The telecom market’s movement toward virtualized network technologies will require a new mindset in terms of network monitoring and performance
The slew of data and devices, along with the new applications they run, has instigated an era of high-revenue-generating services – like app store integrations, card/paperless billing, online gaming and high-definition video streaming. But those same novel services have placed an added stress on the infrastructure that makes them work, creating another headache for administrators. This is especially true for service providers, as their workforce and consumers’ constant consumption of data through mobile streaming and other high-data apps, exacerbates the need.
Consider that telecom operators are working to avoid being squeezed out by tight margins and competitors through new revenue streams, which is especially important as the industry’s average revenue per user continues to decline after a 4.5% drop in 2015. This decline requires a retooling of business models and network infrastructures as service providers look to enable new features like rich media services mentioned above. More data usage means increased revenue. Additionally, monetizing these new services requires integration with content distribution service providers. And with the pressure to deliver these network-dependent services, the need for assured uptime – and network monitoring – has never been more critical. Just one minute of downtime, due to lack of visibility, costs $11.4 million for a tier-one provider. That adds up quickly if the infrastructure isn’t optimized to handle growing demands.
As a result, 80% of service providers are predicted to be virtualized by 2021, as they attempt to adapt and tap into new revenue streams. But, despite the benefits of services that can be provided and the revenue generated, the network and security issues that will arise need to be recognized and addressed.
What can service providers do to tackle these problems?
Identify the pain points
For the network architect, the focus will be on keeping performance up and costs down while ensuring the output of the software-define network and network functions virtualization migration remains the same, despite the level of complexity involved.
The quality assurance/test engineer, meanwhile, will feel the urgency to make sure the network is able to withstand heavy loads as well as cyberthreats, and that deployments do not trigger any surprises, particularly with many new virtualization technologies at play. Another key priority for development and quality assurance teams will be the identification of issues in production and their reproduction in the lab. The faster these issues are identified, reproduced and ultimately fixed, the faster the time to revenue.
In addition to the network architect and QA/test engineer, operations directors play a vital role as well. They focus on overall system integrity so that when operations are live, performance meets service-level agreement thresholds, and they can monitor east-west traffic because no one wants surprises. Making sure deployments are easily monitored so that service-level agreements are met also will be crucial. Plus, they will be concerned about having comprehensive visibility to reinforce security and reliability.
The benefits of comprehensive control from development to operation
To address these concerns, service providers need to adopt a continuous integration and continuous deployment agile service development model. It’s central to rapid discovery and resolution of issues, which not only accelerates time to market but also ensures a high-quality user experience due to increased reliability of infrastructure and applications.
To illustrate what happens outside of a CI/CD model, a North American tier-one service provider recently found a critical priority bug in its evolved packet core network infrastructure – it took four months to resolve the issue. A large portion of the time was spent identifying the issue, reproducing it at the vendor site and reverifying it in the service provider environment once the fix was delivered.
Conversely, with a CI/CD model that time could have been significantly reduced. Service provider QA, production, development and vendor product teams would be able to streamline how they discover, recreate, fix and verify issues from different phases of the continuous integration and continuous deployment life cycle. Key in this process is the use of virtualized test and monitoring solutions that are integrated along the CI/CD pipeline, which can automatically deploy and launch using orchestration platforms such as OpenStack’s Nova.
Ultimately, SDN and NFV let service providers add new services or modify existing services without making extensive manual changes to the physical network design and configuration itself. They help transform the network into a more intelligent and information technology-aware entity, which improves flexibility, elasticity and versatility. But the process needs to be managed continuously from development to the launch of new services and features, and cannot be done manually, as exemplified by the tier-one service provider.
The pressure is on to deliver uncompromising performance with tight security in a world where no one can afford to be slowed down in the race to market. And while virtualization can help service providers get there, the need for testing and visibility all the way through becomes even greater.
Areg Alimian is an entrepreneurial executive with over 18 years of industry experience with leadership roles in marketing, product development and business leadership. Recognized for the ability to conceptualize, develop and grow breakthrough products in new markets and domains including information security, streaming and social media, network test, Wi-Fi and network performance management, he possesses a proven track record in accelerating business growth through operational excellence, consistent execution and a forward-reaching vision. Alimian is well-versed in developing high-powered messaging for technology, increasing awareness and elevating a brand, as well as building award-winning marketing teams that rapidly produce campaigns that drive measurable results with clear impact to revenue.
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