Enabling Automated Service Assurance in the Telecoms Industry

Service assurance is a critical aspect of the telecoms industry, as it ensures that service providers maintain high-quality performance and customer satisfaction. To reduce the cost of today's operations and effectively manage the current and future networks, network operators require an automated approach to service assurance.

Market Overview

• The demand for Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) automated maintenance tools comes from two broad commercial goals:
  1. Monitor the operational status of Communication Service Providers’ (CSPs) network components and elements.
  2. Anticipate faults and network traffic bottlenecks.
• Automated service assurance continues to be a key use case for telco maintenance. Automated service assurance keeps overall Operational Expenditure (OPEX) under control, especially as a robust marketplace and a fiercely competitive landscape continue to squeeze operating margins.

• ABI Research identifies some high-level estimations that indicate that overall revenue from AI-enabled maintenance product sales is set to grow from just under US$15 billion in 2023 to US$35 billion in 2028 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19.1%.
• As CSPs continue to modernize their network operations and software systems, and as 5G Standalone (SA) deployments proliferate, investment in AI/ML-related mobile telco maintenance tools will grow.
• As CSPs integrate AI/ML-enabled maintenance and automation solutions in their networks, ABI Research observes two deployment modes: 1) full-stack, and 2) three-layer stack. Based on ABI Research’s tracking of 5G deployments, to date, we estimate that 15% to 20% of deployments are on a three-layer stack. The remaining share applies to full-stack deployments.
• ABI Research estimates that overall revenue from AI-enabled maintenance product sales in the full-stack segment is set to grow from US$11.6 billion to US$23 billion in 2028, at a CAGR of 14.2%.
• ABI Research estimates that overall revenue from AI-enabled maintenance product sales in the three-layer stack segment is set to grow from US$2.9 billion to US$12.2 billion, at a CAGR of 33.2%.

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“The integration of AI/ML into automating and maintaining telco operations is going ahead at full speed. Suppliers are doubling their efforts to upgrade their maintenance portfolios in anticipation of 5G rollouts. And there is ongoing investment in more fully automated operational processes that are guided and monitored by AI/ML processes.” – Don Alusha, Senior Analyst at ABI Research

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Key Decision Items

Vendors Must Build Service Assurance for 5G Cloud Environments

5G networks and the services that traverse them will be dynamic and involve many different Network Functions (NFs), making them very difficult to troubleshoot without advanced cloud-optimized service assurance. 5G service assurance must be built for the cloud by design. Service assurance needs to be cloud-native, meaning it is not a “legacy” solution that requires specific hardware or network acceleration cards. This is not necessarily cloud-optimized and will not provide optimum results in having a solution that is efficient and cost-effective in using cloud resources.

Suppliers also must support a high degree of automation in their service assurance offering and integrate it with Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML), as well as offer CSPs the ability to tweak the training models by properly processing operational data and contributing it to the analytics frameworks.

Vendors Should Offer Event Correlation at Scale

Scale and correlation are two key challenges for service assurance in 5G cloudified networks. As 5G cellular workloads and deployments move to the edge, the number of Data Center (DC) sites grows from hundreds to thousands, the number of Virtual Machines (VMs) proliferate from hundreds to thousands, and networks shift from tens in centralized environments to hundreds at the edge. To exacerbate the challenge, cloudification introduces horizontal disaggregation between hardware and software.

Further, cloud-native environments further disaggregate the software into smaller, manageable, and independent components—microservices. Gathering actionable insights from all these devices and components, and processing and correlating that information for timely action is a scale challenge that suppliers must address.

Vendors Must Insert Dynamic Service-Level Objectives into Service Assurance

Next-generation services, such as 5G slices, mobile Internet of Things (IoT), and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite connectivity, are characterized by high mobility, and are global and extensive in coverage. CSPs will need to specify different Service-Level Objectives (SLOs) for the different geographies in which they operate. Consequently, vendors should take the mobility aspects into account for their service assurance solutions and dynamically apply thresholds to properly calculate Key Performance Indicator (KPI) violations. Relatedly, 5G and cloudified networks are characterized by topologies that are dynamic in nature. Different parts of 5G network topologies will have different life span and unique lifecycle states, all of which will need their own assurance processing rules. Policies will need to be different in content, possibly coming from multiple policy engines at different domains.

CSPs Should Assure the Underlay, the Overlay, and the Layers In-Between

5G and the cloud introduce complexity. There is the physical infrastructure and network, also known as underlay, there is the hypervisor layer that abstracts the hardware underneath, and there is a potential Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) layer for Cloud-native Network Function (CNF) hosting. Also, there is the application layer, often referred to as overlay. Each layer is an individual ecosystem, each with its own objects and properties, networking stack, and lifecycle management states.

Hypervisors and PaaS layers expand the scope of service assurance. Overlay assurance functions will need to be dynamic and follow the active usage of the service/app. By contrast, the underlay infrastructure is much more fixed and stable. Assurance solutions for the underlay should be active 24/7 and requires ultra-high accuracy. Overlay, underlay, and virtualization layers should be monitored simultaneously for cross-layer event aggregation, correlation, and workflow automation design and management.

Key Market Players to Watch

• Accedian
• Amazon Web Services
• Amdocs Limited
• AT&T
• Cisco
• Colt Technology Services
• ENEA
• Ericsson
• Google
• Infovista
• Microsoft Corporation
• Netcracker
• NETSCOUT
• Nokia
• Oracle Corporation
• RADCOM
• Sandvine
• Telefónica
• Telenor Group
• TEOCO
• VIAVI
• VMware
• Vodafone Group
• Wind River
• ZTE Corporation

Dig Deeper for the Full Picture

Identify key trends in cloudification, as well as the design requirements, core technologies, and major decision factors involved in the cloud-native automated assurance space by downloading ABI Research’s Automated Service Assurance in Cloudified Networks report.  

Not ready for the report yet? Check out the following Research Highlights:

• How Communication Service Providers Can Drive Change in the 5G Market and Reap Rewards beyond the Value Chain
• 5 Ways for CSPs to Succeed on the 5G Core (5GC) Network Front
• How Has the Macroeconomic and Geopolitical Climate Influenced the Telco Market?

This content is part of the company’s 5G Core & Edge Networks Research Service.