Digital PRI-BRI, IP, SIP, SCCP, CTI apps interface)
c) Web Services/Phone Apps: Directory, Calendaring, Soft-key layout, Text,
Internationalization, Localization, Voicemail and email interface over web apps)
d) Software partnerships & 4rd party integration: Third-party guidelines, Integration testing,
TCL interpreter for configurable IVR, 3rd party Voicemail systems, CDR, Reporting, Billing,
Phone config-info/User info interface, Protocols-standards verification and standardization
testing, Debug/logs/test interface, TAPI apps, Image and configuration version management, On-
device files and file system details, Easy configuration interface and licensing for channel partner
relationship management)

13. Software quality and operations
Software operation team’s goals for creation of good software product:
Architecture Goals:
 Quality goal (Test coverage, Results recording, Automation-Regression coverage)
 Maintenance goal (Maintenance index, Help text, Documentation)
 Complexity Goals: Logic in code and IP value of code
 Dimensionality (FPA): Input, Output, Dynamic storage, Static storage, Data interaction
 Use options: Menus, Debugs, Tests/Counters-measures, Outputs, Inputs: User interaction
 Operation and support goals: Compute and algorithm use, Source code interaction,
Control flow and logic i.e. hardware interaction, Open source, Maintenance,
 Product economics goals: Economically “Cheap”, Profitable, Ownership options (buy,
lease, develop (consult?), freeware)?
Economic and social factors:
 Contractual requirements for job/work payments
 Virtual transfer pricing for organization to organization code transfer
 Technical debt
Main engineering measures:
 Size: LOC, LLOC, SLOC, Help text, Knowledge
 Bug tracking and CLOC
 Structured: Make system, Image, Version, Tools, APIs, Libraries, Code reuse
 Complexity: McCabe cyclomatic complexity, Halstead, Maintenance index
Documentation needs:
 Test documentation goals: System test, Solution test, Beta test, Dev test, Automation and
regression test recording, Results reporting and storage requirements
 Release quality measurement and release docs, User and field docs, Online material,
Training material
Section 2: Potential analysis of software systems basedbusinesses:
Apart from good product, good architecture and good market potential, one of the most
important qualification criterion for business’s future potential is its team hierarchy structure.
Well structured team with right organization hierarchy is a critical requirement for long term
functioning of a good successful outfit as business life of good corporate team is not usually 4-5
years but 20, 30 and 40 years. One of the proven strategies that a growing business could use for
staffing is properly laddering and spacing its talent hiring. Teams could be built on many success
factors such as: Good dedication & performance, disciplined teams, high academic caliber, good
sales and marketing talent, sportsmanship. Here is one strategy chart that outlines hierarchy
ladder buildup based on graduation level academic performance as main hiring criterion:

14. Future leadership “Talent” selectionand hiring for software systems based businesses:
Details on talent categories:
1. Decision makers’ ladder:
With advances in modern communication techniques and access to cheap storage along
with compute capability as and when you need it, methods and ways of knowledge use for work
and personal efforts such as decision making, on the spot problem solving, communicating
effectively and with proper reasoning have changed. You don’t have to have lot of information in
your memory because it is available to you on click of a button, the one that you carry with you
all the time. You don’t even have to be an expert in everything because you can consult call for
knowledge you don’t have on the spot. However, still you should have index. What is also as
important as “what?” is “how?” and for that matter more “index” the better!, as you know world
changes around us so fast these days.
There are “n” number of hobbies and almost same number of interesting subjects these
days. Multi-disciplinarity is almost a basic requirement for any field of work. How do you store
so much of information and knowledge in human body though. As you would have noticed and
seen with learning spellings: you start with writing practice when you are still at very low end of
vocabulary range and then you learn spelling difficult words by writing them multiple times over
noticing and remembering abrasions as and when you notice them. With lots and lots of writing
spelling process moves to “hands” of a writer. At some point in your life memory access
wouldn’t allow you to progress further on development of your language vocabulary. At that
point tongue takes over and phonetics is your only choice. Similar to this business and
communication talent selection process, the same very basic principle “practice makes a man
perfect” applies to many more fields of work such as software programming: as more exposure
would get you better expertise.

15. 2. Decision and management support ladder: Sample business and technical
communication ladder setup for highly visible talent in companies:
Techmology reveloution is happening all around us. There are hundards and hundards of
products which help us with learning, knowledge development and information collection. New
technologies have already started impcating our life on day to day basis. Billions and billions of
dollars of revenue is being generation by primary or seconadry products built using new
developments in science, technology, computing, social knowledge etc and number would soon
run ito trillions with current view of whole world’s economic growth at large. In later section on
market potential, we would have examples of “new” world businesses with their aggregate
impact on world economics and overall business environment to put stress on our point.
3. Working managers’ ladder:
Continous project and product flow setups i.e. “idea” factory for sustainable growth
Example Skills: Software system architect or Solution architect: Idea factory: “Engineers”
mind in software architecture: experimentation, research focus, tosing & turing of ideas, product
and interfaces asthetics, all-around view, juggleing ability on multitude of technologies, users
view, aptitude and appetite for risk, chalenges and targets
One good test for talent selection in this category is to test people on their idea generation
capability. Writing test is good benchmarking test. Give a good some topic to write on and check
their output. Here are different categories of folks:
1) 1–2 pages output: Very straight and direct, few thoughts, limited knowledge would show
up, write up would be of question-answer type
2) 5- 10 pages on a topic: 2x2 people at least, idea generation from atleast some expertise and
some life experience
3) Up to 20 pages: Very good writers, multitude of experience, life happened and created
memories, good food for thoughts and ideas needed for good coverage on a topic(4x4
coverage at least)

16. 4) More than 35 pages on a topic: Almost professional writers, lot of idea generation, lot of
life experiences to pick though from varid experience as from multiple walk to put contextual
text (8x8 coverage).
Similar skill would usually be tested in office communication as well for example email
responses and work write-ups.
4. Job “output’ ladder:
“Job” output as primary requirement for right skillset benchmarking and mapping of
talent to “work” employee ladders:
Example skill: Software designers/testers: View towards Product Requirement Document,
Systems Specs etc, Attitude towards calibration of “Job” output, Linear and bookish
programming based on given specifications vs. use of control structures, data structures,
algorithms, languages, command/interface use, scripting and automation of tasks/process work,
preference between tasks such as bug fix or point test vs. technology/architecture/program
management/customer and release support
Test of this category would be to test attitude in general. Quality of management in any
organization can be assessed very easily by benchmarking and testing managers on management
development scale. Right quantification of management talent would shed some good light on
future potential of a company.
Overall hiring in industry (Internet service business):
Job market needle location in internet business segment of high tech industry:
As you would notice that “up-ward mobility” 30% to 50% talent category (i.e. average)
would have better opportunity & success in job search over 80% to 100% top tier talent category
as industry has already moved into plateau state and has not seen any big revolutionary

17. technology kick in last 15 years creating more and more routine work over creative and
challenging projects. As expected, below table would also show you the “hiring” hot zone in
lower end of adder mostly as support employee.
Talent ladders,capabilitylevels& employmentcategories:
Talent Subject Matter
Coverage,
Connectivity
Accuracy
Level
Type of job Responsibility Employee
%age
(Sample)
Top tier
top
95% 95% SME,
Architect
Platform, System 10%
Tier 1
top
85% 85% Designer,
Developer
Modules,Components 15%
Tier 1
bottom
75% 75% Maintenance,
Support
Files, Functions,Bug-fix 20%
Tier 2
top
65% 65% Quality Delivery, Release, Test, Alpha-Beta 25%
Tier 2
bottom
55% 55% Operations Lab support, Sales support,Customer
support chains,Tech shows,
Conferences
30%
Total “P&L” potential of comparable high tech software systems and other businesses:
Market potential:
Some other primary technology product on which you can build $T per annum kind of
“aggregate” industry P&Ls
1. High speed transporation: added ticket value, value of saved time
2. Solar: new energy source, low investment energy generation plant , useful fuel that gets the
work done
3. Telecom, networking and collaboration: added productivity gain(office and personal both)
and value creation out of it, lots of secondary commercialization potential e.g.media delivery,
business processes, government reach etc.
4. Web: Businesses on Web, Web enabled businesses
5. Data science: Value of info, knowledge desamination, increase total social intellectual capital
6. Automation: Skillset drop, more pay for lower ability, Pseudo increase in intelligence of
working employees
7. Internet search: $70B per annum global (20 – 25 years) = up to $2T new tech revenue channel,
3-4 new big fortune 500 companies created on a secondary consumer product
New hiring hot zone

18. 8. “Nano” electronics: implanables, invasive surgery, wearables
Economic potential:
Use of modern communication, compute and controlled process instumentation
technologies:
1) Customer support, IT and tech support (Total global spending/source of revenue for
participents ~US$ 3.4 T) ~ 20% (2018)
Sub sections:
1) Data center (15%) = US $ 510 B
2) Network (10%) = US $340 B
3) Computing (10%) = US$ 340 B
4) Voice Desk (40%) = US$ 1360 B
5) Helpdesk resource (trained and certified) (15%) = US$ 510 B
6) Applications, Tools and Reporting, Consulting, Management (10%) = US$ 340 B
2) Other uses (very rough estimates based on these technologies impact on economic
activities and work load reduction analysis – compute/personal IT, automation, data,
anytime-anywhere): Communication, Control & Computing in
1) Personal communication ( 12%)
2) Research, Education (5%)
3) Entertainment (7%)
4) Science and technology, Healthcare (7%)
5) Data management (15%)
6) Retail (4%)
7) Manufacturing (5%)
8) Transportation (5%)
9) Finance (7%)
10) Infrastructure Development (7%)
11) Government (6%)
Total others 80% = US$ 13.6T/annum
Total potential global revenue opportunity for participents = ~US $ 17 T/annum
(20% of Total ”global” world economic output by dollar (not manual labor)
= ~US$ 83 T/annum 2018 = ~16T)
Geographical Potential: Growth potential countries (big markets): China, India, Brazil etc
Human resource:
General trends: Developing sub-urbs, Urbanization, Rural Management {India
agriculture to urban shift potential 45% ( segment of economy17%) to possibly 15% (segment of
economy 6%)} : India is the only fast developing country at this point that still has such high
urbanization potential. China is already at low levels of rural dependent economy and brazil was
never so much agriculture based economy.

19. Natural resources
Mega projects, Rapid industrialization (can result into exploitation of known resources
and quick depletion)
Urbanization for it’s level of industrialization (India is low and low, while China is high
and high) to the tone of over consumtion for keeping up this faster pace of growth (China??)
India is by it’s culture, personal-will and planning had been very conservative on natural
resource use for faster development and has lots of potential for development using this varibale,
natural resource, just like US if they decide to.
Political and economic leverage:
China’s play had been very different since start of it’s development centric policies. It has
always played as a big “power” and has gained alianation to the brink of isolation multiple times
so far. It has investment in under-onflict and troubled places. This would have resulted into loss
of faith in its partnerships with some peaceful western world countries. India:on the other hand
been a sanguin player in the world so-far, i.e. a global partner, mostly balanced and non-polar in
its relationship approach.
This should create tremendos faith in its partner relations with other countries. It has gone
through “privatization” drive recently and has developed service sector as main focus (like US)
i.e competition parameters would be on price/hour business basis not on govermental provision
of good living conditions and work spaces basis.
Business environment:
Economic drivers over high level ratios and rates were fcoused on during last 30 years of
privatization based growth unlike chinese companies. This would have created businesses with
strong foundations over with overstretched P&Ls. At this point in its develop phase, one would
notice less government overall and that would be true even in under developed and unrequlated
sectors such as healthcare, education, agri, construction and retail. It seems that overall focus in
last 30 years had been that service sector remains more important and main focus area over
naturally growing sectors such as agriculture and small industries.
Overall though, developing countries have participated in recent technology sector driven
growth with full rigor and have good economical infrastructure available for global companies to
use in their processes, research projects, CRM and sales and marketing efforts. India and China
both provide good outsourccing benefits and use of these places for better cost advantage can be
a good move for compaies working in technology sector. Similar analysis for other destination
world help as well.
Business analysis of an” internet service business”: Major considerations:
Internet services business at one time was pure systems play. Devices and equipment
vendors mattered and so did speed, quality and uptime. Now a days though, differences between

20. these service lever attributes and vendor devices and their feature sets are minimal and
differentiation has moved to multiple other parameters of service “product” such as
personalization, portfolio on the door, uniqueness of product bundling in terms of pricing, billing
and access to service details etc.
Technology preposition
The network
Service providers efficiency would depend on how good their underneath network is and
how good are service partners. Here are some good names:
Vendor dependent or multi-vendor choices:
 Full stack vendors (more than 80%): Dell, Google, Cisco, Microsoft, Amazon
 Good eco-system players: Avaya, Juniper, Extreme, Salesforce
Top vendors for underneath network:
 Data center equipment: VMware, Dell, HP
 Network: Cisco, HP, Huawei,
 Telephony: Avaya, Microsoft, Cisco, Mitel
 Application: Broadsoft, Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft, Tableau
 Consulting, Training, Install/Management: Deloitte, Accenture, IBM, Jira, Zendesk,
ServiceNow, Atlassian
Vendor relationships levels and technology help to service providers:
 Services Vendors: IBM, Wipro, Deloitte, Accenture, Infosys
 Hosted: Vonage, RingCentral, Jive, 8x8, Intermedia, Polycom
 Cloud/Shared: Azure, AWS, Google
 Maintenance/3rd party services: Nuance, Verizon
The Product
Product differentiation and portfolio management in internet service provider space is
now major driver when it comes to differentiating your offerings.
Recent advances in type of “offered services”:
 Data and bulk data services: Internet connectivity providers, WAN, SD-WANs, MPLS
 Voice services: Hosted communication, Centrex services, Bulk lines (Voice over telephony)
 Video services: IP Video, Entertainment video, Quality high speed links (optical, MAN)
 Application and cloud services: Stacks (storage, networking, compute, PaaS, IaaS, SaaS)

21.  IT outsourcing or Managed/Delivered Services: Service tiers, Enterprise support,
Outsourced IT
Business preposition
The Brand (Service and support preposition)
Product and service brand differentiation parameters in today’s service providers’ service
product portfolio context:
a) Customer, IT and Tech Support : Golden levels
Businesses spend around US$1.3 trillion on 265 billion customer service calls each year
globally and it is a very big segment of economy already to the tune of approximately 4-5% of
world’s gross product. There is lot of old infrastructure for up-keeping as well along with new
innovations and hence driving creation of differentiation in support services for “support”
business. And there is still big appetite for innovation and new technology in support services
processes. Few new successes which have started gaining popularity are: Chatbot, AI,
Automated answering, Data science, Text-to-speech/Speech-to-text, NLP, Seamless and dynamic
3 channels’ integration “web-email-phone” etc. Cloud by now is very well part of service
support processes and is efficiently and effectively being used in knowledge management, self-
help, emails, SMSes, messaging backups etc.
b) Service sophistication : New models, Dynamic relationship levels, Automation, New
Add-on values
 Advances in customer service levels: High end video and concierge services, Telepresence
 Personal Assistant and AI backend to self-help tools like Siri, Google Now, Cortana etc
 NLP: FAQ, Knowledge bank, Self-service help, Text-to-Speech/Speech-to-text
 Chatbots/instant messaging: Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp, Twitter and many other social
channels
 Integration of Web-Email-Phone seamless and dynamic “switch” capability in customer
support processes (Centralized and consolidated data-stores and multi-channel access)
Technology stack novelty: Visionary or leaders quadrant
a) Cloud technologies: Cloud solution stacks, Dev Ops, Data centers, Automation &
orchestration
b) Business science technologies: Subscriber management, LTV and economic value,
segmentation, bundles
c) Learning technologies: Software defined service provisioning, Billing & packaging
customizations, Service Personalization , Information generation & access
The business drives

22. Competition:
Top competitors are AT&T, Zayo, Verizon, Century link, Deutsche, Sprint, AOL,
Vonage, AWS, Microsoft, GooglevWifi/Fiber, Tata communications, Network solutions, Go
Daddy, Comcast, ViaSat, Spectrum. Intermedia, Shoretel/Mutel hosted UC, Mobilite, Facebook
Terragraph etc.
Technology “S” curve stage:
Industry as such is now very well matured. In last 20 or so years of its existence, there were
few good technological developments such as move to IP from ATM/FR for access and
underneath network in mid 1990 & speed/bandwidth competition in late 1990 which made
industry progress further at very rapid phase. There had been some progress on service delivery
and service support side in mid 2000 but it has created an adjacent industry itself instead of
folding into existing structure.
Support desk is now lot more IP telephony and software centric. Cloud and knowledge
management in late 2000 did create some zeal but overall as such internet service industry’s new
drivers of competition are mostly prices and bundles. There has not been any big new hardware
and devices technology spike in last 15 years or so making it a stable plateau’ing industry as
such. Like other businesses, digital transformation and data technologies’ advances do become
good source of new developments in this business as well.
Price/Cost product bundle (per feature or per use) competition
 Standard offering features: Data and bulk data services, Voice services, Video services,
Application and cloud services, IT outsourcing or Managed/Delivered Services, Mobile,
Mobility
Industry 5 forces dynamics
1) Buyers: Fortune 500, Large Enterprises. Other Service providers, Medium and Small
scale business, Local and Remote offices
2) Suppliers: Bandwidth services, Application services, Voice services. Hosting services,
Equipment and devices vendors, Tools and consulting services
3) Internal rivalry: Mostly stable, Price/Bundle competition, Plateau’ing, No new major
Fad or Novelty
4) Substitutes: Shift from bandwidth/speed, brand to price/portfolio/bundle
5) New entrants: Mostly with differentiated new services (Hosting, cloud, voice/video etc)
Over all state: Mature industry (about 30 years old by now)
Major growth: Early 2000
Technology state: Diversifying and Plateau’ing

23. P&L, operating ratios, working capital management help: Investment banks, Consulting
and restructuring companies, private equity now over industry expert “local” venture capital,
entrepreneurial and investment talent
Recent failures and successes:
Consolidations & Restructurings: AOL – Yahoo – Time Warner. Microsoft – Nokia, Dell –
EMC- VMware-Pivotal. Netflix steaming
“News” around “New”: GoogleFiber/Wifi, Intermedia/RingCentral, ServiceNow, Nuance,
Mobilite. Facebook Terragraph. Workday, Oracle cloud
Some people say that life is very different from what you learn from books. I would ask them
very simple question “From where do the books come?”
 Anonymous

24. RESUME:
OBJECTIVE
Lead for SW/HW/System architecture, Data science/DevOps, Strategy/tech consulting role in tech industry
Quick learner, well rounded knowledge of technologies, strive for excellence, natural leadership, team spirit
SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS
 Over 22 years of experience in software, networking, web and telecom industry(20 product dev. lifecycles)
 Complete tool-chains,cloud solutions,DevOps and analytics,Software/Hardware systems(12 solution lifecycles)
 9+ years of consulting experience; approximately 25 projects in following consulting arrangements: DIT/NSIT –
TRA/CDOT & DRDO, Duet - Cisco, Cornell - Avaya, Avaya - Internal, Ma-foi - Cisco, Wipro - Google
 Program management experience: process and toolset, investment cases, business cases and operations plans
 Cloud solutions: Service delivery architecture & delivery platform; consumption, prici ng & payment models
 Worked with top companies in software & application development, networking system design, hardware bring-
up and testing, corporate strategy, sales deal desk, business consulting and corporate technology
 Solution architecture enablement (channels, deals, trainings, documentation, guides, FAQs, delivery scorecards,
CRM/SRM, dashboard), Self-coded functionality of about 30+ DevOps tools in home-grown toolchains
 Team-lead for large engineering/analytics teams with up to 25 people in soluti ons development, off-shoring,
partner & customer support initiatives in networking software development, business planning and sales
 Software test, dev-test, system test, solution test, customer test, competitive test, benchmark test experience
 Product feature set selection, release planning, beta & customer test, project assignments, requirements mgmt
 Development experience in application, infra, OS, system, web, standards, protocols, algorithms software
 Real time internet traffic, layer 2 & layer 3 circuit and packet transport (FR, ATM, IP, Dial) oriented network
connections establishment & management, virtual private networks, IP voice call control, remote site telephony,
IP voice call conference, IP telephony, IP video content networking, IP video conferencing, secure real-time IP
traffic, secure network admission, secure & optimized datacenter access, WAN acceleration, traffic session
management, optimization & security, multi-protocol and converged routing & switching, managed networks,
advanced network operations, hosted & delivered services through cloud & software defined networking, total
solution ownership/management models, solution delivery & customer support
 Expertise in communication protocols: H323 suite, SIP, MGCP, SCCP, SRTP, SSL/V, TLS, CAPF, FR, ATM, TCP/IP
 Hand on programming expertise in C, C++, TCL, Perl, Shell, HTML/Javascript, PHP/Python, Selenium/C-Python
 User interface design: device, appliance, enterprise/SP applications, M2M, process mgmt, web portal/analytics
 Supported Cisco customer network roll-outs: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Telecom Italia, French Telecom, GE, IBM,
BoA, Enterprise bank, A & F, Fastweb, Stonevoice, Southtrust bank, Smartphone, DoD, Deutsche Telecom
 Partner Management: IBM, Intel, Phoenix, Syncsoft, Wipro, IXIA, Polycom, Octel, Active-voice, Geotel, Selsius
Education from top institutes:
 BS in Electronics and Communication Engineering from DIT/NSIT, Delhi (GPA ~4.0)
 MS in Network Engineering courses at UCSC, CA(Transfer to SCU), MS in Engg. Mgmt (Computer Engineeri ng) from SCU, CA(GPA 4.0)
 Master inBusiness Administrationfrom CornellUniversity, NY(1 year program;GPA TakenCredits 60: ~3.75/ Required Credits 45: ~4.0)
EXPERIENCE DETAILS
Independent work (US): Web analytics, Jupyter notebook, Python, Data science collaborationplatform (01/2018 – ongoing)
Wipro/Google (MV, CA): Consulting Architect, Systems, Solutions & Platform (04/2016 – 11/2017)
 TCL scripts and library development for networking devices/solutions configuration, Tool-set auto install,
Selenium based GUI configuration and device webpage simulation for automation testing, Source code and
configuration stats collection software development, C/Python/JS - Dashboard development for tool scripts
run-portal & log-view etc, weekly status report/test results report format, GIT repository & workflows for
configuration and software image management, Software development/architecture progress reporting/docs
Independent work (India, US): Technology development and analysis (Nov. 2012 – Mar. 2016)
ANIL SHARMA
sharma_anil@yahoo.com, cbir.anil@gmail.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anil-sharma-592754
540, Trents FerryCt, San Jose, CA 95133
M: 408-663-7521, H: 408-834-8567

25. Web analytics development; Software development platform for OS and apps (US)
 Data analytics, data reporting & control system design, Perl, Hadoop, Python, Drupal, Apache, CGIs and PHP
 Operating system development: C, Shell, code restructuring, software build system, GDB, “make” scripting
 Software branching and merging, software revision management, open-source software manager
 Source code management, GIT, continuous development, continuous integration, continuous testing
 OS build process, sub-system hooks, boot process & tool-chain development for operating system
Software development for multimedia communication devices, video & voice (India)
 Hardware and cloud platform software selection and enablement of software on selected hardware/cloud
 Multimedia communication server & device development for cloud enabled service delivery model
Connected education; media portal on cloud (India)
 Education portal, classroom access device software development, device applications, web CMS for students
 Web-site and cloud configuration on AWS (Ran news feed web-site for ~1 year)
Sandvine Networks (Bangalore, India): Sales and Marketing Protocol Analyst (April 2012 – Oct. 2012)
 Internet traffic policy management solution qualification for sales team, strategy, sales & marketing input
management, competitive benchmarking, internet traffic data analysisfor reports, sales and support analysis
 Process management tool-chain for sales and beta sites project management
Ma-foi/Cisco Systems (Bangalore, India): Strategy Consultant (Sept. 2009 – Feb. 2012)
Strategy for "as a Service"/Sevitization solution development efforts under managed services and cloud solutions
initiatives in multiple market verticals & business/technology areas:
 Solutions: Telepresence(as a Service); Smart connected communities (S+CC); Infrastructure management
 HCS: Hosted collaboration solution (communication cloud solution with voice/video and messaging features)
 Collaborative learning (Cisco learning environment enabled education portal): hosted, cloud & web delivery
 Projects: business & solution development, strategy & product planning, competitive analysis, deal support,
project data management and analysis, statistical analysis of business data, investment models, pricing &
costing models, TAM analysis, GTM strategy, voice, video, cloud, ITIL, OSS/BSS & tech support tools solutions
& site enablement, service delivery platform, mathematical modeling of business & project outcomes
Results: Investment in S+CC enabled real estate development ($50M), added unified messaging & call center in
HCS sales model, disinvestment out of education solution($4M/year), TPaaS (projected TAM: $250M in 5 years)
CBIR: Startup (Industry Analysis) (Aug. 2009 – July 2010)
 Worked on data collection, analytics development, model development, investment research
 Web, RSS feeds and content management, publication: http://seekingalpha.com/author/anil-sharma
Avaya Inc. (New Jersey, US): Manager, Strategic Analysis (June 2007 – June 2009)
 Valuation of a portion of Avaya’s legacy maintenance business in a possible “as is” sale (valued at ~$100M)
 Worked on new managed service business offer development & built operations services business unit plan
 Analysis of business for strategic profitability that resulted in several cost cutting projects (impact $30M)
 Channels & accounts strategy,sales pipelinemanagement, sales acceleration (rebates,promotions,incentives,
commissions, deal restructuring, special deals, pre-approved discounts), install base analytics (churn, new
standard contracts, upgrades, add-ons, renewals, cancellations, net new, auto-renewals, attaches), deal
financing support, deal architecture analysis, request for proposal/information, SLAs, quotes
 Worked on profitability improvement scenariosanalysisof supportservices migration to channel partners that
resulted in strong indirect channel push(target P&L size $500M), business cases. asset valuation & deals
 Strategic/transformational projects and analytics & data support for quarterly financial results, PE projects
 Led revenue, cost and workload related analytics work for Bain’s benchmark study on software services and
ITSMA survey on indirectchannels,longrangeplan for maintenance services ($2Bplan),special dealsanalysis
Avaya Inc. –Cornell University (New Jersey, US): Management program project (Oct. 2006 – March 2007)
 Analyzed major cost drivers in product/services business using Activity Based Costing(ABC) and provided
strategy for profitability improvement by tuning/restructuring profit-drivers in product mix/portfolio
Cisco Systems (San Jose, CA): (Employee ID: 33829), Senior Software Engineer (Sept. 2001 – Aug. 2006)
 Designed & developed common software configuration interface for IPv4 and IPv6 packet forwarding in
multithread distributed OS (IOX) for Cisco core routers, worked on code cleanup projects(FIB,RIB,AIB)
 Provided software design for firewall and IDS features integration for new business venture, worked on

26. compute server platform design (UCS) and provided design for secure syslog for ASA security platform
 Worked in product feature set selection, release planning, beta testing, customer test support and project
load and costs assignment along with coordination with hardware, systems test, sales and TAC teams,
design/solution guides, FAQs, RFP/RFI support, downgrades/upgrades, CAPs, competitive and performance
benchmarking, protocols and standards definitions, product bundling and pricing, trainings and conferences
 Developed call transfer & forwarding software features for VoIP gateway, managed 3rd-party phone partners,
video support for IPT portfolio, helped IPT sales team; led internationalization & localization effort
 Designed and developed Cisco Call Manager Express productfeatures related to voice call handling, voicemail
and 3rd-party voicemail system integration, web and XML services for Cisco IP phones, phone registration and
configuration architecture, RAM file system development for configuration files and in-memory data
management for enabling IP Phones and phone applications, DHCP and TFTP server support for IP Phones
Software Engineer (Jan. 1999 – Aug. 2001)
 Led off-shore development center setup activities such as hiring plan, training, project assignments & lab
setup plan in 1999 and helped grow business unit head count in India ODC to 25+ in one year
 Voice Over Network (VON) gateways, Unified Messaging (UM) & Unified Communication(UC), Survivable
Remote Site Telephony (SRST), Cisco Voice Manager (CVM), Cisco Call Manager Express(CCME) and Cisco IP
Phones product development, VoATM, VoFR, FRF.5, FRF.8 and FRF11/12 software features in Cisco IOS
Duet Technologies (San Jose, CA): Member of Technical Staff (client: Cisco) (Nov. 1997 – Jan. 1999)
 Developed Netscape navigator based multi-user web application for software defect trends
 Worked on development and testing of Cisco IOS test and debug commands, Java as platform(platform
independent compilation, licensing, testability, documentation), video telephony, digital media streaming
 Helped hardware and chip design team in qualification testing, DSP and analog/digital cards testing
 Worked on static and dynamic memory test support in IOS, PSQM and conference management testing
 Worked on development and test of Cisco Automation Test Environment and IOS call generator
 Built test automation suite for testing of multi-service access Cisco router features (voice, routing/switching)
Duet Technologies (NOIDA, India): Associate Member of Technical Staff (June 1996 – Nov. 1997)
 ATM Network Emulator (ANE) software development, C/TCL interface development, TCL/TK library code fixes
 C++ lib for telecom/networking, C/Solaris, product demo preparation TCL/TK, ATM standards stack software
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
 14 Cisco Cap awards(8 years), Good performance in ~10 Cisco University courses, ITIL3 & CCIE(voice) written
 US Patent : 7,640,326 : Relaying of Message Waiting Indicator(MWI) to support distributed IP telephony
 Cisco pioneer & RAS award, National Athlete, Sci. fair/Quizzes wins, English Medium Schooling, UPSE/Int-MBA selection
 Top 10 in state 5 times: 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, NDA/IRIMEE selection, NTSE(Social, econ, IQ 160+) written:(700/~1 M)
 School prayer music/band, News Reading, Bharat Scouts, NCC program, Cricket and Football, Yoga/Physical Training
EDUCATION
Top analytics/python architect experience, ClearedCFAL1 & L2,Taken CFAL3(~ Intop 15% of candidates), CHA certificate (2009 –2010)
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Johnson Graduate School ofManagement, Ithaca, NY: MBA (Strategy), 2006-2007, (Teaching Assistant for Valuation
Principles courseby invitation) GPA: (~4.0 required 45 /~3.75 taken 60 units, Top 10%)
Strategy, economics, corporatefinance/policy, intermediateaccounting, marketing, strategic pricing, strategic ops., valuation, venture finance,
venture capital& privateequity,laws for growth businesses,mgmtconsulting practicum,strategicpricing,management accounting & reporting
SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY, SantaClara, CA: MS in Computer Engg. Management, 2003-2005 (Dean’s academicexcellenceawardfor 1st position
in MS program)(Credit Transfer from UC, SantaCruz) GPA: 4.0 (Top position)
Software tools design,satellitecommunication, advanceproduct/project management, technologymanagement,Product and technology mgmt.,
strategicmgmt of tech, intellectual property laws, cases in accounting,project mgmt, accounting, financing & budgeting, New technology dev.
UC, SantaCruz: (MS Network engg., Feb. 1999–Nov. 2000): Stochastic math, Queuing & graphtheory, Adv. algorithms, Comp arch & networking
NSIT (DIT), New Delhi, India: (BS in Electronics & Comm. Engineering), 1992-96, GPA: ~4.0 (US GPA conversion), Top 10%
(Awards: Best project “video conferencing between SGI IRIX terminals”, Best businesscase, Best presentation);
(Offers: Duet Campus, UPSEdiscussions: TRA/CDOT, DRDOResearch Analyst)
Research work at TRA/C-DOT, DITandDRDO,Indiaon highspeed networks(X, ATM/FR, IP), Multimediacommunication systems, DSPengineering,
Microprocessors programming, Microprocessor architecture, circuit design and high frequency circuits, microwave communication and laser
design, Fortran, Pascal, C/Unix, IRIX, DOS (Sept. 1994 –May 1996)
OS/2, DOS, Basic programming, Software development project (11th/12th grade; Physics + Comp. Sci., Addl. Organic Chem., Math +Econ.,
Haryana Board Topper March 1991, 341/400) (Sept. 1989 –Dec. 1990)