We’re now firmly in the world of 5G. Well before the rapidly growing deployments of 5G Non-Standalone (NSA) networks, the technology’s potential has been hyped up as the key to delivering Industry 4.0 and innovative new services based on edge cloud, Internet of Things and more.
We think 2023 will be the year when that hype begins to be realized and Communication Service Providers (CSPs) work to deliver on the 5G promise. But we’re not here to predict that 5G is the “next big thing”; rather, what we find interesting is the impact this is having on CSPs’ efforts modernizing their operations and their networks, from architecture to use cases, from inventory systems to edge cloud and more. The network and cloud are evolving rapidly, and out of necessity – and we’re predicting these fundamental shifts to ramp up considerably in the new year.
Scale of 5G driving network automation
Previously, CSPs could rely on manual processes to operate their networks. However, 5G has taken that choice out of their hands due to the complexity inherent in 5G and its use of cloud-based infrastructure and applications, which underpin the new generation of dynamic, on-demand services. Traditional operational environments were designed for a world of pre-defined, static services, and rely on manual interaction with legacy operational support systems (OSS) to develop, provision, and assure services, processes that are anathema to realizing the potential of 5G.
In short, today’s 5G networks cannot rely on yesterday’s static OSS architecture. It needs to be one that is more scalable, agile and performance-driven. The service lifecycle needs to be as automated as possible to improve customer experiences and enable operators to evolve to new business models and new services that can meet new demands.
It’s why we believe 2023 is the year the industry will see significant service provider investment into digitally transforming and automating their 5G networks and operations using open and model-driven architectures.
Enough is enough: Network inventory systems to migrate
Network inventory continues to be a huge pain point for CSPs because they have so many legacy systems operating in silos. As 5G deployments continue to grow, CSPs are often fearful of additional complexity and adding yet another layer of manual processes, which could be disruptive not only to current business operations but to the swift ramping up of new services.
CSPs will say “enough is enough” in 2023 and accelerate their process of migrating from multiple static legacy inventory systems to a unified and dynamic inventory.
Migrations can now be done at the pace desired by operators, and without the need to rip-and-replace. CSPs can now unify all their operational data into a single, accurate source of truth, which will enable them to hasten their migration and retire legacy systems in a staged approach.
Automation as the standard for edge and multi-cloud environments
Many advanced and new 5G use cases revolve around delivering on-demand user experiences where service activation and changes are expected to be instantaneous – such as bandwidth-on-demand, and network slicing for automating a gaming tournament, as an example. This can transform monetization models for telcos, where customers pay for services when they need them.
But key to these innovative new services are the built-in terms such as “on-demand” and “instantaneous”, which means that compute and storage need to be closer to the end user. Edge clouds are being deployed by leading cloud operators to help enable this, yet it’s clear to many CSPs that balancing the operational complexity of edge services that include compute, storage, and connectivity resources with the required agility, speed, and scale is a difficult task.
Next year, we expect to see a more distinct focus on edge service orchestration to help CSPs and cloud operators balance these requirements. Along with automation of the service lifecycle, orchestration will be leveraged for intelligent placement of cloud-based network functions (CNFs) and applications in distributed environments to help operators ramp up innovative new service offerings and monetize their 5G investments.
High uptake of low code
IT skills shortages are being experienced across every industry, with roles from cybersecurity to DevOps, cloud and network engineers being hard to fill. For CSPs who are moving to more cloud-based services, it’s never been more important to have the requisite skills. When it comes to application development, there is so much opportunity for CSPs to ramp up differentiated offerings if done quickly, but also risk falling behind competitively if they can’t.
“Low-Code, No-Code” is an important emerging trend, and 2023 will see low code emerge as a necessity to equip IT teams with new tools that can be used to create services that would normally be developed by experienced programmers. For CSPs, low code will be necessary to drive OSS adoption in the direction of more product-centric business models.
Investment out of necessity
With the expectation that CSPs will more easily be able to ramp up new offerings, being able to manage and maintain visibility over an exponentially expanded ecosystem would be key. Between 5G, edge computing, multi- and low-code and providing quicker service deployments, maintaining a view across this ecosystem with legacy systems will become increasingly challenging.
Many of the predictions we made are set to come to fruition because of necessity. In 2023, CSPs will begin investing heavily into modernizing their operations to enable greater end-to-end observability and control across the breadth of the expanded environment, from the edge to the core.
