With the large-scale deployment of 5G networks, a digital society is coming with new services such as Live broadcast, Internet of Vehicles, Smart Cities and Industry 4.0. Carriers' services are moving from a pipeline economy to a platform economy.

August 11, 2020

5 Min Read
AUTIN AI Practices Delivers Cost Reduction, Quality Improvement and Transformation for Operation and Maintenance

With the large-scale deployment of 5G networks, a digital society is coming with new services such as Live broadcast, Internet of Vehicles (IoV), Smart Cities and Industry 4.0. Carriers' services are moving from a pipeline economy to a platform economy. The telecommunication industry is gradually evolving from connecting people to connecting everything. The traditional operation has reached its limits and this present new challenges for network operation and maintenance, intelligent operation is a must for the 5G era!

  • Challenge 1: The current human dominant operation mode is inefficient and costly. The operation cost is up to three times the equipment cost. As the number of 5G network elements increases exponentially the OPEX increases linearly and this structural cost needs to be addressed urgently.

  • Challenge 2: In the traditional network operation tools, data, processes, and knowledge are in silos. The introduction of new technologies such as virtualization, cloud and network slicing has increased the complexity of operations. Today’s operation based on passive response and human experience cannot meet the requirements of a high quality and stable network.

The traditional people centric operation has reached its limits and unable to address the challenges of the 5G era.

However a window of opportunity has arisen with the gradual maturity of AI and increasing computing power. Leveraging on big data, AI can perform the many manual repetitive tasks and also solve more complex problems which are beyond human capabilities. Huawei provide intelligent operation 2.0 with introduced big data analysis and AI capabilities.

Figure 1: Jet Xu, Director, ICT Operation Marketing & Solution Sales Dept, Huawei

Huawei AUTIN Intelligent Operation 2.0, Knowledge-Driven and Man-Machine Collaboration
Huawei has been investing and continue to invest in all aspect of operations which has resulted in numerous innovations. We have developed platforms, tools and processes to help us manage over 620 accumulated managed services contracts since 2005. This has helped standardize and industrialize operations. In 2015 we introduced the OWS, our software defined operation platform based on microservices architecture. It leverage on AI to deliver closed loop automation and was the first step towards intelligent operation. In 2018 we enhanced the capabilities of the Studio and leveraged on AI to predict and prevent faults. And today with our open ecosystem and Man-Machine collaboration model we have entered the second phase of intelligent operation.

What is intelligent operation 2.0? Intelligent operation 1.0 is a "people + tool" model. Intelligent operation 2.0 is a hyper-converged operation model that features knowledge-driven through man-machine collaboration.

The operation knowledge platform is the core of the man-machine collaborative operation model. Traditional operation personnel can transform into operation developers through the platform and have capabilities such as data analysis, network policy orchestration and operation app orchestration. The knowledge and experience of operation experts are transferred to the platform. This enables the machine to do closed loop operation through awareness, analysis, decision-making, and execution. Through its ability to predict and resolve problems before it impacts the network it is evolving from passive to proactive operation. With the open ecosystem and man-machine collaboration model, the knowledge platform can quickly and continuously accumulate operation assets. This will continuously improve the intelligent operation level and step by step move towards autonomous operations.

Figure 2: Framework of HUAWEI Intelligent Operation 2.0

Open Operation Assets and Ecosystem to Help Carriers Achieve Intelligent Operation Transformation
Huawei offers 2 transformation paths to help operators evolve to intelligent operation.

  1. Gradual transformation and on-demand evolution. Carriers can start with new capabilities such as fault prediction, gradually replace old systems and enable operation personnel skill transformation through the platform to achieve full transformation.

  2. One-stop transformation through platform replacement to switch to the intelligent operation mode.

Huawei provides the following solutions to support the two transformation modes:

  • Managed services: Operation is outsourced and Huawei uses a global delivery platform to ensure end-to-end stable network operation.

  • Intelligent operation cloud service: Upgrade the tools from the cloud, and Huawei platform, assets, and ecosystem are invoked to accelerate operation evolution.

One asset and two transformation paths are combined according to the needs and maturity of the operators. This allows them to select the right transformation roadmap for smooth evolution to intelligent operation, delivering cost reduction and quality improvement.

Based on years of continuous investment and practice, Huawei has built a mature and open operation ecosystem. The platform has registered and certified more than 9000 operation developers and 20 third-party partners. Huawei has aggregated customers, partners, and global developers internal to innovate and develop more than 900 excellent apps on the intelligent operation platform, sharing best practices of global network operation and leading the continuous progress of our industry.

Huawei's intelligent operation solution has been implemented on more than 100 networks around the world. Through joint innovation with customers, Huawei has developed the 5G intelligent operation solution that allows automatic and quick fault detection, locating, and resolution. It has the following Industry-leading innovations:

  • 5G E2E topology generation and fault visualization. For the first time the telecom industry automatically generates network topologies and displays alarm information using Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP). The entire network topology is generated within 15 minutes with an accuracy of 100%.

  • Automatic diagnosis of 4G and 5G faults. Quickly demarcate and locate 4G/5G problems in a very complex environment resulting in a decreased MTTR by 3 hours on average.

  • AI-assisted fault prediction. Predicting and preventing problems before they impact the network together with the ability to perform self-healing across 6 scenarios for NFV faults. Fault rectification is transformed from manual operation to intelligent operation based on man-machine collaboration.

Huawei continuously develops and optimizes the intelligent operation man-machine collaboration model through our investment and learnings from global practices. We have actively opened up operation assets and ecosystem. The two modes of operation and maintenance cloud services match the different requirements of customers, and enable the smooth evolution to intelligent operation and transformation. I warmly welcome global carriers and partners to join in and work together to explore and build an intelligent operation ecosystem, unleashing unlimited operation potential.

Please click for the link to download “Huawei AUTIN Intelligent Operation White Paper” for more information.

This content is sponsored by Huawei.

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd

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