SDN/NFV/CLOUD is too complex and AI and 5G accelerate the reconstruction of the network

Just like decoration in life, during the decoration process we will transform the water, electricity and network lines, and upgrade the equipment and furniture in the room to the latest products to improve the living experience. SDN, NFV, and cloudification constitute the three major trends of network innovation in recent years. However, the reconstruction of the network architecture based on SDN/NFV/Cloud has kicked away old problems and brought new problems. In the face of these new problems, introducing AI into the network can solve the challenges faced by network architecture reconstruction. In addition, the launch of 5G network is the driving force for the transformation of network architecture.

SDN/NFV/Cloud brings new problems of rising costs and lagging decision-making

In terms of network architecture upgrades, SDN, NFV, and network cloudification are the hottest technology trends in recent years. SDN has given the network a mobile network framework, and NFV has improved network performance, allowing SDN/NFV to be quickly implemented. However, the good times did not last long. During the transformation, SDN, NFV, and network cloudification also brought new problems.

For example, SDN and NFV have already reached bottlenecks in data storage and forwarding performance. If you want to improve data transmission capabilities, you need to use new network cards to improve forwarding capabilities, which leads to increased costs. In terms of cloud-network integration, traditional industries are still slow to move to the cloud and have failed to change the organizational structure of enterprises. The slow progress of network cloudification has affected the implementation of SDN/NFV, forming a vicious cycle.

5G is the internal driver of network architecture upgrade

5G has become China's national strategy, and the goal is to be the leader in the 5G era. To become a leader, the upgrade of network architecture will become an important factor in maintaining the leading position in the industry. The pace of 5G commercialization is getting faster and faster, and the three major domestic operators will take the lead in upgrading the network architecture.

China Telecom's CTNet2025 is the future goal of intelligent network, and China Unicom's CUBE-Net2.0+ network architecture is to build a new generation of AI-enabled intelligent network. China Mobile's NovoNet project integrates new technologies such as NFV and SDN. The network upgrades of the three major operators are all aimed at building an intelligent scheduling of internal resources, intelligent improvement of external services, and intelligent security.

AI empowers solutions to three major network architecture challenges

China Unicom has introduced AI technology to upgrade its network architecture and plans to build an intelligent network. What problems can AI solve in network architecture upgrades? First of all, there are complex and multi-dimensional problems in the transformation of SDN/NFV/network cloudification network architecture.

For example: the complexity of network and services brought about by the dynamic changes in network architecture, the complexity brought about by operation and maintenance such as fault location after network element stratification, and the complexity of network operation brought about by real-time adjustment of network resources. AI is much more efficient in dealing with complex problems than the human brain can quickly solve the above three problems. In fact, all complex problems based on software can be solved more efficiently with the help of AI, but the paths introduced at different levels and fields are different.

Conclusion:

There is no doubt that 5G has become the driving force for network architecture upgrades. Empowering network architecture upgrades through AI will be a new trend in network upgrades. The accelerated advancement of 5G and the continuous upgrading of AI technology will surely make the progress of network reconstruction leap forward.