2017 global stratecast oss transformation technology ... · hpe profile hewlett packard enterprise...

2017 Global Stratecast OSS Transformation Technology Innovation Award

GLOBAL STRATECAST OSS TRANSFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION AWARD

2017

BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH

© Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan 2017 2 “We Accelerate Growth”

Contents

Background and Company Performance ....................................................................... 3

Introduction ........................................................................................................ 3

Industry Challenges ............................................................................................. 4

HPE Profile .......................................................................................................... 5

Technology Attributes and the Future Business Value of HPE .................................... 7

Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 11

Significance of Technology Innovation ....................................................................... 12

Understanding Technology Innovation.................................................................. 12

Key Benchmarking Criteria ....................................................................................... 13

Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices ................................................................................................................. 14

The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best Practices Awards ................... 15

Research Methodology........................................................................................ 15

About ODAM............................................................................................................ 15

About Stratecast ...................................................................................................... 15

About Frost & Sullivan .............................................................................................. 16



Background and Company Performance

Introduction

There is no hyperbole in saying the communications industry has been both beset by more

dramatic and disruptive change than at any point in its history and blessed with the

greatest opportunity. This level of change challenges even the most innovative companies,

both suppliers and service providers.

Two of the more chaotic architectural changes during this time have been network

function virtualization (NFV) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN). NFV is driven by

communication service providers (CSPs) while SDN is driven by suppliers. Both are

plagued with challenges creating and settling on solutions for these new architectures,

particularly support solutions. The biggest challenge is bridging the gap between new

architectures and the core, legacy network and support systems. Most efforts to this point

have focused on new solutions for virtual networks. However, legacy networks still

urgently need greater efficiency gains and agility, because the vast majority of services

still traverse this network and will do so for several years to come. Neither the core

business nor core support functions can be ignored in favor of all-new platforms; they

must be part of a comprehensive solution.

The NFV architectural standard includes no provisions for managing legacy services and

infrastructure. Therefore, it provides little in the way of a clear path forward for

transformation. It also has the effect of pushing off efforts to overcome current, urgent

challenges to a later date when virtualization may or may not solve them. The

fundamentals of operations—bringing new services to market, fulfillment, and assurance—

must still be made more agile, more programmable, and more automated today.

Addressing the inflexibility of OSS remains an ongoing priority.

The end result of all the ongoing effort for improving operations should be twofold: place

CSPs at the center of the digital economy and assure the best quality customer

experience. Neither of these objectives can be done, to the satisfaction of the market,

without enabling a radically more flexible, programmable and intelligence-driven

operations environment combined with what is coming to be known as "intent-based

networking."

Intent-based networking does away with predefined, rigid policies for defining network

operations and instead equips the network with the ability and agility to react to the intent

of the customer. The network is able to react by engineers predefining desired network

states that the network can automatically configure when called to by customer demand.

This is a tall order and requires sophisticated support systems to achieve.

HPE is recognized with this award for its efforts in simultaneously bringing both the legacy

and next-generation operations architectures along this path through its new OS platform,

including the vTeMIP platform.



Industry Challenges

There is a broad set of challenges to overcome as CSPs go through their digital and virtual

transformations. Three of the main challenges are: managing hybrid operations,

composable services, and network programmability.

Managing Hybrid Networks

The hybrid network takes many forms. Cable companies have used the term to describe

their mixed fiber and coaxial-cable infrastructure. Hybrid networks have also consisted of

public and private clouds, or combinations of Carrier Ethernet, MPLS Virtual Private

Network (VPN) and similar technologies. Radio Access Network technology and WiFi can

also form a hybrid network. Therefore, hybrid networks are networks that utilize

multiple core or access technologies, or different generations of technology,

which historically have required their own support infrastructure. The challenge

for HPE, other suppliers, and CSPs, is to effectively manage and assure hybrid networks

that include:

Legacy-based physical core and edge infrastructure and support software

A combination of NFV, SDN and cloud network technologies

A myriad of ecosystem partners, and multiple management and orchestration

architectures

In a network comprised of both physical network functions (PNFs) and virtual network

functions (VNFs), performance and service assurance across both is essential to

transformation and to ongoing competitiveness. The hybrid network is not an ideal design;

it is a necessity consequence of transformation. Hybrid networks emerged from the efforts

to implement the initial and interim phases of the next-generation network. The CSP effort

to advance NFV, along with suppliers’ efforts to advance SDN, and the pressure from

Internet-based competitors to adopt cloud and next-generation data center technologies,

have left CSPs with a bifurcated management solution for end-to-end network and service

management. This challenge, as believed by many in the industry including Stratecast,

will continue to exist for at least the next 10 years and likely longer.

A bifurcated approach to hybrid network management is not sustainable. CSPs must have

a single view into performance of both networks and services across the different

domains. A large part of this management challenge is bringing the traffic and customer

data from all domains together. HPE’s new vTeMIP does this with aggressive mediation

capabilities on both the physical and virtual networks, which accelerates data analytics

and automation in significant ways.

Composable Services

The ability to enable composable services gets to the heart of a CSP's desire—and need—

to become a Digital Service Provider (DSP). Currently, this ability is beyond most CSPs, at

least in the consistent and automated way necessary to meet the demands of the market.

Composable services are those that are created (or composed) either by CSPs or their

customers by discovering existing services in the network and combining them in ways



that create more complex services that are tailored toward a customer’s specific needs.

Composite services are also important as they do the opposite: they allow services to be

decomposed (or disaggregated) into simpler services. This helps users engage only for

services they absolutely need.

Offering composable services goes a step beyond the simpler practice of bundling services

into packages. Composable services may be comprised of small microservices rather than,

for example, the full-blown video service a customer might bundle with their voice and

data service subscription package. CSPs have only recently reached the point where

customers can create their own bundles and are not yet capable, in most cases, of

supporting composable services from many perspectives: access, visibility into

microservices, interfaces for drag-and-drop design capabilities intuitive enough for

customers, and most important, the fulfillment and assurance processes that would

support such services.

Network Programmability

Despite the desire and the effort to move the network toward an intelligence-based, self-

healing, automated system, the network is not yet fully responsive to network conditions

or customer demand. This reality is a long way off. However, CSPs nonetheless need to be

more responsive. Time-to-market for new services is still too long despite somewhat

successful efforts over the last 20 years to reduce it. System integration time and costs

are still too high despite similar efforts to reduce them.

The introduction of complex new architectures like NFV, SDN, and cloud, has certainly

contributed to the difficulties making progress on the challenges of agility,

programmability, and automation. But, many of the inhibitors internal to operations

remain including:

OSS and BSS still exist in too many silos

Business processes are inconsistent and often still manual

Systems are not fully open to third-parties

Error rates in the fulfillment process are still unacceptably high

Self-service has come a long way, but it still falls far short of the flexible business rules

that composable services require. Most importantly, automation and programmability

stand on opposing sides of the PNF/VNF divide. Networks and network services are not

easily programmed from a single interface.

HPE Profile

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is a technology solutions company that enables the

business and operations of CSPs and enterprise customers. In the current environment of

dramatic and fast-paced change, HPE helps accelerate its customers’ transformation to

new digital and virtual environments while protecting and maximizing their core, legacy

infrastructure and best practices.



HPE’s software, server and services portfolio, spans network, cloud, data center and

workplace applications. In May 2016, the company spun off Enterprise Services to form a

new company with CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation). The goal was to deliver a new

company with greater agility, focus, and the ability to drive faster outcomes for customers

with world-class strength in customer service and IT operations, market-leading industry

and technology expertise, global scale, and best-in-class offerings. The new company,

with $26 billion in expected annual revenue, creates an effective and competitive

combination of CSC’s deep turnaround expertise and transformation capabilities, plus the

strong customer relationships and industry experience of HPE's Enterprise Services.

Today, HPE’s core mission is to help CSPs and enterprises leverage technologies spanning

the cloud to the data center to workplace applications. The company’s approach is to help

customers find the proper platform for every application, workload and service. To deliver

maximum benefit, HPE believes every application needs to find the right mix of private

cloud, public cloud, and traditional IT as an option to seamlessly use whenever needed. To

this end, HPE developed its Composable Infrastructure, which will allow customers to

deliver infrastructure for new workloads in as little as three minutes, keeping Hybrid IT

simple. In addition, HPE provides customers with the opportunities that will be created at

the Intelligent Edge when information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) are

combined. A composable infrastructure is a framework where the physical compute,

storage, and network fabric resources are treated as services. In a composable

infrastructure, resources are logically pooled so that administrators do not have to

physically configure hardware to support a specific software application. It is not pre-

configured for a single workload, but is customer re-configurable, through software-

defined intelligence, to become whatever is needed by each customer. Inherent in this

approach are new technologies and architectures such as containers and microservices.

HPE’s Service Director and NFV Director are working together to orchestrate services and

resources, correlate and analyze data inputs from both sides of the network: PNFs and

VNFs.

In May 2017, HPE released a new version of its core, legacy service assurance platforms.

The new platform is a completely rebuilt, and recoded virtual OSS assurance platform,

now called vTeMIP, which was designed to help network operators consolidate

management systems and automate their operations.

The new platform provides a Manager of Managers (MoM) solution, joining operations

processes across telecom, IP, and the IT domains. It works with other HPE OSS software

products to enable reduced operational costs, less downtime, higher service quality, and

enhanced operational agility across multi-vendor, multi-technology services.



The platform is primarily innovation applied to vTeMIP and how HPE applies other new

OSS and management & orchestration capabilities to work across physical and virtual

networks.

Source: HPE, Stratecast

HPE’s Technology Attributes and the Future Business Value

The 2017 Stratecast Global Technology Innovation Award in OSS Transformation is judged

based on ten criteria described later in this document. The following details a selection of

the comparisons from the ten criteria.

Industry Impact

A dependable flexible solution to the problems of managing and assuring hybrid networks

and enabling composable services across network domains will resonate with the industry

as a whole. The impact will not be universal.

The entire industry will not follow HPE’s line of pursuit, as there will be competing

proposals. However, so far the industry has come up short on solutions to address hybrid

networks and HPE’s customers will likely follow, as will many new ones that see the

company’s approach as a logical and optimal step forward in transforming their networks

while maintaining the integrity of their core business.

The benefits derived from vTeMIP and HPE’s new OSS approach includes:

Continuity of the customer experience across technology domains and throughout

the transformation process

Introduction of intent-based service modeling

Increased automation and programmability



A single interface for managing both physical and virtual network functions and

associated services

A shift toward an Agile/DevOps approach to network management

Built-in disaster recovery

Multi-vendor mediation capabilities that address network products from Cisco,

Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, Tellabs and more

The broad industry impact will be that CSPs can see a more risk-averse path forward for

transformation that does not threaten to leave legacy services and infrastructure behind.

Such a path also reduces the need to unnecessarily accelerate transformation to the point

where CSPs lose the option to pause and protect legacy service revenue when or if

needed.

Possessing a means for

managing infrastructure and

services across network

technology and geographic

domains reduces the impact on

the customer experience as it

makes the transition to new

architectures less noticeable by

the customer and less

impactful on current services,

which in many cases are

mission critical.

Product Impact

HPE has taken a trusted, reliable legacy operations management tool into the virtual

realm. vTeMIP not only is deployable as a virtual OSS Assurance solution in a

microservices delivery model, but it supports both physical and virtual network functions.

While most competitors are building new support architectures for the virtual

environment, few individual products have been redeveloped in a way that allows them to

support both domains. This innovation affects or will affect HPE’s entire OSS product line .

vTeMIP makes the portfolio more of an end-to-end solution for fulfillment and assurance.

Scalability

vTeMIP itself is a virtualized OSS Assurance solution. By virtue of its inherent ability to

scale, due to its virtual configuration, the solution allows CSPs to do something else they

need to continue doing in legacy operations: consolidate.

The business case for consolidation is still valid. Service Assurance suppliers over the last

several years have merged various aspects of network and service management, mostly

with regard to service assurance, analytics, test and measurement, and other traditional

functions―Fault, Configuration, Accounting, Performance, and Security (FCAPS). However,



these consolidated systems are often duplicated and siloed across different technology

domains, which is costly, inefficient, and anything but agile.

vTeMIP includes more than 400 off-the-shelf adapters for physical and virtual network

elements and management systems. These adapters support all generations of mobile

networks (2G to 4G) as well as multiple technology domains and protocols. A single

adapter license can be used to support any number of devices or elements no matter how

big or fast a CSP’s network needs to scale.

In addition, vTeMIP addresses management needs associated with Scale Out/Scale In

activity. Virtual Machines under the control of vTeMIP can scale in number as well as the

services that run in them. These VMs can be relocated on demand. The platform also

supports the removal of VMs and services with Scale IN capabilities.

Source: HPE, Stratecast

Visionary Innovation

The innovations in HPE’s OSS strategy and vTeMIP release are both subtle and dramatic.

Both could have an impact on how services are created, delivered and managed. The

more dramatic innovation is the enablement of Intent-based service modeling. This new

approach supports intelligent software that determines how to translate intent into an

infrastructure-specific prescription to enable the network to behave in the desired

manager.



From a technology point of view, intent-based service modeling is the dynamic creation of

new services by using dynamic runbooks1 rather than workflows, and using automatic

service graphs for the purpose of correlation. Intent-based modeling, part of Intent-based

Networking (IBN), enables service models that operate without the need to understand or

even know what network technology the services will run over, or which supplier’s VNFs

are used. It also attempts to capture the intent of a solution rather than defining the exact

implementation details of the solution itself. In other words, designing a service based on

what capability customers want or need versus what they are ordering.

Workflow, rather than software solutions, has been largely responsible for the inability of

CSPs to become more agile and automated. Eliminating workflow issues through intent-

based service modeling is an important innovation that HPE’s competitors in the OSS

arena have not yet formally introduced.

Another innovation within the HPE OSS is the incorporation of performance management

capabilities directly into the network orchestrator rather than operating a performance

management system as a separate standalone function. In order for a network or service

orchestrator to make real-time decisions at the application layer, with the right levels of

capabilities, the performance management component must be embedded in the

application to reduce delay in getting performance data. This also brings the model closer

to a DevOps environment in which continuous testing and monitoring is incorporated.

Application Diversity

For CSPs with a hybrid PNF/VNF network, vTeMIP works for both environments. It can also

be deployed in a virtual environment. The product is available as a standalone solution;

however, its alarm handling, mediation, fault management, performance management,

root cause analysis, service impact analysis, and other functions are designed as a set of

individual virtualized functions and can be operated as a microservices architecture. Some

of HPE’s competitors have also progressed in their microservices strategies, however,

most progress has been in the business operations system (BSS) side of the back office.

Few have taken core components of OSS and made them available as individual virtual

functions.

Customer Acquisition

Swisscom and Bouygues Telecom are two CSPs that have worked with HPE on the features

of Intent-Based modelling, vTeMIP and virtualized OSS. Bouygues has become an early

adopter of a new virtualized OSS. Bouygues, also an early TeMIP user, said it initially

chose TeMIP for its carrier-grade scalability, high availability and customizability. By

adopting vTeMIP, the CSP has two main objectives: (1) investigate how to best leverage

vTeMIP’s new virtualized micro-service architecture and its HTML5 console, and (2) refine

its plan to migrate its production environment. The expectation for Bouygues is to operate

1 A runbook is a network operations tool that contains procedures for running, debugging, managing

and troubleshooting systems. More important, runbooks help enable automation by defining, building, orchestrating, managing, and reporting on workflows.



the next generation of services, lower its operational costs, increase its service level

agreement compliance, and delight customers.

Another European Tier 1 CSP used HPE’s virtual OSS components for the development and

deployment of a business network service for SMB customers. The CSP used HPE’s

orchestrator—now with embedded performance management—and agile cooperation

model to fully automate the service and bring it to market in four weeks rather than the

more typical nine months. Provisioning times were also reduced from 30 days to five

minutes. The tools used in this case are part of HPE’s virtual CPE solution.

Using other components of HPE’s virtual OSS, such as Orchestration, NFV Director and

self-service portal, as well as working with other solution partners such as Nuage

Networks, HPE migrated an enterprise customer from its MPLS network to SD-WAN and

Over-the-Top Digital Services. Through this effort the customer achieved:

A simpler branch office configuration process

Service orchestration for a hybrid WAN/Public cloud network

Flexibility in supporting transformation of traditional application architectures and

traffic patterns

Non-disruptive integration with legacy systems

Conclusion

Sometimes the answer to complex problems is to pick off the essential elements and fix

those first. Managing hybrid networks and their services is job one in the great virtual and

digital transformations the telecom industry is currently embroiled in.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, HPE reached back to one of the industry’s most trusted

solutions, took its concepts to heart and rebuilt it for the virtual future. The resulting OSS

approach not only safeguards the existing legacy business for CSPs, but provides a path

forward while also safeguarding the CSP customers’ experience.

For its strong overall performance, Stratecast is proud to bestow the 2017 Global

Stratecast OSS Transformation Technology Innovation Award in to HPE.



Significance of Technology Innovation

Ultimately, growth in any organization depends upon finding new ways to excite the

market and upon maintaining a long-term commitment to innovation. At its core,

technology innovation, or any other type of innovation, can only be sustained with

leadership in three key areas: understanding demand, nurturing the brand, and

differentiating from the competition.

Understanding Technology Innovation

Technology innovation begins with a spark of creativity that is systematically pursued,

developed, and commercialized. That spark can result from a successful partnership, a

productive in-house innovation group, or a bright-minded individual. Regardless of the

source, the success of any new technology is ultimately determined by its innovativeness

and its impact on the business as a whole.



Key Benchmarking Criteria

For the Technology Innovation Award, Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan analysts independently

evaluated two key factors—Technology Attributes and Future Business Value—according to

the criteria identified below.

Technology Attributes

Criterion 1: Industry Impact

Requirement: Technology enables the pursuit of groundbreaking ideas, contributing to the

betterment of the entire industry.

Criterion 2: Product Impact

Requirement: Specific technology helps enhance features and functionalities of the entire

product line for the company.

Criterion 3: Scalability

Requirement: Technology is scalable, enabling new generations of products over time,

with increasing levels of quality and functionality.

Criterion 4: Visionary Innovation

Requirement: Specific new technology represents true innovation based on a deep

understanding of future needs and applications.

Criterion 5: Application Diversity

Requirement: New technology serves multiple products, multiple applications, and

multiple user environments.

Future Business Value

Criterion 1: Financial Performance

Requirement: Potential is high for strong financial performance in terms of revenues,

operating margins, and other relevant financial metrics.

Criterion 2: Customer Acquisition

Requirement: Specific technology enables acquisition of new customers, even as it

enhances value to current customers.

Criterion 3: Technology Licensing

Requirement: New technology displays great potential to be licensed across many sectors

and applications, thereby driving incremental revenue streams.

Criterion 4: Brand Loyalty

Requirement: New technology enhances the company’s brand, creating and/or nurturing

brand loyalty.

Criterion 5: Human Capital

Requirement: Customer impact is enhanced through the leverage of specific technology,

translating into positive impact on employee morale and retention.



Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices

Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan Awards follow a 10-step process to evaluate award

candidates and assess their fit with select best practice criteria. The reputation and

integrity of the Awards are based on close adherence to this process.

STEP OBJECTIVE KEY ACTIVITIES OUTPUT

1 Monitor,

target, and screen

Identify Award recipient

candidates from around the globe

Conduct in-depth industry

research Identify emerging sectors Scan multiple geographies

Pipeline of candidates who

potentially meet all best-practice criteria

2 Perform

360-degree research

Perform comprehensive,

360-degree research on all candidates in the pipeline

Interview thought leaders

and industry practitioners Assess candidates’ fit with

best-practice criteria Rank all candidates

Matrix positioning of all

candidates’ performance relative to one another

3

Invite

thought leadership in best practices

Perform in-depth examination of all

candidates

Confirm best-practice criteria

Examine eligibility of all candidates

Identify any information

gaps

Detailed profiles of all ranked candidates

4

Initiate research director

review

Conduct an unbiased evaluation of all candidate profiles

Brainstorm ranking options Invite multiple perspectives

on candidates’ performance

Update candidate profiles

Final prioritization of all eligible candidates and companion best-practice

positioning paper

5

Assemble panel of industry

experts

Present findings to an expert panel of industry thought leaders

Share findings Strengthen cases for

candidate eligibility

Prioritize candidates

Refined list of prioritized Award candidates

6

Conduct global industry

review

Build consensus on Award candidates’ eligibility

Hold global team meeting to review all candidates

Pressure-test fit with criteria

Confirm inclusion of all eligible candidates

Final list of eligible Award candidates, representing success stories worldwide

7 Perform

quality check

Develop official Award consideration materials

Perform final performance benchmarking activities

Write nominations Perform quality review

High-quality, accurate, and creative presentation of

nominees’ successes

8

Reconnect with panel of

industry experts

Finalize the selection of the

best-practice Award recipient

Review analysis with panel

Build consensus Select recipient

Decision on which company

performs best against all best-practice criteria

9 Communicate

recognition

Inform Award recipient of Award recognition

Inspire the organization for continued success

Celebrate the recipient’s performance

Announcement of Award and plan for how recipient

can use the Award

10 Take strategic

action

Upon licensing, company is able to share Award news

with stakeholders and customers

Coordinate media outreach Design a marketing plan

Assess Award’s role in future strategic planning

Widespread awareness of recipient’s Award status

among investors, media personnel, and employees



The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best Practices Awards

Research Methodology

Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree

research methodology represents the

analytical rigor of our research process. It

offers a 360-degree-view of industry

challenges, trends, and issues by

integrating all 7 of Stratecast | Frost &

Sullivan's research methodologies. Too

often companies make important growth

decisions based on a narrow understanding

of their environment, leading to errors of

both omission and commission. Successful

growth strategies are founded on a

thorough understanding of market,

technical, economic, financial, customer,

best practices, and demographic analyses.

The integration of these research

disciplines into the 360-degree research

methodology provides an evaluation

platform for benchmarking industry

participants and for identifying those performing at best-in-class levels.

About ODAM

The processes and tools that CSPs have utilized to run their businesses have changed over

time. More than a half-century ago, CSP network and business management processes

were manual (OAM&P). As CSPs evolved over the years, so did the operations support

systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS) that address CSP business and

network management needs. In recent years, the lines between OSS and BSS have

become less clear, with much overlap. In addition, the roles in which OSS and BSS

operate have expanded beyond traditional boundaries. As such, Stratecast now uses the

term Operations, Orchestration, Data Analytics & Monetization (ODAM) to encompass both

the traditional OSS and BSS functions and the new areas in which business and operations

management must now work together, including virtualized networks and telecom data

analysis.

About Stratecast

Stratecast collaborates with our clients to reach smart business decisions in the rapidly

evolving and hyper-competitive Information and Communications Technology markets.

Leveraging a mix of action-oriented subscription research and customized consulting

360-DEGREE RESEARCH: SEEING ORDER IN

THE CHAOS



engagements, Stratecast delivers knowledge and perspective that is only attainable

through years of real-world experience in an industry where customers are collaborators;

today’s partners are tomorrow’s competitors; and agility and innovation are essential

elements for success. Contact your Stratecast Account Executive to engage our experience

to assist you in attaining your growth objectives.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth

and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's

Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined

research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation

of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages more than 50 years of

experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses, and the

investment community from 45 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership,

please visit http://www.frost.com.

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