Ning So

2613 Fairbourne Circle, Plano, TX 75093

(Cell) 972-955-0914

KEY COMPETENCIES

Cloud infrastructure design, EVPN/MPLS network design, SDN and NFV product development, SDN/NFV solution design, DevOps solution design, Cloud product and service design, Cloud architecture design, Cloud security design, Cloud application and network performance design, Internet of Things (IoT) network design, data center and network reliability design, IaaS/Paas/SaaS design, L2 and L3 VPN design, virtual network design, Wireless packet core network design, Cloud capacity design, OpenStack/Cloud Foundry/OpenDayLight (ODL) integration design.

 

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

·                                                                            As the strategic technical consultant for Huawei Technologies, I successfully convinced the executive management team the future direction of the company’s R&D labs.  I completed the high level Hybrid Cloud architecture design and the subsequent trial design using the state of arts SDN/NFV and DevOps technologies.  The new design allows the company to consolidate over 4500 labs scattered all over the world into 6 mega labs, providing over 50% annual CAPEX and OPEX savings (estimated).  It will also dramatically improve the R&D efficiency, reducing the average testbed setup time from 2 weeks to less than 10 mins. 

·                                                                            As the head of network architecture of Tata Communications, I led the incubation, product development, engineering design, and testing teams.  We designed and implemented the world’s first Mobile Cloud Service Delivery Platform that provided multi-tenant hosted mobile policy, analytics, charging, and advertisement delivery services.  This provided the company with a new and fastest growing source of revenue, setting up a successful example for the company on how to develop and launch the future new “Everything-as-a-Service” products and services.

·                                                                            I am the pioneer, thought-leader, and one of the main contributors to communication industry’s SDN and NFV revolution since 2008, including its concept formulation, use case definition, framework establishment, and requirement refinement, all the way to the business case proposal, technology development, and lab trial.  I have been named as a member of NFV & SDN World Congress Advisory Panel in recognition of my contribution to the industry and academia in the field of SDN and NFV.  

·                                                                            I have been actively involved in numerous advanced research projects in the field of SDN and IoT that are funded by NSF, EU, and Japanese government.  I have participated in drafting of the proposals, providing technical guidance and advises, forming strategic alliances in the industry, and translating the research results into commercial products.

·                                                                            I am a passionate and thought provoking speaker that can provide the future vision based on technical reality to influence the executives.

·                                                                            Owner of close to 40 patents and patent applications.

·                                                                            Frequent speaker, technical committee member, and occasional organizer of Industry and Academic conferences such as annual International MPLS & SDN Conferences, MPLS & Ethernet World Congress, IEEE conference on Networking and Cloud Computing.

·                                                                            Industry Advisory Board member and Industry Chair of Communications Engineering Club, Erik Jonsson School of Engineering & Computer Science, University of Texas at Dallas.

 

WORKING EXPERIENCE SUMMARY

Over 19 years of experience the following areas:

·   Business development: formulate the solution based on the Carrier requirements, identify the solution delivery gaps, identify the potential stop-gap candidate companies and products, and formulate strategic partnership to jointly deliver the solution to the Carrier customer

·   Product and market development: new product and service creation, market evaluation, business case formulation, revenue and cost estimation, and go-to-market strategy

·   Team management:  managed multiple R&D, engineering, and operations team globally with annual capital budget exceeding $ 200 M.  Always finds a way to deliver project on time and under budget

·   Technology development: new network architecture and framework development, new protocol development, new tool development, new algorithm development, new security schema development

·   Network design: network architecture design, cloud infrastructure design, technology evaluation, customer evaluation, on boarding execution

·   Network planning: traffic forecasting, network modeling and simulation, capital planning, capacity planning

·   Network management: physical and virtual network capacity management, Service Level Agreement (SLA) creation and management, Operational Support Systems (OSS) development

 

Vinci Systems, Inc.                                                                                              June 2014 - Present

Founder

•                                                        Software development of SDN/NFV Orchestrator for end-to-end Cloud infrastructure control and management
•                                                        Business and technical consulting on advanced SDN/NFV business and product R&D strategies
•                                                        Technical consulting on DevOps Cloud environment requirements and design strategies

Huawei Technologies                                                                                         June 2014 – June 2015

Strategic Consultant

·                                                   Performed strategic technical consulting for Huawei Lab on Service Driven Environment (SDE) project, which is to consolidate over 4500 existing Huawei labs into half a dozen mega Cloud Data Centers that supports Huawei’s internal R&D DevOps environment and Open Source integration activities.

·                                                   Conducted high level SDE feasibility study; architecture designs on SDE networks (WAN and DC), Systems and Tools, Security, Reliability, Operations and Management (OAM); and lab trials with Huawei Wireless BU and Fixed Networks BU.  

Tata Communications, Inc.                                                                       April 2012 – June 2014

Head of Network Architecture

•                                                        Performed technical and business evaluation of SDN use cases.  Proposed joint SDN product launch plan between Tata and multiple global SDN product vendors and solution providers to develop the associated SDN technologies and products.

•                                                        Established and led the Network Architecture Council which evaluates the new technologies for adoption and implementation, and advices the company’s senior executives on future technology directions.  
•                                                        Represented Tata Communications at industry’s standard organizations such as IETF and IEEE, and technical forums and conferences.

 

Verizon, Inc.                                                                                          June 1996 – April 2012

Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, Global Network Planning                                                                  

·   Technical lead of the Network Planning and Engineering team.  Responsible for network architecture and implementation design, traffic engineering, modeling and simulation, SLA enforcement, and capacity budget on Verizon’s global Ethernet, IP, MPLS, ATM, and Frame Relay networks

·   Designed the Verizon’s Data Center Interconnect infrastructure.

·   Drafted all network equipment RFPs, and participated in the RFP evaluation.

·   Managed cross functional and cross disciplinary teams to prepare for new product launch.

·   Managed collaborative teams across multiple companies to develop new products and technologies.

 

EDUCATION

Ph.D. – Telecommunications Engineering, University of Texas at Dallas                                       Present

MS – Telecom Engineering and Management, Oklahoma State University                                           1998

BS in Industrial Engineering and Management, Oklahoma State University   1996