Article | Beyond Connectivity, Networks, DevOps, Network Function Virtualization (NFV), Service orchestration, Order Management, Open Digital Framework (ODF), Autonomous operations, Revenue assurance, Internet of Things (IoT), Open APIs, Business agility, Cloud Migration, Culture transformation, Software-Defined Networking (SDN), Business Process Framework (eTOM)

Agile network DevOps brings out the value of cloud-based networking

01 Aug 2015

Sponsored by: Communications Service Providers (CSPs) need to embrace the world of network on cloud to enable new ways to radically reduce costs and rapidly create and deploy new services. Software-defined networks and network functions virtualization (SDN/NFV) enables the world of the network on a cloud foundation to harness the power of the cloud for networking. Much of the focus today is around enabling the functions of the network and the connection of those functions using cloud capabilities. However, if a service provider moves to cloud based networking to deliver current services, but maintains the current silos of technology, methods, and organization of service design & development, they will find the “time to value” of cloud based networking to be incremental at best versus the needed radical cost and revenue improvement required by their business.

Cloud based networking is all about enabling the function, real-time operations, and agile network development/operations (DevOps). It also enables multiple dimensions of value: driving the current network to take advantage of the cloud; leveraging innovation to rapidly bring new services to market; and enabling the innovators to drive growth. Consider this: A marketing department of a service provider is defining a new campaign to encourage the use of its data services. They want to provide a “Free Traffic Tuesday” for videos posted to websites as an incentive for their data customers to increase usage of 4G LTE from 3G. Users would be able to upload their videos on Tuesday for free, but on Wednesday, the cost and usage of data on LTE would return to normal at the time when users will now want to view and share the videos that were uploaded the day before. Offering this free service on a Tuesday allows users to benefit from this service without impacting their data usage. The service provider, on the other hand, can demonstrate how a superior service experience can be delivered on the LTE environment while not impacting the user’s payment plan. As the marketing department shares this campaign idea with other organizations across the company, they quickly realize that execution will cause a significant spike in network traffic on Tuesdays that will require increased capacity and network optimization. The networking department and associated network orchestration teams put a plan in place to scale traffic and network elements as needed, and proceed to scale up a test of the various scenarios that might be encountered within their cloud based network testing environment. Since the network elements involved are virtual functions, the teams collaborate to rapidly enable new services, test these new services for traffic scaling, and confirm traffic loading requirements needed to ensure optimized service delivery and then return the resources used to the cloud pool upon verification. Rather than taking weeks or months to enable a new marketing program with existing services, the teams are now able to do this in a matter of hours/days instead! Cloud enables a new level of agility of the network not seen before. With the ability to quickly create capabilities and scale up and down on demand, cloud allows for the combination and recombination of IT applications or functions to create services rapidly in new ways with unprecedented agility. Cloud based networking harnesses the power of innovation that IT has found in the cloud and extends it to the network. The cornerstone of the value for this level of innovation and agility lies in capturing the methods used for innovation in the cloud, adapting them to the network, and driving the innovation into the marketplace for true revenue growth.

Agile network service lifecycle management enables network service development from concept to reality

The cloud enables agility – the cloud enables innovation – the cloud enables an environment where ideas can be developed, quickly moved to operational status, and tightly integrated across the DevOps function. As a result, network planning, engineering and operations now need to capitalize on these cloud benefits of agility, innovation and integration by embracing the new world of Agile Network DevOps. Agile Network DevOps drives development and operations to rapidly maintain the multiple combinations of software now enabling network services. It also opens up the ability to innovate new services by mixing and matching the network and IT applications in new ways that deliver speed to value not seen before to meet new market demands. The benefits that cloud brings alone -- and the network brings alone -- are powerful…but when combining them together, you now realize the true promise that cloud based networking has to offer! So, how do we move to a world of Agile Network DevOps? This transition requires thinking and planning across three key areas: Cloud technology not only allows network functions to be implemented and scaled in a new way, but also enables the ability to create development, automated test and automated deployment to operational environments rapidly with a common set of tools and resources that reduce cost by positioning them to be reused and shared across various services. Tools and updated processes are needed to automate and enable this new world.

Technology
Processes, and
People

Change is good!

The culture and skills of today’s network planning and engineering will need to be infused with a level of agile development skills. Changing from 18-month development cycles to 18-day ones requires incremental, iterative and collaborative experimental thinking that moves in a common, longer term vision that starts first with the end experience . Agile behavior and techniques can be used to develop new services. Tools can be engaged for onboarding and maintaining levels of software for network services. However, Agile Network DevOps teams also need to collaboratively combine skills from network, IT, marketing and operations to enable this type of thinking and behavior. Agile is more than a change in technology, tools or terminology -- it is a change in thinking.

The Many Dimensions of Agile Network DevOps.

In addition to driving DevOps in an agile manner across technology, process, and people, Agile Network DevOps occurs across multiple dimensions with the network. The primary dimension is being able to implement a set of network functions and connectivity as a network service. Onboarding virtual network functions, developing the network services, testing those services, scaling up resources and then returning them to a common pool after the testing is done as the service is deployed into the network is all part of enabling this network service with Agile Network DevOps. The flexible infrastructure of the cloud enables the ability to rapidly onboard, assemble and test virtual functions and forwarding graphs. The realization of a network with a new speed not seen in the past creates a world of CapEx and OpEx benefits and changes how network services are built and brought to life. In addition, today’s new networks enable a second dimension of innovation with new types of network services that can combine network functions with IT functions. The combination of a network function with a web service can provide new avenues and points of innovation to enable things like new mobile store experiences, enhanced stadium experiences, or improved enterprise operations. The ability to enable a new network service, test the service of network and IT functions as they scale and expand together and then move that service to operations also opens a new ability for innovation in the network with services not seen before. For the Catalyst ZOOM project at TMForum Live 2015, called “React First, Resolve Next”, IBM and its partners show the ability to enable the management and orchestration of services resultant from the DevOps processes by bringing together the network, IT, service and user experience to drive orchestration and scaling in addition to what would normally be available through VNF lifecycle management. From the start, a key component of the vision for NFV has been around enabling new innovation and revenue streams, with a focus on rapid enablement for less cost. But where does this new innovation in the network come from? For today’s service provider, new network services are developed internally over long periods of time with the need for market assessments. In the world of the cloud and mobile, going beyond a base set of functions and services provided, the real innovation has come from outside the mobile industry through innovators that are able to rapidly take the ideas from the business and personal worlds that they live in and combine/recombine them with the capabilities of the mobile smartphone. In the world of cloud based networking, the many possibilities of innovation needed to drive growth needs to come from that similar group who can take the possibilities of this new network and map them to the areas of life beyond the common carrier view to grow value. What is needed is a way to expose this world of innovation in cloud based networking to the world of innovators. This opens up the final dimension of Agile Network DevOps -- the dimension of enabling the services as network API’s or services that can be rapidly combined with innovation by a wide group of innovators. Opening up these network services in this way also opens up new ways for the network to be used. Being able to expose network services while also enabling DevOps, is the final dimension of Agile Network DevOps. At TM Forum Live 2015, network services and API’s were provided for use within a “hackathon” for IoT (Internet of Things) in smarter cities. Innovators used API’s from TM Forum and from network equipment providers (NECs) that were provided in a tooling environment, called IBM BluemixTM. This environment allowed for rapid innovation, testing, and operations, and in essence was this final dimension of Agile Network DevOps. Innovators were able to quickly understand and bring to life a real-world perspective for using these services with a novel approach. “Connected Car” API’s from Ericsson were used to work with robotic vehicles and TMF Product Catalog API’s were used for enabling restaurant menus. Although these applications were not the original intent for the APs, leveraging innovation brought new uses together to enable IoT use cases. In a similar manner, network API’s may also be adapted/adopted to drive greater growth and use of network services. One of the most interesting aspects of the “hackathon” was around how innovators who weren’t normally network service creators were now able to use the network services and API’s to drive new areas of innovation rapidly. It was the intersection of ideas that drove the innovation and opened up new areas of growth. In a short amount of time, they were able to drive this final dimension of Agile Network DevOps around driving network usage growth. Agile Network DevOps enables the value of cloud based networking to go from an idea to real value for a service provider. Agile Network DevOps when implemented in a multi-dimensional manner allows a service provider to move not just from concept to production, but into the reality of enabling innovation that can drive real growth. In the changing telecom landscape, CSPs are planning to virtualize the network and collapse network and IT operations silos into a single set of standard data center/cloud processes and infrastructure. These changes are needed to deliver the agility required for rapid development and roll-out of new services with real-time expansion and contraction of network function capacity when and where it is needed.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

An agile DevOps environment is just one critical part of the emerging world of cloud based networking needed for service providers to truly attain innovation, transformation and cost advantage. IBM offers a broad set of capabilities required to enable a CSP’s journey to open, multi-vendor cloud based networking. For more information: www.ibmserviceengage.com/products www.servicemanagement360.com/it-operations-network-management/