IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation uses AI-powered automation to help CSPs evolve zero-touch network operations.
Imagine you are at a large event, like a music festival or championship basketball game. As your favorite band comes on stage or the final minutes of the period unwind, everyone takes out their phone to share and stream at the same time. The increased and concentrated strain on the wireless network can lead to service shortages, dropped video calls, and many unhappy customers. As mobile phone use expands and the world becomes more interconnected, our networks need to be able to adapt and anticipate this volatility in real time.
With billions of mobile phone users around the world, the demand for wireless network connectivity and adaptability are constantly expanding. Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are tasked with delivering reliable service despite the inherent unpredictability of network usage.
5G promises to improve wireless telecommunications globally by connecting more devices and enabling faster communication at incredible speeds. 5G is an investment in the next decade of wireless communication for consumers and industries. Customers want the speed and reliability of 5G, and CSPs need to deliver on these promises to help improve their client experience.
What is 5G?
The first-generation wireless network (1G) was introduced in the 1980s and was the beginning of wireless telecommunications. Early mobile phones could only be used for calls and allowed people to talk to one another wirelessly.
Since then, mobile technology has progressed through the second, third, and fourth generation of wireless networks. 2G introduced e-mail and text messaging through technologies like TDMA-based GSM. 3G allowed mobile phone users to share multimedia materials and improved speeds from kilobits to megabits per second with UMTS. Finally, 4G networks ushered in a new era of connectivity that was faster, more reliable, and facilitated the streaming of music, movies, and other media with technologies like LTE.
5G will revolutionize wireless communication once again by improving latency, bandwidth, and connectivity. Through the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G will help mobile phone users interface with smart devices in their home and everyday life. For example, we will see an expansion of the ability of phones to interconnect with devices like security systems, thermostats, vehicles, wearables and more.
Improved latency will enable the sending and receiving of data for a seamless mobile experience, while improved bandwidth will boost video streaming across all platforms and applications.
Just like with previous network generations, many of the benefits of 5G will be seen over the next ten years, as companies and users learn to innovate with the improved system. This was also the case for previous network generations, as the benefits of 4G technology were not noticeable until 2012 or 2013, despite the first 4G mobile phones being released in 2010.
Demand for Widespread Adoption of 5G Puts Pressure on CSPs
As customer demand for improved network speed and bandwidth increases, industries are already developing technology built to run on 5G networks. CSPs are now tasked with a rapid and smooth transition to 5G to continue to deliver optimal services for customers and enable adoption of cutting-edge technologies and smart devices.
One major problem? The widespread adoption of 5G will be expensive. A GSMA report on The Mobile Economy in 2020 predicted CSPs will spend more than $1.1 trillion USD on their networks in the next five years. Eighty percent of those costs will be on 5G network adoption and maintenance.
To create and maintain 5G networks, CSPs need to be able to automate every step of their service delivery. CSPs need to adopt cloud and virtualization to create networks that can withstand the modern challenges of wireless communications. Implementation of 5G and edge computing services are necessary to meet customer demands while continuing to grow enterprises over the next ten years.
IBM’s New System Improves Accessibility of 5G For CSPs
To facilitate widespread adoption of 5G, IBM introduced the IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation to help CSPs expand and maintain networks while delivering new services in days instead of months.
“As the telco industry races to capture new value from 5G and Edge computing, many are transforming their networks to software-defined platforms that can deliver on this promise. Yet our customers have identified that limited automation and the lack of real- time visibility across networks have hindered their ability to deliver innovative services to customers fast enough,” said the General Manager for Software Defined Networking at IBM, Andrew Coward. “To help address these growing demands, IBM’s new Cloud Pak for Network Automation software uses AI-powered automation to enable zero-touch provisioning of new services, which can facilitate the simplification of the management of network functions from the core to the edge.”
The IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation system was designed to run in a range of environments on Red Hat OpenShift. The multivendor ecosystem enables CSPs to bring on virtualized network functions and containerized network functions. This means the system can be run on any cloud, anywhere.
The software combines multiple services for CSPs including advanced analytics, machine learning, and AIOps that will help engineers monitor data to optimize their network operations. With this suite of AI-powered automation capabilities, CSPs can implement both 5G and edge services to reach the end goal of autonomous operations.
In as little as four to five days, a network engineer can set up a site by organizing hundreds of thousands of network functions in real time. IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation adds to the IBM Cloud Pak portfolio to help network engineers combine everything from network architecture to IP address plans and more in one holistic network service.
IBM promises this system will reduce operation costs, accelerate service delivery times, enhance proactive network operations, and create a flexible deployment in the open Red Hat environment.
What Is IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation?
The IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation is a cloud platform powered by AI to allow CSPs to automate their network operations. The new system will help CSPs achieve zero-touch operations and deliver new services in minutes. The rapid design and scaling of services will allow CSPs to respond to customer issues faster.
Delivering a new service will no longer require manual installation or racking hardware. Network service engineers can design new service packages using templates that include either a set of defined network functions, services running in containers, or services from their virtual network functions.
Once network service engineers have their new service package, the system will allow them to package and test the elements of the service before deployment. Following robust testing, the completed package can be easily added to existing product catalogs using an automated continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) process.
This system creates a versatile and flexible platform to respond to the modern challenges of CSPs. For instance, using this system, an enterprise can easily request a 5G Network Slice service for a specific event. IBM Cloud Pak for Network Automation will then automatically monitor the service environment by tracking performance indicators and events within the network. When problems are detected, the system can also share AI-powered suggestions for network service engineers to repair issues.
With automatic problem detection and remediation, CSPs can transform their network delivery and maintenance and ultimately evolve to zero-touch operations. CSPs will now be able to monitor for network issues before customer impact to improve operations and customer satisfaction.
Looking Towards a 5G Future
With the release of IBM’s new system, we can look forward to widespread adoption of 5G across both small and large-scale CSPs. Automated network operations will help reduce network problems to improve the overall user experience. As companies continue to innovate new applications and devices that rely on 5G network operations, clients will be able to take advantage of this next-generation wireless communications technology.
