The TM Forum’s Autonomous Network Vision Becoming the Operations Blueprint for CSPs and Vendors

Many vendors and CSPs have bought into the Autonomous Networks vision, as articulated by theTM Forum. Now, some of these have committed themselves to achieving AN Level 4 (out of 5) by 2025

AN Release 3.0 Participation

The vision of autonomous network operations, where a communications network requires no human intervention to perform its daily operations, is not new. But what is new is that, with new software technology, it is becoming achievable. The TM Forumhas achieved an industry leadership position in defining the vision and architecture of such a network in its work on autonomous networks. The most recent AN 3.0 whitepaper on the subject contains contributions by 32 companies.

The TM Forum is currently soliciting participation in the 4.0 release and is anticipating even greater participation.

AN Implementation Plans

Recently, I have had the opportunity to talk to many of these companies about their plans to evolve their products and their networks toward the AN vision.

I have found (so far, let me know if I have missed you):

CSPs

• China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom have committed projects to achieve AN Level 4 by 2025.
• MTN has ongoing projects that are evolving operations to Level 3 operations autonomy.
• Robi Axiata has committed to several AN focused projects.

Vendors

• All vendors have articulated how their products and services can move a CSPs’ operations toward autonomy.
• Huawei has launched a comprehensive set of AN products and services to:
  • Evaluate the current level of operations autonomy across the network operations,
  • Choose projects that will have the greatest impact on the business success of the CSP by fixing current operations issues and providing competitive advantage in selected areas,
  • Implement the projects via a reproducible, sustainable process and a set of matching products, using a combination of Huawei’s and CSPs’ staff expertise to implement the automated processes,
  • Evaluate the results,
  • Plan the next step in the iterative process of AN evolution.

AN Evolution

As the AN vision, architecture, level evaluations, and use cases evolve, I anticipate more announcements from both CSPs and vendors in this area. And I eagerly await the 4.0 release.

Contact Mark Mortensen at mmortensen@acgcc.com.

For more information on AN:

Implementing Autonomous Networks: Three Approaches

Autonomous Networks Power Industry 4.0

Huawei Autonomous Driving Network: Standards-Based but Differentiated

Huawei ADN Solution Approach to Implementing Autonomous Networks

Propelling Operators to L3 Operations Autonomy and Beyond with Huawei ADN