Network virtualization

Monitoring service function chaining integrity

In a virtualized network, services are created at the service endpoints by chaining together virtualized network functions (VNFs) in a specific order to achieve the functionality specified in the service definition. When new services are created, it is essential that this service chain be validated to ensure compliance.

Additionally, due to the dynamic nature of virtualized networks, services – and hence their associated service chains – may be rerouted or moved to address areas such as efficiency, load balancing or recovery from a failure event. When this happens, it is equally important to verify that the service chains were rebuilt according to the agreed service specifications.

Having an orchestrated service assurance solution, embedded into the service chain itself, is the only way to ensure 100% visibility into service chain integrity during these events, or to detect failures in the service chain during normal operations.

End-to-end network service monitoring

One simple truth of virtualized networks is, it’s no longer possible to infer service quality by monitoring network quality. Because the traditional 1:1 mapping of service topology to network topology has been broken, you can no longer tell if a service is working by simply looking at network key performance indicators.

Why is this a problem? Well, in traditional networks, most services – likely any service not covered by an SLA – were not explicitly monitored. The assumption was that if there were no network alarms and the customer wasn’t complaining, then everything must be ok. In the virtualized network, this is no longer the case. Silent failures of service chains or cloud-based services may not show up in any kind of network alarm, nor is it easy to associate network alarms with a virtual service.

By orchestrating service assurance into most, if not all, service chains, service providers can have 100% visibility of every service and at very little additional coast. This visibility will be essential to supporting proactive QoE management and zero-touch operations.

Active network topology and inventory visibility

Having an accurate view of network and service topologies, along with an up-to-date inventory of both available and consumed resources, is critical to being able to build, operate and maintain any network. But when the network is virtual and both the network and service topologies can change to address changing conditions in the network state and service demand, this can become a huge challenge.

Active network topology and inventory visibility is even more critical given that automation will play a significant role in helping manage the virtual network. Without a real-time, accurate view of the network and service topologies as well as an up-to-date view of the active inventory, automation solutions will fail to deliver meaningful support.

Active, real-time topology discovery must be a central element of operations in the virtualized network.

Real-time impact assessment of network and service dynamics

Virtual networks are designed to be highly elastic with regards to scaling up and down to address changes in demand. They are built to support agile service development and rapid deployment. And, they’re intended to support zero-touch operations and customer-managed self-service portals.

With all this potential for rapid change, how do you make sure the network can provide adequate support without negatively impacting customer QoE? How do know there’s capacity for a new service offering? How can you be sure that a new virtual router can be spun up to offload traffic without impacting customer performance?

In a zero-touch, highly dynamic virtual network, you need tools and data to predict exactly how the network and its services will be impacted by these changes.

Unintended consequences of change can do more damage to existing services – and your reputation – than the issues you were trying to address.

Automation of complex or repetitive tasks

One of the key benefits of the transformation to virtualized networks is the increased reliance on automation to support just about every aspect of operations. The use of automation to manage complex tasks is particularly interesting given that service providers are being challenged to reduce OPEX. By automating service provisioning, network optimization, troubleshooting, root cause analysis and more, providers faced with a shrinking workforce and shortfall of skilled technical resources can continue to deliver high-quality services at a lower cost.

Additionally, since automated operations rely heavily on high-quality data to drive better decisions, being able to automate data measurement, correlation and storage means this highly repetitive function is done with greater consistency and quality, avoiding human error often associated with these functions.

Consistent network data and measurements

The quality of any data set is directly related to how the data is generated, measured and stored. In a virtual network, where big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence and analytics are critical to success, this is especially true. By automating the entire process of generating key performance indicators (KPIs) and by orchestrating service activation testing and service assurance monitoring into every service, the service provider guarantees the KPIs are generated consistently for all services throughout the entire virtual network. Additionally, by leveraging these KPIs to fuel policy-driven operations activities, the provider can bring an additional level of consistency and fairness to the way services and service related issues are handled, further improving the overall customer quality of experience.

Zero-touch network operations

The virtualized network brings with it the promise of service innovation and explosive growth. Highly elastic (to cost-effectively address scaling up or down) and service agile (with a DevOps approach to innovation), the virtual network is set to play a pivotal role in the transformation toward IoT and 5G. It also brings with it the tools to enable this explosive growth. Many analysts predict there will be more than 20 billion IoT devices by 2020—and it is simply impossible to connect and manage this many devices manually.

The virtual network unlocks the possibility of a truly zero-touch, or fully automated, network by moving everything to software running on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware platforms. By leveraging standard operations models, like the MEF lifecycle service orchestration (LSO) model, services can now be created, spanning multiple carrier domains and technologies, using open APIs driven through customer portals or carrier back office systems— without the need for human intervention. With no need to wait for truck rolls and IT support to turn up new services, growth is limited only by network capacity and reach.

Proactive customer experience management

Automation, a fundamental enabler of the virtualized network, will also open the door to greater control of customer QoE, through proactive customer service management. By utilizing orchestrated service assurance for both active and passive probing of every service, the carrier can get a real-time view of how each service is performing along with a robust profile of the customer usage patterns.

By tracking service performance, the service provider can see negative trends happen and take corrective action—perhaps even before the customer notices. Services outages and calls to customer support could become a thing of the past!

By leveraging passive probing, the service provider can build an extensive view of the customer and their usage patterns, allowing them to readily customize service offerings to cater to each customer.

The right services, operating beyond five 9s availability—now that’s proactive customer care!