Start with the end in mind

The goal of many services providers is to be digital service providers – to expand from connectivity to deliver and monetize the new digital services we will use to live, work, learn, relax and socialize.

Standardizing on an underlying automation platform can substantially simplify managing both legacy and new service offerings – by making them all manageable in a unified and seamless manner.

SES is a good example. Instead of launching new business connectivity services such as SD-WAN with siloed and tactical support systems, it opted to deploy a strategic automation platform that would form the foundation for all future service launches. Thanks to its foresight, SES not only successfully launched its new cloud-based SD-WAN service but is now building on the capabilities of its automation platform to support the end-to-end orchestration of new cloud-based offerings.

A Tier 1 in the USA made a similar strategic decision and implemented its first software defined enterprise service on a strategic automation platform. In rapid succession it was then able to launch a whole raft of new services including virtualized CPE, WAN optimization, firewalls, virtualized WiFi and with the benefit of automation it was able to turn these services into managed services – managed WiFi, managed security, managed WAN. And it’s not just about responsiveness to customer demands. Consolidated automation also allows CSPs to experiment with new services: launching them quickly, scaling them up, or withdrawing them just as swiftly, depending on their success.

And then there is the impact on the customer experience: in our on-demand world, we’re used to clicking, paying, and using services immediately. Waiting several weeks for a service to be activated, or an error to be rectified manually, is no longer a viable option.

Where to start?

So why, when network organization are so great at strategic network decisions are they making tactical automation decisions? It is tempting when selecting a new network technology to just use the ‘automation’ that comes bundled with the technology. But SP experience in virtualization has shown this approach has led to very low levels of automation. It didn’t tackle automation of the existing network, it didn’t tackle automation across the end to end network, and it didn’t tackle automation of the service. In some cases, it didn’t even really automate the domain it came with.

Now as we move to 5G and Cloud Native Networks we have the chance to take a different approach. It is a 3-step approach: