• Assurance added to its Network Services Platform
• Carrier SDN projects are progressing from lab trials to commercial deployment
• New solution applies assurance (KPIs/analytics) to drive automated control of networks

At the SDN World Congress in The Hague this morning, Nokia announced that it is expanding its “carrier SDN” offering by adding assurance capabilities to its Network Services Platform (NSP). The vendor says that assurance provides the missing link that operators need to start large-scale commercial SDN deployment, which in turn is being spurred by the growth of cloud, video and IoT. Its NSP suite already includes automation and network control features for on-demand service provisioning, but Nokia has found that as SDN projects move from limited live trials to broad deployment and commercialisation, providers are requesting the addition of assurance functionality.

“We are not only addressing the need for assurance, but also providing additional value by leveraging our investment in policy-based SDN control to automate assurance processes,” said Sasa Nijemcevic, General Manager of the Network and Service Management business at Nokia. “As a result, operators will maintain the highest levels of customer satisfaction while optimizing their network assets to move confidently into the next era of carrier SDN.”

With automated assurance, Nokia says KPIs and analytics can be used to dynamically trigger changes at the SDN control layer without the need for manual intervention. This capability will allow service providers to quickly gain visibility into potential problems within their multi-vendor carrier SDN networks and assess the overall impact, as well as trigger automated corrective measures. In addition, it will drive SDN control policies that can redirect paths, traffic and bandwidth at any layer (flow, IP, Ethernet or optical) and across both physical and virtual domains.

"Service assurance is a critical requirement for successful SDN-based automation and optimization in the WAN,” said Dana Cooperson, Research Director, Network, Software and Virtualization, Analysys Mason. “Without adequate assurance capabilities, uptake of carrier SDN has been slow, particularly for complex multi-domain, multi-vendor networking applications. CSPs are recognizing the need for integrated assurance and asking vendors for solutions.”

The NSP dynamic assurance capability is part of Nokia's multi-domain Service Assurance programme and a key component of the company's domain-specific closed-loop automation architecture.