Nokia launches digital operations center software solution

Nokia has launched its Digital Operations Center software to give communication service providers (CSPs) new revenue-enhancing opportunities with an automated platform that manages 5G slice-based services securely and cost effectively.
Nokia 5G base stationAs Nokia’s first network slicing management product, Digital Operations Center provides a secure and fully automated process to design, deploy and operate network slices at scale across multi-vendor, multi-domain and multi-technology environments.

Digital Operations Center is built in a modular form that includes the Nokia Orchestration Center and the Nokia Assurance Center.

The new solution gives CSPs the ability to deliver and oversee network slices at scale and speed through closed-loop automation; and helps CSPs adhere to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) as they expand into vertical industries.

Nokia is helping Singtel trial its Network as a Service (NaaS) platform that aims to give the Singapore operator greater control and visibility of slicing capabilities across its network, while addressing specific 5G needs of enterprises with speed, efficiency and flexibility.

Digital Operations Center will be available at scale by the end of the year.
Singtel Group CTO Mark Chong
Mark Chong, chief technology officer of Singtel, said: “Nokia’s technology leadership, through its truly cloud-native approach to software, gives us the confidence of providing enterprises new 5G services with the scale and speed they expect from operators.”

By closing the loop between traditionally separate fulfilment and assurance processes, CSPs can intelligently manage the full-service lifecycle to drive the most optimized use of infrastructure resources; to limit overprovisioning; and to automate service delivery and service optimization.

“Nokia’s Digital Operations Center, combining network orchestration and assurance capabilities, provides the key software building blocks for intent driven operations and enables CSPs to offer on-demand enterprise network services based on 5G network slicing,” Anil Rao, principal analyst at Analysys Mason, said.

Digital Operations Center is built on Nokia’s multi-vendor, multi-domain and multi-technology Common Software Foundation (CSF) that enables customers to use their choice of deployment strategies.

CSF makes Nokia’s software products easier to deploy, integrate, and upgrade using a variety of cloud-native principles, in order to give operators the needed flexibility to be responsive to market demands while controlling costs at a time of growing network complexity.

The advent of 5G with its sharp expansion of capacity and data throughput will let carriers customize their high-speed networks into ‘slices’ for enterprise subscribers based on defined needs, such as a virtual gaming company requiring a two-hour slice or a sports stadium needing one running four hours.

“Nokia Digital Operations Center is an important step to making the full set of network slicing capabilities available for CSPs as we move from the consumer aspect of 5G to the enterprise and industrial side of 5G,” Brian McCann, chief product officer of Nokia Software, said.