The power of intent-driven and AI-based workload homing and placement in a network environment
Service providers leverage Amdocs Intelligent Networking Suite's intent-driven principles and artificial intelligence techniques to help improve the customer experience by ensuring efficient and effective service delivery.
Orchestration plays a crucial role in helping service providers tackle many modern network challenges and manage complexity.
One approach is to implement end-to-end service orchestration (E2ESO), which enables service providers to navigate the complexities of cost optimization and deliver optimal performance for advanced 5G services.
The power of intent-driven and AI-based workload homing and placement
From the outset, 5G was designed and specified by 3GPP to be an open and agile ecosystem that can quickly evolve and adapt to meet new business demands. 5G must be able to meet future business demands, impossible to predict what they are. That is why any orchestration platform as part of an e2e automation solution must be able to ensure the network infrastructure directly supports and contributes to the service provider’s strategic initiatives.
Recent global events have heightened the urgency for service providers to meet the escalating demand for seamless connectivity. Within a rapidly evolving digital landscape, these companies must navigate complexities and external factors that impact revenues, requiring innovative strategies to fulfill the transformative promise of 5G.
Staying ahead in a rapidly evolving digital landscape
According to GSA’s 5G-Standalone May 2023 Member Report, 116 operators in 53 countries and territories worldwide are currently investing in public 5G SA networks in the form of trial, planned or actual deployments.
Indeed, 5G SA networks offer the dual advantages of being software-defined and highly programmable. But while they bring a wealth of opportunities in the form of differentiated services, these advantages are accompanied by significant complexity that poses challenges to existing operations. The result is an urgent need for greater agility, resilience, and performance on one hand, controlling capital (CAPEX) and operating (OPEX) expenditures on the other, as well as higher management complexity overall that comes as a result.
Orchestration meets the challenge
Orchestration plays a crucial role in helping service providers tackle these challenges and manage complexity. One approach is to implement end-to-end service orchestration, which enables comprehensive lifecycle management of advanced 5G connectivity services.
Several characteristics of orchestration are essential for the smooth operation of a service provider’s business. One is that to align with business objectives and optimize costs, it must ensure the infrastructure directly supports and contributes to strategic initiatives.
Another relates to the current global economic environment and the resulting financial pressures that the service providers are currently under are exasperated by the continued need to invest to support growing data consumption. As an integral part of the end-to-end lifecycle management of advanced 5G connectivity services, orchestration must deliver intelligent cost optimization.
In this context, cost optimization involves several key aspects:
- Automated resource provisioning and optimization
- Resource utilization and capacity planning
- Preventing over-provisioning and underutilization
- Efficient management of network infrastructure expenditure
To address these challenges, innovative solutions such as Amdocs Intelligent Networking Suite’s end-to-end service orchestration solution, which leverage intent-driven approaches and AI-based workload homing and placement, are crucial. They enable service providers to navigate the complexities of cost optimization and deliver optimal performance for advanced 5G services.
Orchestration must deliver:
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Alignment with business objectives
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Faster time-to-market
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Agility and scalability
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Enhanced efficiency
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Cost optimization
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Improved service quality
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Consistency and compliance
Intent-driven and AI-based workload homing and placement
A key aspect of Amdocs’ solution is intent-driven and AI-based workload homing and placement, which describes outcomes in a declarative way, focusing on requirements, goals and constraints. For example, it allows for the seamless delivery of 5G enterprise security services at venues like Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona. By ensuring low latency, appropriate bandwidth for 4K streaming media and exceptional Quality of Experience (QoE) in Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona, during the next El Clasico game.
Also crucial is the solution’s intent-driven and AI-based workload homing and placement feature, which leverages intent-driven principles and artificial intelligence techniques to determine the optimal placement and allocation of workloads in a network environment. By intelligently matching the requirements and characteristics of specific workloads with the available network resources, this feature helps improve the customer experience by ensuring efficient and effective service delivery.
To clarify, “workloads” in this context refers to the various applications, services or tasks that need to be executed within the 5G network infrastructure. So in the football stadium scenario, enterprise security service workloads might include ultra-high-definition video streaming, edge computing workloads and mission-critical applications with stringent latency and reliability requirements.
Another aspect of the platform’s intent-driven approach is its ability to capture high-level objectives – specifically, requirements or intents of the workloads – and translate them into specific placements and resource allocation policies. So rather than dealing with low-level network configurations, service providers and their customers can express their desired outcomes in a more abstract and business-oriented manner.
Amdocs Intelligent Networking Suite's E2ESO solution benefits:
Enhanced performance
Workloads are strategically placed to optimize network resources and minimize latency, ensuring optimal performance for advanced 5G services
Efficient resource utilization
The AI based approach maximizes the utilization of available resources by dynamically allocating and optimizing them based on workload demands, leading to improved efficiency and cost saving
Scalability & flexibility
Workload homing and placement consider the scalability of the network and the ability to adapt to changing demands, ensuring that resources can be allocated dynamically as the workload requirements evolve
QoS & SLA compliance
By intelligently placing workloads, SLAs and QoS requirements can be met consistently, leading to improved customer satisfaction and adherence to performance targets
Fault tolerance & resilience
The AI-based approach can factor in resilience and fault tolerance considerations when determining workload placements, ensuring that critical services are adequately protected and redundant resources are utilized effectively
Soon, with the further evolution of generative AI, robots or chatbots will also be able to engage customers in natural conversation and capture their business intent.
Finally, the platform enables onboarding and design of service templates, as well as the resources that make up the high-level objectives and requirements, which it then models and stores in a central catalog, which is controlled and managed using TM Forum standard APIs. This approach enables support of the complete service design lifecycle using standard structure and information models that are TOSCA-native.
Throughout, AI techniques, including machine learning and optimization algorithms are applied to analyze and match the workload characteristics and requirements with the available network resources. These constraint-solving techniques consider factors such as network topology, latency, bandwidth, processing capabilities, energy consumption, network infrastructure expenditure and QoS metrics. By intelligently leveraging this analysis, the platform can then make informed decisions on workload placement and allocation.
Clearly, embracing intent-driven principles and AI techniques in workload homing and placement is key to the revolutionization of connectivity within the 5G ecosystem. By embracing these advancements, service providers will be well-positioned to meet demanding requirements, enhance the customer experience and lead the way towards a more connected world.
Learn more about Amdocs end to end service orchestration.
