By Sean Kinney, Editor in Chief
The continued evolution of 5G is very much an exercise in rapidly increasing network and service complexity. On the network side, the shift to cloud architecture, cloud-native core, edge clouds and RAN virtualization make emerging networks look quite distinct as compared to their predecessors. On the services side, the money will come from enterprises and enterprises need customized solutions with unique performance characteristics, and they’d likely prefer to consume those services in an on-demand, IT-type model. So what should operators do in this operational environment? “There are three key words and they are automation, automation, automation,” according to Oracle’s Anil Rao.
“5G operations must be automation-native by design,” he continued. On the convergence of cloud, virtualization, disaggregation and decentralization of the network, “If you put all these things together. it’s fair to say that the networks that underpin 5G are going to look massively different. And it’s going to be immensely more complex to manage and operate on a day-to-day basis.”
Discussing the evolution of services, Rao said, “Yes, consumer can expect super-fast mobile broadband but that’s really more of the same.” What’s different are bespoke enterprise services. “This is where it starts to get interesting because enterprises present a whole raft of challenges.”
Automation enables sustainable 5G operational economics
In terms of automating the network resource and service provisioning/delivery of enterprise services, network slicing is something of a North Star. But, Rao said, network slicing “require[s] a highly-evolved, automated operations platform.” The reasons are three-fold: abstraction and management; exploiting the benefits of the new technology; and sustainable operational economics.
Abstraction because “it’s going to be humanly impossible to do by just throwing more people at it or even just using the traditional operations model…where expectations were mainly consumer voice and data.” Exploiting the benefits, well, “You wouldn’t put a Ford engine in a Tesla.” And, “They need to do all of the above…without breaking the bank. Controlling opex is going to be critical to making 5G profitable and operations automation is going to make this possible.”
So what does that look like in terms of a real world strategy for both operators turning up 5G for the first or more advanced 5G operators expanding, densifying and onboarding mobile edge computing infrastructure?
Automate everything that can be automated
According to Rao, there’s a focus on remote configuration of cell site routers and zero-touch provisioning of new 5G and MEC infrastructure. “We’re also seeing the early signs of the use of digital twin concept for digitalization of cell sites. Once you have digitally modeled the entire cell site using high-def cameras mounted on a drone, for example, you can then combine that with other information such as network inventory and telemetry data to make intelligent and automated decisions on configuration and optimization of those sites.”
A big part of this–back to controlling opex at sustainable levels–is limiting site touches and attendant truck rolls to control massive managed services agreements. For MEC nodes, a key part of operator 5G monetization strategies, “It definitely helps that the MEC sites, to some extent, resemble a cloud data center, and cloud players, as we know, have mastered the art of rapidly replication cloud regions with automation. CTOs are now insisting on an automate everything that can be automated-type approach.”https://www.rcrwireless.com
