Again, this can’t happen all at once, but operational strategies are built upon clear business goals and processes. Better now than later.

Technology

And what of the technology? Numerous forums and standards groups are working on the various aspects and challenges associated with making virtualization a reality. As trials become pilot projects, operators are closely scrutinizing every aspect of the technologies required and available to integrate NFV and SDN into existing operational environments. Starting this year, and for many years to come, OSS/BSS functionality will be critically scrutinized and operators will reluctantly modernize the miasma of purpose-built OSS/BSS interfaces, applications, and integrations to a more standardized and agile orchestration architecture.

Like the network, OSS/BSS solutions will become hybrid in order to ensure that service providers understand infrastructure efficiency, service performance, and availability. With the advent of NFV, the network will be far more fluid, and dynamic, so visibility becomes even more critical. As the industry shifts towards virtualization and operations become more automated, service providers must have correlated, accurate and timely end-to-end visibility across physical, virtual, and hybrid networks.

NFV and SDN network implementations pose significant challenges in delivering superior customer experience, complying with service level agreements, and optimizing networks. The OSS/BSS must be able to account for services across combined transport and application layers that include multiple network domains, such as IMS and LTE, and optimize those configurations. As network data volumes continue to rise, NFV will only add to the complexity of monitoring and managing complex infrastructure and services. For the next generation of OSS/BSS solutions, using analytics to turn large volumes of data into actionable intelligence will prove critical for numerous operations functions including rapid identification and resolution of network, service and customer problems.

Change is always certain

We all know that this aircraft carrier doesn’t turn on a dime and, while we recognize the complexity associated with significantly overhauling an industry that represents a century of success and billions in investment, those changes are coming. Whether initiated by technologies like NFV, SDN, LTE, 5G and whatever comes next; mandated by regulators; or as an answer to competitors, the arguments for not making substantial changes are rapidly dwindling.

Virtualization, as it ramps up to become an operational capability, presents a terrific opportunity to define and deliver the foundational leadership, people, process, and technology changes that extend the economic and social leadership we’ve come to expect from this industry.