Network complexity is a thorn in the side of network operations teams, which often face constrained resources. To address these challenges: network automation.
Network automation involves using software tools to automate tasks traditionally performed manually by network administrators. These tasks include configuration management, device provisioning, security patching and even troubleshooting. By automating these repetitive and error-prone processes, network automation offers several key benefits.
It allows network operators to leverage their expertise more efficiently. Automation reduces human error. Network automation streamlines service turn-up times. Network automation also contributes to operational cost reductions.
So yeah, it’s safe to say that network automation is a strategic imperative for organizations facing growing network complexities and constrained resources.
I mean, how does achieving up to 81% cost savings (after deploying optical network automation for their network and service lifecycle management, according to Analysys Mason) appeal to you?
Nokia plans to take it further with recent enhancements to its WaveSuite optical network automation platform. The improved platform offers deeper network insights and control through a growing suite of applications designed for specific use cases. These applications aim to help network operators optimize network performance, scale capacity efficiently and monetize existing network assets.
WaveSuite's enhancements target these goals by streamlining network operations. This reduces labor time and associated errors, accelerates deployment of new capacity for faster revenue generation, and minimizes risks associated with network failures that could impact service level agreements.
A key enhancement is the integration of business support systems billing with optical network functions within the Service Enablement application. This allows operators to fulfill service requests for wholesale partners and end subscribers while providing real-time performance metrics.
The enhanced WaveSuite portfolio also leverages machine learning in the Health and Analytics application. This allows network intelligence to support optical fiber sensing to help operators proactively detect potential outages caused by disturbances in fiber optic cables. Unlike competing solutions requiring additional hardware, WaveSuite utilizes data already available from Nokia (News - Alert)'s Photonic Service Engines. This is useful because it eliminates the need for extra investment
Furthermore, WaveSuite's new features combine network planning with provisioning, reducing the effort required to scale network capacity by an estimated 33%. This automated flow-through provisioning synchronizes existing physical networks with planned designs to minimize errors and reduce the time and resources needed for network scaling.
“Nokia's WaveSuite platform enables our customers to leverage data-driven insights and intelligent actions to optimize their network performance, reduce operational costs and accelerate service delivery,” said Ravi Parmasad, Optical Network Automation (News - Alert) Leader at Nokia. “With WaveSuite, we are bringing the benefits of automation to the optical domain and empowering our customers to build more agile and resilient networks for the future.”
Edited by
Alex Passett
