Automate everything at cloud scale with Oracle’s Unified Operations portfolio

Many of us in the communications industry remember a time when nearly all operations were manual. Order fulfillment was done by moving paper files from one desk to another, communications networks were made up of boxes into which people plugged cables, and network operations employees handled monitoring manually, and escalated with phone calls or onsite fixes.

Today, Communications Service Providers (CSPs) face a rapidly changing set of technology and business drivers that are fundamental to how they run their operations. Cloud and programmable networks are replacing physical networks, 5G and edge are driving new complexity and requirements, consumer and enterprise customers demand one-click self-service experiences, and business models to monetize networks are in flux.

As a result of these changes, service providers face many challenges. They must reduce operating expenses to improve profitability in increasingly commoditized markets. Siloed tools and fractured operations make it difficult to move beyond the manual, swivel chair operations in an era of ever-increasing network complexity. A lack of technical agility hinders the ability to exploit the benefits of cloud technology, and a lack of business agility constrains the ability to capitalize on new business models and B2B2X relationships enabled by 5G. In short, traditional telcos must transform to become “techcos”—modern service providers that embrace automation and cloud native solutions to deploy innovative business models and deliver high value experiences to their customers.

Service providers today are looking to automate everything that can be automated to reduce costs, tackle complexity, and exploit emerging business opportunities. This includes “north-south” automation whereby customer intent is captured during the self-serve ordering process, then modeled and seamlessly implemented in downstream systems from business operations to service operation, to resource operations at the network level. Intent-based automation is then complemented by “east-west” automation in a closed loop fashion with end-to-end service automation spanning service orchestration, inventory, and assurance.

Introducing Oracle Unified Operations

Oracle’s Unified Operations portfolio is designed to help service providers automate everything at cloud scale. It unifies silos and abstracts complexity across multi-domain networks and services while also unifying multi-vendor networks and tools to provide a ‘single pane of glass’ visibility. Additionally, the unification of orchestration, assurance, and inventory functions across the operations environment provides automated lifecycle management. Cloud native, dynamic, and highly scalable, Unified Operations is architected for the communications needs and networks of today and the future.

The portfolio is comprised of four cloud native solutions, all aligned with TM Forum Open APIs.

1. Unified Assurance. Unifying network and service monitoring across diverse network technologies, generations, and domains, to drive ML-based automated fault and event management, root cause analysis, and performance monitoring.
2. Unified Orchestration. Bringing together domain specific configuration systems and orchestration platforms with a multi-domain service orchestration platform to drive intent-driven automation.
3. Unified Inventory and Topology. Unifying service, network, and resource visibility across diverse network technologies, generations, and domains, aiding with real time views for automated orchestration and assurance.
4. Unified Orchestration and Assurance. Bringing together all the components of Unified Operations, this composite solution drives closed loop automation for mobile, fixed line, digital services.

Built upon a rich portfolio of Oracle’s proven OSS products together with those of our recent acquisition of Federos, Unified Operations is already helping hundreds of service providers around the world to automate their assurance, orchestration, and inventory processes to improve profitability, deliver a positive customer experience, and capitalize on the opportunity to monetize 5G.

About Oracle Communications:

Oracle Communications provides integrated communications and cloud solutions for Service Providers and Enterprises to accelerate their digital transformation journey in a communications-driven world from network evolution to digital business to customer experience. To learn more about Oracle Communications industry solutions visit: Oracle Communications LinkedIn.