All-optical Autonomous Driving Network Transcends Superb Connectivity Experience

The 7th UBBF (UBBF 2021) was held in Dubai under the theme of Connectivity+, New Growth. During the event, Kim Wang, Marketing Director of Huawei’s NCE Optical Network domain, delivered a keynote speech titled "All-optical Autonomous Driving Network Transcends Superb Connectivity Experience ", and officially released the Huawei All-Optical Autonomous Driving Network White Paper for the first time.

Kim Wang said, "As an all-optical network is the cornerstone of the entire communications network, the all-optical autonomous driving network has become a consensus in the industry. Huawei aims to build an efficient, secure, and green all-optical autonomous driving network and provide premium home broadband and private line services with zero touch, zero wait, and zero fault, supporting the high-quality development of all services"

At the conference, Huawei also invited Ian Redpath, research director of Omdia, a well-known consulting firm in the industry, to share all-optical network insights. Ian Redpath pointed out that with the accelerated development of digitalization, cloud services, and 5G, the scale, complexity, service agility, and deterministic experience requirements of optical networks are increasing, driving optical networks to be automated and intelligent and gradually evolve to all-optical autonomous networks.

Kim Wang said, "Huawei’s all-optical autonomous driving network solution, referring to the top-level architecture of the TM Forum’s autonomous network, is a scenario-based solution implemented by Huawei’s autonomous driving strategy in the all-optical network field. On the one hand, intelligence is introduced to the all-optical network by introducing intelligence to the NE and network layers, accelerating all-optical network autonomy in a single domain. On the other hand, network service capabilities are fully opened to implement cross-domain collaboration and business agility" In addition, he further elaborated on the capabilities of the current all-optical autonomous driving network solution:

Intelligent all-optical network lights up dumb resources for efficient O&M. The biggest challenge facing all-optical networks is the invisibility of dumb resources such as optical fibers and cables. The all-optical autonomous driving network solution introduces pre-connection and optical iris technology innovation at the NE layer and combines the image recognition and big data analysis and diagnosis capabilities of the iMaster NCE at the network layer to implement automatic ODN topology restoration, precise fault locating, and precise and visualized resource management. In addition, the intelligent analysis algorithm is used to predict deterioration faults in transmission fibers and OCh and identify potential risks of services carried by fibers in the same cable. In this way, service risks can be checked without manual intervention, instrument, or site visit. Passive processing after a fault occurs is changed to predictive protection.

E2E home broadband experience assurance, building high-quality digital life experience. To address the challenges of prominent home broadband service Wi-Fi problems, 90% of faults identified after customer complaints, and installation and maintenance personnel busy in fault locating, the all-optical automatic driving network solution implements E2E closed-loop processing from automatic identification, diagnosis, and optimization of home broadband faults. This solution reduces the number of home visits by 30% and shortens the fault locating duration by 60%, ensuring premium home broadband service experience. In addition, this solution analyzes root causes and network bottlenecks, helping operators identify potential home networking, broadband acceleration, and scenario-based broadband service opportunities.

E2E private line service SLA assurance and comprehensive network capability openness accelerate the digital transformation of various industries.

Service SLA assurance: Based on the microsecond-level latency map obtained from device tests, multi-dimensional availability evaluation and optimization, and dynamic bandwidth adjustment, the solution implements digital measurement of latency, availability, and bandwidth, and provides full-process assurance covering the pre-sales, sales, and after-sales phases.

Comprehensive network service capability openness: iMaster NCE provides unified management, control, and analysis capabilities for all-optical networks and fully opens network service capabilities. It accelerates the automation of private line services and self-service of customers through rich interfaces such as ACTN standard northbound interfaces, 10+ OSS integration partners, and 40+ OSS/BSS integration experience, the service TTM is shortened from weeks to days.

At the end of his speech, Kim Wang said, "Due to passive analog features and networking complexity of all-optical networks, it may take a long time to realize fully autonomous all-optical networks. Huawei is looking forward to making efforts together with operators, standards organizations, research institutes, and ecosystem partners to address these challenges. We will continue to explore and practice key technologies and innovative applications in all-optical network planning, construction, maintenance, optimization, and marketing, with the purpose of bringing premium connections to every home and enterprise, and facilitating the high-quality development of the digital economy"