The TM Forum Digital Transformation World (DTW) 2023 event, held from September 19-21 in Copenhagen, Denmark, was a resounding success. The event brought together over 600 companies and 3,500 delegates from over 90 countries to discuss the latest trends and developments in the telecommunications industry. Subbu, Aarna’s Global Head of Sales, was in attendance and kept busy collaborating with our partners and customers. 

DTW 2023 was a showcase of the industry's commitment to innovation and transformation. The event featured a wide range of sessions, keynotes, and panel discussions on topics such as:

• The convergence of telecommunications and cloud computing
• The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in transforming the telecommunications industry
• Data engineering, machine learning, and AI
• Cloud computing and open digital architectures
• Future networks and technologies such as 5G, edge computing, and network slicing
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Highlights of DTW 2023

• The announcement of a new TM Forum Open Digital Architecture (ODA) reference implementation, which will help telecommunications companies to accelerate their digital transformation. 
• The launch of a new TM Forum Innovation Hub, which will help telecommunications companies to collaborate on and solve the industry's biggest challenges.
• The recognition of over 30 telecommunications companies and vendors for their commitment to TM Forum standards and best practices.
• The presentation of the TM Forum Excellence Awards, which recognize the most innovative and transformative projects in the industry.

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Speakers and Panelists

DTW 2023 featured a number of keynote speakers and panelists from leading telecommunications companies, vendors, and industry organizations. 

1. Rajeev Suri, President and CEO, Nokia: Suri spoke about the importance of collaboration and innovation in the telecommunications industry. He also highlighted Nokia's commitment to developing 5G and other emerging technologies.

2. Pat Gelsinger, CEO, Intel: Gelsinger discussed the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in transforming the telecommunications industry. He also highlighted Intel's commitment to developing AI-powered solutions for telecommunications companies.

3. Safra Catz, CEO, Oracle: Catz spoke about the importance of cloud computing in the telecommunications industry. She also highlighted Oracle's commitment to providing cloud solutions that can help telecommunications companies accelerate their digital transformation.

4. Ruza Sabanovic, EVP & Chief Technology Officer, Telenor: Sabanovic discussed the challenges and opportunities facing telecommunications companies in the 5G era. She also highlighted Telenor's commitment to building a sustainable and innovative future for the telecommunications industry.

5. Kelvin Chua, Deputy General Manager, Cloud Network Operation Dept., China Mobile: Chua shared his insights on how China Mobile is using cloud computing to transform its network operations. He also discussed the challenges and opportunities of operating a 5G network at scale.

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Future Outlook

The telecommunications industry is at a crossroads. New technologies such as 5G, AI, and cloud computing are creating new opportunities for innovation and growth. However, telecommunications companies are also facing increasing competition from new entrants and the need to transform their businesses in order to meet the changing needs of their customers.

DTW 2023 showed that the telecommunications industry is committed to innovation and transformation. The speakers, panelists, and exhibitors provided a glimpse into the future of telecommunications, and it is clear that the industry is poised for continued growth and innovation in the years to come.

Visit the TM Forum website to watch the DTW keynote speeches and panel discussions on demand for complete event information.

Visit the Aarna Networks solution pages to understand how we are approaching Private 5G, Edge Multicloud Networking, Cloud Adjacent Storage, Edge Cloud Machine Learning, O-RAN SMO, and Telco Cloud.

Missed your chance to meet with us at the show? Please contact us to arrange a meeting. 

The Nephio project – seeded by Google and now hosted by the Linux Foundation – has received a lot of attention lately based on its first release (R1) which was announced in August. More than 70 network operators and vendors around the world have now signed up to the project and the developer community has meetups planned in Mountain View and Bangalore coming up soon. 

Nephio uses an open source platform that has already transformed the software technology landscape, Kubnernetes, to automate the deployment and management of cloud infrastructure, and network functions. Nephio is intent-based, meaning that it automates a network operator’s intent into configurations and container-based deployment of services. But the real genius of Nephio, I believe, is the way it simplifies network service delivery for operators – something lacking in previous, open source approaches. 

Leveraging our deep experience with Nephio, Aarna Networks last month announced a commercial Nephio support package, Aarna Nephio Support 1.0 (ANS). Now, to make it even easier for users to deploy, configure, and manage Nephio, Aarna Networks is offering a Nephio packaged version that includes the following:

• A Nephio kickoff consultation with primary stakeholders
• A two hour Nephio workshop to educate and empower operational teams
• Upstream Nephio R1 demonstration environment installation on vSphere, OpenStack, AWS, Azure, orGCPDevelopment of network device controllers as needed (additional charges will apply)
• Development of package specializer controllers as needed (additional charges will apply)
• Conversion of helm to KPT packages for customers who have kubernetes based offerings with helm packages (additional charges will apply)
• One year of 8x5 operational and maintenance support for one test/dev environment

If your organization wants to get hands on with Nephio, but is uncertain how to get traction and begin testing, this is a great way to get started. This special offer is now being offered at the significantly discounted rate of $50,000. Interested parties are encouraged to move quickly as engagements at this price level must be initiated before the end of 2023. 

‍Contact us to get started today.

Part of working in open source means following a number of open standards and participating in a number of open source projects in order to look for opportunities to make upstream contributions. While not as direct as working in proprietary silos, we’ve always looked to open source as many contributions as possible; not only for Aarna’s benefit, but for the benefit of the community and our partners aligning to the same standards and projects. In this blog, I will give a quick overview of the ETSI SOL005 interface support that was upstreamed to the Linux Foundation Networking (LFN) open source EMCO project and our AMCOP product. 

What is the ETSI SOL005 standard? 

SOL005 is part of the standards defined by ETSI NFV industry standards group, and defines Interfaces related to Network Service Management and VNF onboarding towards OSS/BSS (Operations Support System / Business Support System) fulfilling the requirements defined in ETSI NFV IFA013. 

We decided to implement a subset of SOL005 in AMCOP which is limited to Lifecycle management, Subscription, Notification, and fault management APIs. This is to make sure we can support a wide range of applications (OSS/BSS) from our customers or partners who would like to interface their products with AMCOP. 

The SOL005 is layered on the EMCO component of AMCOP. EMCO (Edge Multi-Cluster Orchestrator) is one of the components of AMCOP, which is an open source project under the umbrella of Linux Foundation Networking (LFN). EMCO is a universal control plane and application orchestrator for Kubernetes. EMCO acts as a framework for intent-based deployment of cloud native applications to sets of Kubernetes clusters, spanning enterprise data centers, multiple cloud service providers, and multiple edge locations.

We at Aarna have been an active member of the EMCO community, and contributed several features to the EMCO code base. The SOL005 layer has been contributed upstream, and it has been integrated into Aarna’s AMCOP product since the last major release (version 3.3). 

The following diagram gives an overview of how SOL005 is implemented on AMCOP/EMCO.  

The architectural objectives of the SOL005 interface is to provide a standardized interface for OSS/BSS software, to perform the following: 

• Orchestrate Network Services consisting of Cloud-native and Virtual Network Functions
• Perform LCM operations of Network Services
• Fault Management of Network Services
• (Roadmap) Performance Management of Network Services
• (Roadmap) Capacity Management of NFVI (Kubernetes)

For example, one of our partners uses SOL005 interface to integrate their software with AMCOP, which acts as an NFVO (NFV Orchestration), to orchestrate 5G network services and workloads that are cloud native or virtualized. 

The SOL005 code is all upstream now in the EMCO repositories. 

https://gitlab.com/project-emco/core/emco-base  

https://gitlab.com/project-emco/ecosystem/solsvc

Please let us know if you have any questions by contacting us here.

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Recently we blogged about optimizing O-RAN performance and management using  O-RAN SMO and a new O-RAN SMO performance dashboard now available in AMCOP. 

Another key function of the O-RAN Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) framework is Trace Management. The O-RAN SMO provides a set of trace management functions that enable network operators to collect, store, and analyze trace data from different network elements.

The O-RAN SMO's trace management capabilities include real-time trace collection and analysis, as well as long-term trace storage and retrieval. The trace data collected from different network elements can be used for a variety of purposes, including network troubleshooting, performance optimization, and security analysis.

The O-RAN SMO's trace management functions are designed to support the O-RAN Alliance's open and standardized interfaces and protocols. This ensures that trace data can be collected from different vendors' equipment and analyzed in a consistent and interoperable way.

The O-RAN SMO's trace management capabilities also support advanced analytics and machine learning techniques. This enables network operators to detect and analyze patterns in the trace data, identify performance issues, and predict potential problems before they occur.

Trace Data can be reported from the Network Function (NF) to the SMO via trace files or via a streaming interface. Currently, Aarna’s SMO offering supports file-based trace records that are available to the SMO and streaming support will be available soon. Trace management utilizes O-RAN file management standards to collect trace files from NF, and notifications can be transmitted through NETCONF or VES.

Let us take a closer look at the high-level workflow involved in using AMCOP SMO (Service Management and Orchestration) to enhance trace collection processes.

High-level Workflow:

1. User Initiates Trace Job Creation:

The workflow begins with a user leveraging AMCOP SMO to create one or more trace jobs. These trace jobs specify the criteria and parameters for collecting trace data from the RAN elements.

2. User Requests Trace Collection:

Once the trace jobs are configured, the user sends an RPC (Remote Procedure Call) to initiate the trace collection process. This RPC serves as the trigger for data collection.

3. RAN Element Starts Trace Collection:

Upon receiving the RPC, the RAN element responsible for trace collection commences its operations. It starts collecting trace data based on the predefined job parameters.

4. Notification to AMCOP SMO:

As the RAN element collects trace data, it communicates with the Management Service (Mns) Consumer, which is typically the AMCOP SMO component. This communication is achieved through a notification event known as "notifyFileReady."

5. File Generation and Notification:

The "notifyFileReady" event indicates that a Trace Measurement file has been successfully generated and is ready for upload. This notification acts as a signal for further actions in the workflow.

6. SMO Notifies VES Collector:

AMCOP SMO, upon receiving the notification, takes the next step by notifying the VES (Virtual Event Stream) Collector. The VES Collector is responsible for gathering events and data from various network elements.

7. DFC Polls VES Collector:

The Data File Collector (DFC), an integral part of the process, continuously polls the VES Collector. This polling aims to retrieve information about the generated trace files and their locations.

8. Trace File Upload to DFC:

Armed with the file information obtained from the VES Collector, the DFC proceeds to upload the trace files from the RAN element to its storage location within the DFC pod.

9. Storage Location in DFC Pod:

The trace files are stored in a specific directory structure within the DFC pod. This structure typically follows the pattern: /tmp/onap_datafile/<RAN Device name>/<file path from notification>. This organization simplifies data management and retrieval.

10. Optional SFTP Upload:

If a Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) uploader is configured, the DFC can upload the trace files to an external SFTP server. This step enhances data redundancy and accessibility.

11. Data Retention Decision:

The DFC may decide whether to retain or delete the trace files after successful upload based on a predefined variable, typically referred to as "delete_datafile."

12. User-Controlled Trace Collection Termination:

To maintain flexibility, users have the ability to stop trace collection jobs at any time by sending a stop trace job RPC. This user-initiated action allows for the management of trace collection processes.

Overall, the O-RAN SMO's trace management functions are critical for ensuring the reliability, availability, and security of O-RAN networks. By providing real-time trace analysis, long-term trace storage, and advanced analytics capabilities, the O-RAN SMO enables operators to quickly troubleshoot network issues, optimize network performance, and enhance network security.

See the Aarna Networks AMCOP SMO User Guide for more information.
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I’ll be at the upcoming Fyuz event in Madrid, Oct 9-10, talking about O-RAN, Private 5G, the Nephio project, and more. Contact us to meet up at the show. 

It's not often when a proof of concept crosses domains between wired and wireless but that's exactly what Aarna Networks' recent integration with CableLabs does.When devices are registered inside the same 5G Core, we can apply a routing intelligence that crosses domains and provides a value added service to the user.

The demonstration illustrated below shows how a user with home internet and mobile service from the same operator can allocate bandwidth dynamically and automatically. Once the mobile device connects to the home Internet Wi-Fi access point and is detected to be also registered with the 5G Core, the CSML – built on the Edge Multi-Cluster Orchestration (EMCO) project and used in Aarna's AMCOP – pushes a higher-bandwidth DOCSIS service flow via the PCMM controller and CMTS to the user’s cable modem with a boost in cable bandwidth for that mobile device.

The user benefits from receiving the extra bandwidth automatically and the operator benefits from zero-touch provisioning that avoids any manual configuration.

This is just one example of the power of software defined networks and the orchestration of applications and services.

We invite you to read the case study and contact us with any questions and ideas for you network orchestration needs.

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Performance Management is a key function of the O-RAN Service Management and Orchestration (SMO) framework. The O-RAN SMO provides a set of performance management functions that enable network operators to monitor, measure, and optimize the performance of their O-RAN networks.

The O-RAN SMO provides a rich set of performance metrics that cover various aspects of the network, including radio access, transport, and core network performance. These metrics are collected in real-time from different network elements and can be used for real-time monitoring, analysis, and troubleshooting. 

We recently developed a new SMO Performance Dashboard and integrated it with AMCOP, learn more in my previous blog post. 

The O-RAN SMO also provides advanced analytics capabilities that enable network operators to detect and predict performance issues before they occur. This helps operators to proactively address performance issues, minimize network downtime, and improve overall network quality.

In addition to real-time monitoring and analytics, the O-RAN SMO also provides historical performance analysis capabilities. This enables network operators to analyze performance trends over time, identify areas for improvement, and optimize network performance over the long term.

Overall, the O-RAN SMO's performance management capabilities are critical for ensuring the reliability, availability, and quality of O-RAN networks. By providing real-time monitoring, predictive analytics, and historical analysis, the O-RAN SMO enables operators to optimize network performance, reduce downtime, and improve customer satisfaction.

Aarna Networks offers the number one open source and vendor neutral O-RAN SMO as part of Aarna Networks Multi Cluster Orchestration Platform (AMCOP). Learn more about O-RAN SMO and contact us for a free consultation. 

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