Back in the early 2000s, when I was a hardware analyst, all anyone talked about was feeds and speeds. Communications service providers rapidly were building out their IP networks, preparing for the day when “IP everywhere” finally arrived. It was a land grab — just get the boxes out there, and figure out how to manage it all later. A few years later, the networks were mostly built when Ethernet started to make a play. Supporters said Ethernet is simpler, it’s everywhere, which presumably would make it cheaper, to boot. Again, management issues were mostly on the back burner.
Well, the day of all-IP, all the time has arrived. IP and, increasingly, Ethernet now are supporting a host of services. Management issues no longer can be ignored. It used to be that service providers used relatively skilled staff to manage the network using the router command line interface (CLI) and a set of in-house developed scripts. While this approach worked when IP was used to support business services and core networks, it does not meet the needs of network operation centers responsible for access and aggregation networks. They lack the IP expertise and have well-established operations processes that need to be supported in the network management system (NMS). OSS Observer forecasts the market for IP and Ethernet NMS will grow at a 29 percent CAGR to reach $1.5 billion in 2012. This growth will be driven by the need for enhanced functionality in the NMS to support a range of mobile and fixed services.
Mobile data services are growing dramatically as tariffs become more attractive, data rates increase and better devices enter the market. This will drive spending on IP equipment and put increased emphasis on the management capabilities of the NMS. IP and Ethernet also are being used more extensively in the radio access network to support efficient backhaul and replace legacy technologies such as ATM and TDM. NMSs will need to provide IP and Ethernet management capabilities that are comparable to those available for these legacy technologies.
On the fixed side, IP and Ethernet have made their way into broadband networks. Services such as IPTV and VoIP demand enhanced NMS capabilities for managing quality of service, service activation and network optimization. Rapid subscriber growth is driving investment in automation systems, so the NMS needs to provide rich northbound interfaces into the service fulfillment systems. The migration of frame relay, ATM and leased line services toward IP and Ethernet has been happening for a few years now. And enterprises have required service providers to offer equivalent management capabilities as were found in legacy technologies. They also want to be able to verify through customer care portals that SLAs are being met. This leads to a need for the NMS to support real-time visibility into the service. Clearly, it also plays a key role in ensuring SLAs are met in the first place.
Regardless of the role IP and Ethernet play in service providers’ networks in the future, they already are supporting the services that providers are counting on to drive revenue today. With service providers offering increasingly similar sets of services on standardized hardware, quality will be the competitive differentiator. NMS is one of the critical enablers to ensure the optimal customer experience (you knew I had to say it sooner or later.) While the boxes get stronger, better, faster, remember that they aren’t worth a whole lot unless they can be managed cost effectively and efficiently. More and more, IP and Ethernet NMS must be up to the task.
Roz Roseboro is a senior analyst at OSS Observer, an Analysys Mason company that provides market share, forecast and analysis of trends in the telecom software market.
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