Huawei's Intelligent Cloud-Network IT Architecture and Integration White Paper Leads Industries into an E-commerce Cloud-Network Era
[Shenzhen, China, April 13, 2021] Huawei unveiled its Intelligent Cloud-Network IT Architecture and Integration White Paper (hereinafter referred to as the "white paper") at the Huawei Global Analyst Summit (HAS) 2021. The white paper points out that — as enterprise digitalization increasingly upgrades from single clouds to multi-cloud and hybrid clouds (private cloud + public cloud) — operators must transform their cloud-network IT architecture from separate clouds and networks to a single cloud-network, thereby improving integrated cloud-network operations at a faster pace and leveraging their network advantages to find new ways to break the ice in the cloud era.
In the fourth industrial revolution, which is led by new technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and IoT, it is especially important to transfer the computing power of the cloud to industries around the world. Compared with OTT providers, operators face greater challenges regarding cloud-network operations. First, operator networks are now even larger and more complex, necessitating the introduction of new technologies to ensure a guaranteed reliable experience. Second, traditional operation and maintenance are network-centric and must evolve from manual processing based on tickets to automatic processing through machine-machine interfaces. Last but not least, the cloud-network operation ecosystem faces challenges relating to interconnection and interoperability among excessive BSS, OSS, and device vendors. To reduce technical details and industry customization, operators must define intent-facing open APIs for specific business scenarios, thereby facilitating system integration and accelerating service rollout.
To effectively address the new opportunities and challenges presented by rapid cloud-network development, Guo Dazheng, President of NCE Data Communication Domain at Huawei, stated that operators seeking to develop cloud-network services must deliver integrated cloud-network scheduling capable of producing networks that are as responsive as clouds. Cloud-network integration involves systematic technology transformation at the network infrastructure layer, network management & control layer, and network operation layer to drive comprehensive service automation and e-commerce operations on the cloud-network, while also maximizing the network operation and localization service advantages of operators.
1. Network infrastructure layer: Simplified protocols are the basis. A wide range of traditional network protocols exist, most of which involve complicated technologies and massive configurations. As a result, the related configuration, management, and maintenance are fraught with challenges. To address this issue, the intelligent cloud-network integrates traditional complex protocols into two simplified alternatives: EVPN and SRv6. SRv6 is a next-generation SDN network enabling protocol which helps intelligent management & control systems achieve centralized path computation and cross-domain one-hop through while avoiding VPN concatenation.
2. Intelligent management & control layer: Network as a Service (NaaS) is the key. Conventional NMSs use network-level interfaces to interconnect with an OSS, but this results in complex integration involving thousands of parameters. In addition, the OSS needs to manage multiple NMSs in different domains, which increases the difficulty of OSS development. The intelligent cloud-network introduces NaaS technology to provide tenant-level service-oriented interfaces for the OSS, while also shielding technical details relating to the network. Consequently, tenant network provisioning and adjustment can be completed with fewer than 100 parameters, greatly simplifying OSS integration.
3. Network operation layer: E-commerce operation is the result. As traditional operations are ticket-driven and involve manual workloads, service provisioning can require up to several months. The intelligent cloud-network IT architecture integrates conventional OSS and BSS functions and offers a multi-cloud aggregation function. This architecture invokes the network service capabilities of the intelligent management & control layer through service-oriented interfaces, while one-stop subscription to cloud-network products will provide tenants with an ideal e-commerce shopping experience, shortening the service provisioning time to days.
According to the white paper, the intelligent cloud-network IT architecture is still in its infancy, held back by the various frameworks and standards of different operators. As such, system implementation is still a complicated and costly prospect and integration tests remain time-consuming. To solve the problems relating to OSS/BSS integration, Huawei calls for the entire industry to jointly build an integration lab capable of connecting OSS/BSS vendors, operators, and scientific research institutes such as standards organizations. The lab provides an experienceable integration environment to accelerate system-ecosystem integration and drive the development of cloud-network services.
There remains a long road ahead in terms of intelligent cloud-network IT architecture upgrade. In this regard, Huawei looks forward to cooperating with operators, OSS/BSS partners, and industry alliances to deliver new intelligent cloud-network services featuring integrated cloud-network scheduling and consistent cloud-network experience for various industries in the cloud era. Huawei also aims to assist operators with their transformation from traditional ICT services to future-proof DICT services, fueling breakthroughs in emerging technologies across all areas of society.
Click here to read Intelligent Cloud-Network IT Architecture and Integration White Paper.
