As the global rollout of 5G continues to gain momentum, Telco’s (Telecoms service providers) are rushing to ready their infrastructure in order to deliver on their promise of faster speeds, lower latency and increased connectivity. However, the complexity of technologies such as; edge computing, network slicing and real time analytics, are all reliant on scalability and agility that manual processes unfortunately can’t keep up with. But thankfully, automation can.
Let’s explore how Telco’s are leveraging automation in the era of 5G.
The Role of Automation in 5G
1. Edge Computing
Edge computing reduces latency and improves performance experienced by end-users by bringing data processing closer to them. Automation in edge computing will assist Telco’s in anticipating, as well as adjusting resources to meet changes in network demand thus ensuring optimal network performance with little manual intervention needed.
2. Network Slicing
Network slicing is when Telco’s create numerous virtual networks on a singular, physical infrastructure. Each of these slices needs to be provisioned and managed continuously, making it incredibly difficult to do manually. Automation would make it possible to create, monitor and scale each slice in real time, ensuring that SLA’s are met while also keeping operational costs and complexity low.
3. Real Time Analytics
It’s incredibly important for Telco’s to have a real time picture of their network’s health, their performance and their user’ experience. Due to the sheer size of the data flowing in and out of Telco’s, this can no longer be achieved through manual analysis, it has to be done automatically.
Automation, through the use of ML (machine learning) algorithms, helps Telco’s to process and analyse data as it occurs making it possible to identify outliers, predict failures and even trigger self-healing mechanisms.
Telco’s that embrace this shift towards automation early, will be positioning themselves that could make them leaders of the new era of connectivity.
