DTT Section 3: Where are the Roadblocks for Network Transformation?

TM Forum, the industry association driving digital transformation through collaboration, released the results from its third bi-annual Digital Transformation Tracker (DTT). Carried out from June to August 2018, the global survey of more than 200 CSPs and their technology suppliers tracks the progress of the telecoms industry’s digital transformation.

Section 2 of this report discusses how CSPs are adopting software-defined networking (SDN) and cloud technology to manage virtual network functions (VNFs). Read the full summary on our blog post What’s the Status of Network Transformation?

Here’s a summary of Section 3, that describes how operators deal with issues such as management of virtualized components, the impact of NFV and SDN on security, slow standardization efforts and immaturity of products.

Roadblocks to Network Transformation

The Most Pressing Challenge

The need to implement new OSS/BSS systems and sophisticated orchestration capabilities continue to be the most pressing challenges for CSPs. Networks must be connected to OSS/BSS that can deal with tasks such as ordering, provisioning, assuring, and billing for the services delivered to customers. These systems must be redesigned to take advantage of the real-time, customizable capabilities offered by virtualization.

Nearly 60% of CSP rank security vulnerabilities as a chief concern. Network transformation involves migrating from infrastructure that uses closed operating systems, which can be protected from hacking and other attacks, to open infrastructure that can be programmed remotely. This openness makes them more vulnerable. This is likely increasing as a concern in our surveys because network operators are encountering issues that need to be resolved as they gain experience with NFV and SDN.

Why Is Virtualization So Difficult?

Three primary factors make it extremely difficult for operators to embrace virtualization fully:

• The pace of change – The technology development within telecoms relies on formal standardization efforts; many of the technological and architectural concepts that CSPs are adopting were not around five years ago.
• Requirements for reliability – CSPs are required by regulatory bodies around the world to deliver mission-critical capabilities to billions of subscribers, which may make cloud-native computing technologies too risky to adopt in certain parts of the network.
• Lack of skills – CSPs and their technology partners must develop the software skills to embrace new concepts and architectures.

Cloud-Native Is The Goal

The good news is that CSPs and suppliers are making progress toward solving these issues. Network suppliers have started to modularize network functions in preparation for cloud-native deployment. Operators want suppliers to deliver these functions as sets of services within containers, which are managed by orchestration systems. This would make them fully cloud-native. However, the immaturity of container technology in the context of NFV is slowing the commercial availability of such services.

To access the full report, please visit the TM Forum web page.

If you would like to read a summary of each section of the report, go to:

• Overview
• Section 1
• Section 2
• Section 4
• Section 5