The COVID-19 pandemic made us all acutely aware of how crucial connectivity is to our lives. Whether it is to get health updates from family and friends in far-away places, or to stay connected for work or school, network connectivity has ensured information flows for on-demand entertainment and education, and business continuity amidst unprecedented circumstances.
In fact, Ciena’s latest research revealed that three-fourths of adults in UAE and KSA are planning to upgrade their internet within the next 24 months to gain better network performance and speed.
With this onslaught of bandwidth demands, network providers face the twin challenge of supporting growing capacity, while delivering high quality end-user experience to consumers.
Seamless connectivity is vital to success in today’s business landscape. But as consumption goes up, the revenue that is generated from a fixed volume of data transfer quickly vanishes. As a result, operators have to contend with surging operational and capital expenditure.
New business possibilities for network providers will materialise only if they scale up massively at the lowest cost per bit and fully monetise their network resources. In addition, network providers are also continuously striving to maximise their return on investment, while improving system performance, network efficiency, and service availability.
This calls for a smarter approach that leverages predictive analytics to change the way optical networks are built, operated and monetised.
Today’s optical networks are designed to tolerate and fulfil end-of-life conditions using best-case prediction and worst-case capacity requirements. The problem with this is, if capacity is overestimated, it drives up initial costs and reduces network efficiency. On the other hand, if it is underestimated and new demands arise that have not been planned or provisioned for, it increases spending. Instead, optical networks need to become increasingly intelligent and programmable, respond dynamically to handle changing demands and unpredictable traffic requirements, especially as 5G rollout gains momentum across the region.
Leverage analytics to simplify operations
A smarter network is needed to help overcome these challenging market dynamics. Providers can pivot their networks towards a more programmable optical infrastructure that can scale up and quickly respond to these ever-increasing demands for network capacity. A critical element is the use of predictive analytics and increased automation to drive actionable insights based on the current state of the network.
Using advanced software applications, operators can gain more capacity with fewer modems, more visibility with less complexity, and more flexibility with less intervention in the network. For example, operators can monitor and mine all available assets to quickly respond to new bandwidth demands and allocate capacity across any path in real-time.
Next-generation flexible technologies are bringing unprecedented benefits to optical networks. However, providers are concerned with the potential increase in operational complexity in day-to-day network operations, as well as the impact it can have on other stages of their photonic network lifecycle, such as network planning, delivery, operations and optimisation.
Advanced software applications like Ciena’s Liquid Spectrum analytics apps are simplifying operations by reducing the complexity associated with these flexible innovative technologies. They combine intelligent software control and advanced end-to-end photonic layer automation with real-time link performance metrics, to provide new levels of visibility into the health of the network. It gives network providers the tools to make smarter decisions based on current state of the network.
These applications also help network providers extract the complete value of their network assets, across all stages of the photonic network lifecycle, to gain increased capacity, stronger channel reach, faster troubleshooting, increased service availability by leveraging existing system margin and flexibly to recover maximum traffic across any available path, or increased automation for faster time to market. This effectively helps clients achieve their business goals — with the ability to dynamically move capacity across the network using existing assets to address mobile capacity requirements or reducing time-to-market when there is an unpredictable service demand.
In the Middle East, these advancements will help with the accelerated deployment of hyperscale infrastructure, as well as the accelerated interconnection of data centres, delivering more network protection by adjusting transport capacity across any available path, access to more upstream IP and Peering eco-systems and wider access to the Subsea and Terrestrial Cable Systems. The advancements will also allow service providers to offer new commercial models such as ‘Capacity on Demand’ for ‘time-framed’ events like Expo 2020 Dubai or the FIFA World Cup 2022.
Over the years, providers have continued to invest in their optical networks to maximise fiber capacity. Now, with the recent advancements in intelligent software automation, the time is ripe to combine these enhanced networking capacities with automation to help network providers maximise ROI, optimise performance, build efficiency and troubleshoot faster.
(Azz-Eddine Mansouri is the General Manager at Ciena Middle East)
