Technology Magazine July 2019 | Page 50

SDAN PRAGMATISM
NETWORKING
50

“Programmability and automation within a virtual network slice allow operators to be far more agile and respond quickly to customer demand ”

— Filip De Greve , Product Marketing Manager Fixed Networks , Nokia
Programmability . Networks are controlled by software functionality , allowing network operations to be automated and adapted in a flexible way .
User plane separation . Separation of the management and control plane from the user plane allows new services and behaviours to be introduced across underlying hardware .
Abstraction . Operations are abstracted from service implementation logic , simplifying provisioning and troubleshooting processes that can deal with different technologies , and maximising portability in the face of future network evolutions .
SDAN PRAGMATISM
Let ’ s remind ourselves of some SDAN basics . The idea of bringing SDN and NFV into the fixed access was to let operators use cloud , software and DevOps technologies beloved of the IT world to create more agile , manageable , dynamic and cost-effective networks . The main features of SDAN are :
Central control . Centralised network intelligence allows decisions to be made based on a global view of the network , allowing rapid network changes and rollout of network services .
Open standards . Open standards and open APIs for programming the network enable innovation and differentiation by operators .
JULY 2019