“Which 10 nascent technologies will impact and be impacted by OSS in the future?”
- Cloud delivery and related services models that allow carriers to reduce their OSS CAPEX load and outsource aspects of operations. The other important aspect of cloud delivery is web-scaling of infrastructure for efficient, but resilient OSS platform architectures
- Network virtualization for on-demand resource allocation and associated reductions in power use by CSPs, an area where OSS has barely scratched the surface
- Network security has the potential to share information on a much larger scale than currently. Fear is a driving force in budget allocations and network security threats are on the rise
- Big Data and analytics are already widely used by CSPs but flexible, data driven application models appear to be the only way to keep pace with the rapid change thrust upon our industry
- Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics will be the only way that operations teams will be able to keep up as we see a touchpoint explosion. The associated rise in actionable events won’t be able to be handled without machine assisted decision support
- Service chaining, orchestration and automation are already important but will become increasingly important due to the touchpoint explosion and the increased complexity of virtualised networks
- Wireless sensor networks / IoT aren’t exactly nascent despite recent hype. Telemetry networks have been around for decades. The change will come from a rapid increase in sensors for the consumer / retail market (rather than business market) and the need for multi tenanted operational solutions to monitor and manage them, not to mention supporting the building of third-party apps on them
- Self-organizing Networks (SON) has primarily been focussed on mobile networks but the concept extends to all network types if the OSS will support it
- Blockchain will potentially represent the solution to a number of current OSS problems, including data integrity and automated contract handling (eg SLAs, QoS, delivery times, etc). More on this in future blogs
- Telco-led ecosystems in loT, health-care and more will leverage the power of the value fabric and the power of innovation that come with it. Essential for delivering value to the varied needs of the long tail of customers (ie all customers other than the top-100)