Automation in the Adaptive Network

A survey of trends, opportunities, and challenges facing network providers

It’s about APPU
and QoE, not
ARPU

ABOUT THE SURVEY KEY FINDINGS

From January to February 2018, ACG Research partnered with Ciena • Surveyed 208 global
to conduct a survey and interviews with global network providers. network and IT decision-
The goal of the survey was to inform the market of the business makers and influencers in
motivations, trends, and challenges around increasing levels of North America, CALA,
automation in the network and the important role of automation in EMEA, and APAC.
building a network that can respond and adapt to changing
networking conditions and business demands. • By 2021, automation
investments are expected
We surveyed 208 participants worldwide, representing network and to grow by 30%.
IT decision-makers and influencers in the following geographic
• Motivators behind network
regions: Global, North America, CALA, EMEA, and APAC, as shown in
automation: faster service
Figure 1. We included network service providers, cloud service
delivery, improved
providers, internet content providers and large enterprises in the
customer satisfaction and
survey and interviews.
launch of new services.

• 75% of survey respondents

expect to achieve
significant or full
automation in 5 years.

• 82% of respondents will

obtain their open source
Figure 1. ACG Survey Participants
software from vendors or a
mix of sources.
Introduction: The Evolution of Networks
From Alexander Bell’s introduction of the telephone in 1876 to the birth of the Public Switch Telephone
Network (PSTN) to the invention of broadband, networks were built to provide connectivity to a relatively
limited number of fixed and mobile endpoints. With the arrival of new software capabilities, cloud
technologies, the Internet of Things, and 5G, the number of mobile endpoints will soon reach the billions
(Figure 2). Network providers are faced with difficult questions: What happens when physical devices
currently used to support networking functions become virtual and the user endpoints also become
virtual? The popular answer to this problem has been automation.

Figure 2. Evolution of Networking

Automation is not a new concept to this industry. In the PSTN era, the manual role of the operator
eventually became automated. In the broadband era, providers orchestrated the many tasks required to
build and operate a service into one process. In the cloud era, complexity is not going away. Automation
is important, but the network also needs to become more intelligent, using analytics to anticipate and
respond to new requests with fewer manual processes and errors.

Figure 3 shows how networks must become more adaptive over time to deliver the best Quality of
Experience (QoE).

Figure 3. Networks Must Leverage Automation and Become More Adaptive

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Survey findings
So, what are network providers thinking? Respondents to the survey largely viewed themselves as being
on an automation journey motivated by growth and enhanced customer service but somewhat slowed by
security concerns, workforce skillset gaps, and inadequate infrastructure. A majority of respondents
placed importance on openness and interoperability, and a majority also viewed network planning and
business case analysis as the most important services for increasing automation to realize a more adaptive
network.

The journey
Most companies believe they are midway on their automation journey. By 2021, automation investments
are expected to grow by 30 percent, as shown in the left side of Figure 4.

This same optimistic attitude is reflected in the survey results, where 75 percent of respondents thought
their network would be significantly or fully automated in the next five years (Figure 4). But that is not to
say every service provider is at the same level of automation maturity, or that no challenges remain. The
question that remains is how best to achieve their objectives.

Figure 4. Service Provider Automation Investment and Level of Automation in the Next Five Years

Out of necessity, global cloud service providers and Internet content providers appear to have the most
mature approaches to automation implementation, with centralized executive sponsorship of projects,
clearly enumerated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure success and regular oversight to adjust
the plan when needed. For some network service providers and enterprises, the process is far less mature:
siloed and sometimes duplicate trials and implementations in different parts of the company, few (if any)
clear KPIs to measure success other than operational expense reduction, and little regular executive
oversight. In these companies, there is a sense that the process will mature over time, but now it is more
ad hoc and siloed.

Motivations
The biggest motivations behind network automation are faster service delivery, customer satisfaction and
an increased launch rate of new services. (Figure 5). Although a desire to reduce operational costs is

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certainly present, service providers have evolved their process and realize that they must focus on a
broader set of priorities in order to be fully successful.

Figure 5. Service Provider Motivations for Increasing Network Automation

In interviews, multiple service providers indicated that their catalysts for change include rapid network
growth and an excessive amount of manual operations. Additionally, multiple interviewees cited
predictive maintenance and automated capacity adjustments as desired automation use cases.

Getting started
Providers cited network planning and business case analysis as the most important professional services
for increasing adaptive network automation globally. Regionally, there are slight variations, as shown in
Figure 6. However, CALA placed greater emphasis on system integration than the other geographic
regions. One CALA executive stated that all the emerging technologies are a lot for their people to learn
and integrate, and they would view positively a vendor that could put all the pieces together and provide
a single point of contact to resolve issues and evolve the network for a better quality and a better
experience for them and their customers.

Figure 6. Professional Services Important to Service Providers

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Barriers
Figure 7 shows how respondents ranked barriers to automation. Concerns about security and the need
for increased intelligence/analytics were at the top of providers’ minds regarding current limitations
holding back automation today and key components needed to increase automation going forward. As
one would expect, there is general concern about protecting the network, as well as service provider and
customer data, from theft or attack.

Figure 7. Service Providers’ Barriers to Automation

Interviewees expressed a hopefulness that automation can help overcome human error, leading to
improvements in overall security. However, there was also a general sense that automation can cut both
ways, as it also introduces the ability to replicate a small, isolated error broadly and rapidly. Service
providers are very concerned about automated security done well and are actively collaborating with
vendors to protect the network and the data.

Openness
Sixty percent of respondents indicated openness and interoperability as being very important for their
automation solution. Eighty-two percent plan to use open source software from vendors or a mix of
sources vs. obtaining the software directly from the open source community.

Is there an answer?
The survey responses demonstrate that network and IT leaders alike are placing great importance on
automating their networks to realize a more adaptive network, one that grows smarter and more agile
every day. Some of their reasons include:
• Network providers’ operational environments are growing increasingly complex as the need to
support on-demand services grows across multi-vendor domains.
• Existing network management and OSS lack the scale and flexibility to meet the requirements of
more dynamic network technologies such as NFV and SDN.
• Network providers are looking for more robust automation to reduce operational complexity/cost
and improve efficiency at scale.

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Additionally, the need for increased intelligence/analytics is critical to a more adaptive networking vision.
In discussions with service providers, the ability to obtain data from their network elements and virtual
software functions is improving; they are moving away from polling mechanisms such as simple network
management protocol (SNMP) and toward streaming telemetry approaches such as open source remote
procedure calls like gRPC.

However, a sea of data is useless without the ability to analyze and extract intelligence from it. To fully
realize increased network automation and respond to the motivations service providers listed as high
priorities, they need a system that can extract information for real-time network changes and adaptations.

Defining Ciena’s Adaptive Network Vision

Managing thousands of requests on the network every second of every day requires a highly
programmable infrastructure and automation, guided by analytics and intent-based policies to rapidly
scale, self-configure, and self-optimize by constantly assessing network pressures and demands. As
visualized in Figure 8, Ciena’s Adaptive Network vision stresses the importance of infrastructure
programmability and analytics as well as automation, enabling network providers to control and adjust
over time the level of automation they want and trust in managing their networks.

Figure 8. Foundational Elements of Ciena’s Adaptive Network vision

Ciena’s Adaptive Network vision is built on three key foundational elements:

1. Programmable infrastructure: A programmable packet and optical infrastructure is one that can
be accessed and configured via common open interfaces, is highly instrumented, with the ability
to export real-time network performance data, and can adjust its resources as needed to meet
the demands of the applications and services running on top of it.

2. Analytics and intelligence: Collecting network performance data and analyzing this data using
machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), provides the ability to more accurately predict
potential network problems and anticipate trends by turning mountains of data into actionable
insights. Leveraging these insights can help network providers develop smarter, data-driven
business policies that enable them to adapt to customer needs securely and in real time.

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 3. Software control and automation: Multi-Domain Service Orchestration, federated inventory, and
centralized, software-defined control of individual domains form the basis of adaptive
networking. Through the implementation of SDN, NFV, and open APIs, network providers can
simplify the end-to-end management and automation of network services across multi-layer,
multi-vendor, hybrid networks.

Conclusion
Users’ ever-increasing expectations and the technology breakthroughs that continue to feed them have
created an unprecedented level of pressure and complexity on today’s network providers. As clearly
identified in ACG’s primary research, network automation will play an increasingly important role in
enabling service providers to respond to these forces by accelerating service delivery, improving customer
experiences, launching new services and reducing operational costs. Going beyond the basics of network
automation, Ciena has introduced the Adaptive Network consisting of three foundational elements:
programmatic infrastructure to manage and direct traffic, software automation/control to deliver
instructions across layers and domains and analytics/intelligence to identify actionable insights from a sea
of data. All three elements will play a critical role in transforming networks and service delivery as we
know it today.

Visit ciena.com to learn more about the Adaptive Network or download The Adaptive Network Vision
paper.

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About the Author
Tim Doiron, Principal Analyst and Practice Lead, Intelligent Networking
tdoiron@acgcc.com
Tim Doiron is Principal Analyst, Intelligent Networking practice, at ACG Research. Doiron’s work is focused
on network innovations and transformations in the areas of packet optical networking, data center inter-
connect, transport/multi-layer software-defined networking, mobile anyhaul and enterprise services
virtualization with network function virtualization and vCPE/SD-WAN. Tim has ongoing collaborations in
areas of network programmability, visibility, telemetry and automation.

Tim has more than 25 years of networking and telecommunications experience across business and
technical organizations. He has served in multiple executive and managerial roles: Vice-President/General
Manager, Vice-President of product management, director of marketing, product manager, business
development manager and software engineering manager at vendor and service provider companies
including Coriant, Tellabs, ARRIS, Cadant, Ericsson and AT&T Mobility. Tim has extensive experience
bringing new products to market.

Tim is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has authored numerous articles. He holds a Master
of Business Administration, Webster University; a Master of Science in electrical engineering, Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University; and a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering, Southern
Illinois University. Doiron also holds eight U.S. patents and is a member of IEEE and the Optical Society
(OSA). He is an active member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Industrial Advisory Board at
Southern Illinois University where he serves as an advisor to the department chair.

About ACG Research: ACG Research is an analyst and consulting company that focuses in the networking and telecom space. We
offer comprehensive, high-quality, end-to-end business consulting and syndicated research services. Copyright © 2018 ACG
Research. www.acgcc.com.