VOCUS GROUP
Brilliantly simple networks
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
DIGITAL REPORT 2020
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Vocus Group: brilliantly simple networks
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VOCUS GROUP
Pushing the envelope hard, Vocus Group is creating the Future State of network infrastructure in Australia
V
ocus’s mission is most certainly a critical one. So much of the efficient working of government, infrastructure, business and
communities across Australia and New Zealand depends on the reliable operation of the networks that manage them internally and connect them externally, and Vocus Group is the leading provider 04
of these networks in the region. Its mantra is ‘brilliant made simple’; its aim is to give its clients a network that is reliable and simple while leaving them in control of their operations. Founded in 2008, Vocus floated on the ASX since 2010, where it has grown organically and by acquisition, into a AUD$1.9bn company. We have frequently considered the vital strategic role played by technology in the telecoms industry today, and Vocus is no exception. CTO Vic McClelland joined the group in September 2018 at the invitation of Kevin Russell, current CEO of Vocus. His role is to define the technology strategy including how to combine Vocus acquisitions into the best fibre network in Australia and New Zealand – and with numerous large-scale
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“ We had one of everything, just about, and we don’t need that!” — Vic McClelland, CTO, Vocus Group
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VOCUS GROUP
“ The Future State Network involves technology, people, processes and culture” — Vic McClelland, CTO, Vocus Group
acquisitions over the last five years he found plenty of legacy networks and systems to integrate. With more than 30 years’ experience and having held senior executive positions in Australia and Silicon Valley with major players including Vodafone, Hutchison, Ericsson and Telstra, Russell knew he had the right person. “Vocus now has a very extensive fibre network across Australia, between and within the capital cities,” McClelland explains. “And we’ve also
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invested in building the Australian Singapore Network, a submarine cable that gives us international submarine capacity out of Australia, up into Asia, and into other countries such as the USA via swaps.” Acquisition at the time of mass consolidation driven by creation of the National Broadband Network some four years ago have given Vocus some amazing Fibre and Network assets. As expected, acquisition comes with complexity. “We had around six separate Layer 2 and 3 networks with eight Business Support System (BSS) stacks, ll with separate vendors. At that level of complexity and juggling
Vocus - Brilliant made simple. CLICK TO WATCH
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07 multiple separate contracts it is dif-
initiative to finally consolidate and mod-
ficult and costly to grow capacity,
ernise legacy systems. “This involves
difficult to innovate and build new
technology, people, processes and
products and takes more people to
culture,” he explains. “On the technol-
provision customer services. We had
ogy side, we plan to build a brand new
one of everything, just about and we
L2/3 network at the edge and points of
don’t need that!”
interconnect and then migrate custom-
Keeping things simple being part
ers off our legacy Layer 2/3 networks
of the company mantra, Vocus has
to this new network. Our new network
been rationalising where possible,
will be supplied by our chosen supplier
migrating customers and shutting
Arista Networks. Doing it this way we
down some redundant systems. This
have new inventory records to deal with
saved some resources, however in
rather than having to sort out historic
late 2019, he and his team initiated the
records from each legacy system,
Future State Network, a three-year
which would be a huge task.” w w w.vo c us. com . a u
Nokia and Vocus are taking light to the limit A strategic partnership that brings optical and IP networking innovations on one of the largest fibre networks in Oceania
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www.nokia.com
Six months into the programme,
so that the customers experience
the team have built the platforms and
is a true digital experience – for new
are creating a digital programmable
orders as well as for assurance, all
network from end to end including
dynamic and delivered to the custom-
integrating to Digital Portals and
ers in real time.”
creating products in the new stack.
The Future State program is
“In some cases digital transformation
delivered in three steps. McClelland
projects digitise only the front end but
already has the capability to provision
leave the back end with manual pro-
basic services within seconds. “Just
cesses. For the Vocus Future State
now we’re stitching together all of the
program we are making sure that we
capability around the offer and the
are automating as much as possible
digital experience before we launch
end-to-end through the entire stack
our first dynamic provisioning product 09
E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE
Victa McClelland Victa is currently Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Vocus Group, based in Sydney Australia where he is responsible for Technology Strategy, Architecture and Security functions.Previously he held roles in Technology Operations, Product Management, Engineering and Strategy in major Telecom Service Providers in Australia including Director of Strategy and Architecture in the CTO Office at Telstra, Director of Networks (CTO) at SingTel Optus, CTO at Hutchison (3 Mobiles), roles at several start-up companies such as Time Telekom Malaysia, Commander Australia, Collinear Networks in Silicon Valley and held a role at a network supplier as Head of Software Services Strategy at Ericsson in Silicon Valley. Victa has a Degree in Electronics from Ballarat University.
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VOCUS GROUP
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“ If you can program services with intent, then you can reprogram them with intent when something breaks” — Vic McClelland, CTO, Vocus Group
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for our customers . When this phase
Future State platform in a similar way
is delivered customers will deal with
that Vocus connectivity products are
us via a digital portal or APIs, enter
provided using standard API’s. “For
their requirements, get a quote, then
example, if a customer requests a vir-
if accepted click to accept that and it
tual security function from a particular
will activate within seconds. Just like
supplier along with their connectivity
ordering something from Amazon!”
then we will be able to offer that to
Step two he calls the partner eco-
the customer and they will be able
system, this step gives Vocus the
to order it. We can then dynamically
ability to implement partner products
connect it for them via our partner
and services into the new Vocus
ecosystem capability, regionally or
product catalogue. Partner solutions
globally. International network provid-
will be offered to complete customer
ers will be able to provision capacity
solution needs, orchestrated via the
on our network in Australia and we’ll
M AY 2 0 2 0
be able to provision capacity on their network overseas dynamically via this capability as well.” The third step is self-healing delivered through closed loop automation. This step will implement dynamic resolution of faults in the network or infrastructure by re-provisioning
“ Nokia is a key partner of ours on our intercapital transmission network” — Vic McClelland, CTO, Vocus Group
services then those faults occur. “If you can provision new services with
“Once we implement this step the
intent, then you can reprogram those
Future State Platform can redesign
services with intent when a fault
the customers solution on the fly to
condition occurs, a little like what
meet customers requested SLAs
happens today inside Data Centres
and automatically fix problems,”
when a server fault occurs, there the
McClelland continues. “To truly
system automatically redesigns all of
deliver fundamental changes in
the workloads without the customers
customer experience, telcos like us
application knowing.
need to implement digitalization endto-end through the stack. So, that’s what we’ll be doing. We’ll be moving from a digital front end with manual steps in the back-end to a fully automated end-to-end digital stack.” “We have selected DGIT Systems to provide our Future State Ordering, Product Catalogue and Billing systems and Ciena Blue Planet orchestration platform to perform our infrastructure orchestration capability.” w w w.vo c us. com . a u
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VOCUS GROUP
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Telecom Networks in Australia are
bushfires. “Delivering the Future
seeing demand for flexing connec-
State Network is a priority as it will
tivity due to moves to hybrid-cloud
improve Vocus capability to provide
connectivity, driven by the rapid
resilient and flexible solutions to our
growth of IoT and industrial automa-
customers,” he says.
tion, unforeseeable events such
Future State will also help with
as the COVID-19 emergency caus-
putting data at the centre of decision
ing huge segments of business to
making. “Today we have traditional
move to home working, and recent
data warehouses that provide
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“ Legacy is a limiting factor and we are working through a lot of data cleansing to create a single source of truth” — Vic McClelland, CTO, Vocus Group
reporting on things like churn management, financial analysis, sales opportunity management, and the like,” explains McClelland. “As we implement Future State we will implement AI capabilities that leverage data and analytics capabilities to provide a better experience to our customers.” w w w.vo c us. com . a u
Software Driven Cloud Networking Arista Networks has been appointed as the sole supplier of Vocus’s Layer 2 and Layer 3 Networking Equipment. Arista is a leader in building scalable, high-performance and ultra-low latency cloud networks with low power consumption and a small footprint for data centre and campus environments. Arista has a prestigious set of global customers and is committed to open standards across private, public and hybrid cloud networks.
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17 Australia has never placed more demands on its networks than today, following the recent bushfires and the current COVID-19 pandemic. The latter causes massive spikes in traffic as everyone who can works from home and even more data is electronically shared than before. At this time, says McClelland, he is really appreciative of the partners that support Vocus in normal times but really step up when things are tough. “Nokia is a key partner of ours on our inter-capital transmission network. We’ve relied on
2008
Year founded
AU$1.9bn Revenue in Australian dollars
5,000+
Organisations have made the switch to Vocus
Nokia for many years and they have w w w.vo c us. com . a u
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delivered through the good times and equally through tough times. We’re currently going through a situation where we’re working closely with Nokia on the supply chain issues that they’ve got because of COVID-19 in Europe and they’re just fantastic. They’ve been doing a great job for us and they will continue to be a key partner for us.” Cisco is also another dependable partner for Vocus providing our core network equipment. For the Future State program Vocus has chosen that are not traditional telecom equipment suppliers. “We deliberately chose partners that were able to work with us in a flexible way and that shared challenger vision.” You don’t make progress without taking risks, insists McClelland. Vocus under the leadership of Kevin Russell is happy to be a challenger: the ideal environment for its energetic CTO.
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VOCUS GROU LEVEL 10 452 FLINDERS STREET MELBOURNE VIC 3000 AUSTR ALIA
www.vocus.com.au
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