Service assurance remains an integral component for carriers moving towards NFV and SDN
Service assurance remains a key concern for telecom operators as they look towards increasing their use of virtualization technologies such as network functions virtualization and software-defined networking. While legacy service assurance platforms may seem archaic in the new world of advanced software, telecom operators have come to understand how these components work and have developed a comfort level with these platforms.
That’s not to say that these legacy systems can’t be improved upon, both in terms of their ability to meet carrier needs as well as in more easily scaling to meet service needs moving forward. Anand Gonuguntla, CEO at Centina Systems, said this ability to change with the times is especially important as carriers turn towards new business avenues, which will in turn require support systems to possess increased agility.
“One of the key aspects that change with NFV is what is a service,” Gonuguntla explained. “Historically, carriers are selling bandwidth or a set of services and those are fairly well defined and during the lifetime of the service they tend to be fairly static. With SDN and NFV, the promise is agility and robustness and the service on demand. You need to be able to model a service that can be anything.”
Centina Systems earlier this year struck a deal with regional telecom provider C Spire to deploy Centina’s NetOmnia platform for its fault and performance management, Ethernet assurance and service level agreement manager functionality across the operator’s Internet, wired and wireless network platforms.
The service assurance market has garnered increasing attention from mobile operators looking to more efficiently tap into their network resources. Sprint last year signed a deal with NetCracker to provide support for the carrier’s Spark network program. RCR Wireless News also released a report looking at the service assurance market.
A recent report from Analysys Mason forecast that the worldwide service assurance market would grow from $2.93 billion in 2013 to $4.13 billion in 2018, representing a 7.2% compound annual growth rate. The report noted that mobile assurance systems would drive most of that growth as “operators will invest in systems that can monitor legacy (2G), 3G and LTE at the lowest total cost of ownership.” The report added that telecom big data analytics will also “use assurance systems as a source of customer behavior data to improve customer loyalty and reduce churn.”
Make sure to join us on Oct. 16 for our next episode of NFV/SDN Reality Check when we speak with Cahit “Jay” Akin, CEO at Mushroom Networks, about the company’s work with SDWAN and NFV customizations in helping enterprises manage their communication needs.
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