Imagine a network where physical, virtual and cloud network functions coexist, demanding seamless integration and management. Picture the challenges of reducing operational costs while striving for service agility in a rapidly changing market. Now, add the intricate layers of transitioning to cloud-based infrastructures, introducing an entirely new realm of complexities to navigate.
So how do communications and media service providers unlock the true potential of this hybrid network while controlling costs? And what must they do to overcome the operational challenges, manage the risk involved and realize the opportunities? The answer lies in a single source of truth serving as the foundation for harnessing network complexity, boosting efficiency and driving innovation through automation and AI.
Growing pains
Service providers around the world are going through a major network modernization. This involves adopting software-defined networking (SDN) and virtual and cloud network functions technologies, and strategically deploying them across the edge and cloud to optimally support innovative services. During this process, a diverse range of network functions spanning physical, virtual and cloud need to be managed efficiently throughout their lifecycle including infrastructure rollout, service delivery, assurance and operations.
Network complexity is exploding as, on the one hand, the network becomes disaggregated, heterogeneous and open, moving away from monolithic, single vendor solutions. On the other hand, the network is becoming increasingly dynamic and agile, adapting to changing demands and optimizing its performance in real-time.
While this network modernization brings numerous opportunities, empowering service providers to offer more flexible, scalable and innovative services, it simultaneously introduces an exponential growth in complexity, significantly increasing pressure on existing operations capacity.
Harnessing complexity
Combatting this complexity requires service providers to modernize their operations support systems (OSS) and embrace automation, which is where artificial intelligence (AI) plays a pivotal role. With AI-driven automation, service providers can virtually multiply their operational capacity to manage this growing complexity more efficiently.
In parallel, service providers must prioritize enhancing service agility in order to respond promptly to consumer demands. , This requires a new approach to service definition, one that moves away from time-consuming and resource-intensive software development practices, and leverages a model-driven approach to drive systems behavior based on desired outcomes. Such an approach not only reduces costs and accelerates TTM but also minimizes the risk of errors and guarantees a high level of service quality.
Collectively, these elements contribute to unlocking the full potential offered by programmable networks, improving operational efficiency and enabling service providers to offer innovative, easily accessible and manageable services that can be tailored to each customer’s specific requirements. This leads to enhanced customer satisfaction, increased revenues and reduced costs, effectively realizing the opportunity that programmable networks bring.
A single source of truth
To achieve efficiency in network operations, engineers as well as AI-driven automation require comprehensive and up-to-date information about networks, clouds and services. Inventory data is critical to support every operational process and to power AI-driven network operations automation, providing the information needed to enhance decision-making, while leveraging AI algorithms to optimize operational activities such as workload placement, self-healing, etc.
The inventory must hold cross-domain, multi-layer information, from the physical network layer (including both inside and outside plant infrastructure) to the virtual and cloud network functions (deployed at edge or core), as well as the service layer. The maintenance of the relationships between different domains and layers, as well as the capacity available and consumed across them, is critical for efficient operations. Infrastructure rollout, service delivery, assurance and operations all require an understanding of which resources are being consumed by customer services to optimize network resource usage while delivering superior customer experiences.
Cross-domain, multi-layer inter-relationships
Since inventory data is often siloed and fragmented, many service providers struggle to obtain such end-to-end visibility. This fragmentation can be due to several factors such as gradual adoption of different technologies and systems, mergers and acquisitions, and internal organizational structures. As a result, the data becomes scattered, making it difficult to leverage its full potential.
The solution lies in inventory modernization, a process that involves breaking existing silos to establish a reliable single source of truth delivering cross-domain, multi-layer information. Service providers who already have a proven inventory can leverage it to streamline and accelerate their modernization journey, providing that it offers an evolutionary path to support the increasing dynamicity of programmable networks. The inventory should also enable service providers to manage the interdependencies between existing and new networks, and offer a gradual and cost-effective evolution that aligns with their business goals.
Key capabilities of a modern network inventory
A modern network inventory should provide the following key capabilities:
- Centralized network and service management: provide an end-to-end view across domains and layers, including physical, virtual and cloud network functions as well as services – enabling seamless hybrid network operations.
- Cloud technology support: deployment on public or private cloud, bringing scalability, agility and lower TCO. Additionally, it should enable agile CI/CD practices, which in turn lead to lower TTM when onboarding network and services.
- Integrated federation: enable cost-efficient inventory modernization leveraging existing inventories through flexible inventory federation capabilities, while simultaneously de-risking inventory modernization to provide a single source of truth to client systems
- Dynamic, open and standards-aligned: support near real-time updates from the network and provide instant access to accurate network and service data. Inventory must be aligned to industry standards to simplify integrations, reduce TCO and increase agility
- Agile design & configuration tools: empower users with graphical tools that accelerate the onboarding of services and resources through reusable models and simplify the implementation of intent-driven inventory workflows
An inventory partner you can trust
Embracing a cloud-ready inventory that leverages complexity to achieve comprehensive visibility, including inter-relationships between domains and layers, and seamlessly integrates data from various sources, poses significant challenges.
With over two decades’ experience successfully delivering more than 50 inventory deployments worldwide, Amdocs is well-positioned to support such endeavors. Amdocs Network Inventory provides the ideal blend of capabilities to support the networks of today and tomorrow, enabling every service provider to evolve at their own pace, opening the path to new revenue streams, enhanced customer experiences and a greater competitive edge.
Learn more about Amdocs Network Inventory.
