5G wireless technologies are expected to enable revolutionary new consumer and enterprise applications through massive data transfers at ultra low latencies. In order to do so, networks require a higher level of data management. 5G Americas today announced the publication of a white paper titled, Management, Orchestration & Automation that details significant MANO challenges and proposed solutions for developing and operating a fully featured 5G network.
Chris Pearson, President, 5G Americas said, “Incredible amounts of data will be made available by new capabilities in 5G, coupled with new technology enablers such as Edge and Cloud computing that will require the ability of network operators to analyze, manage and orchestrate, as they deploy network resources to provide new services and applications efficiently.”
Over the past few years, the telecommunications industry has undergone a rapid digital transformation that has introduced cloud-native concepts, including division of control and user plane, Software-Defined Networking (SDN), virtualization of applications and networks and now automation. However ultra low-latency 5G, aided by smart databases, analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) systems, is opening up new opportunities in streamlining time and labor-intensive tasks across networks.
To demonstrate the capabilities of applied MANO, the 5G Americas Management, Orchestration & Automation white paper provides:
- An overview of the 5G system and the challenges it presents for the Operations Support System (OSS)
- New and enhanced proposed OSS solutions for the management, orchestration and automation of 5G networks
- Outlines of key new technologies that drive a 5G network and the Operations Administration and Management (OAM) challenges they will solve
- Summarizes recent developments in 5G OAM at the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)
Indeed, according to a 2018 report by TM Forum, up to 72 percent of 5G revenue growth is dependent on transformation of operational and business support systems (OSS/BSS). The business benefits of 5G are reliant on the development of better, automated, and integrated management and operational capabilities.
Ehud Riesenberg, Director of Product Management at Cisco, co-leader of the project stated, “AI and machine learning can revolutionize the way service assurance is provided, significantly reducing turnaround time and streamlining business and operational processes. This is where well-structured management and orchestration (MANO) will become integral to the smooth functioning of 5G networks.”
The 5G Americas white paper also identifies the need to architect networks around real-time distributed service assurance, using network slicing technology to deliver ultra reliable low latency or enhanced mobile broadband capabilities to users, as identified in service level agreements.
Riza Hassan, Solutions Architect OSS Strategy & Planning at Sprint, co-leader of the project stated, “5G network technologies will produce a massive amount of actionable management data that will need to be collected, processed and acted upon to enable new 5G use cases. OSS capabilities will continue to evolve to meet these new requirements.”
The paper is available for free download on the 5G Americas website. Blog post by Chris Pearson, and presentation slides are also featured on the 5G Americas website.
