In the build up to MWC 2020 Nokia has got one of its announcements in early, in the form of the ‘cloud-native’ Network Operations Master software.

Turns out 5G is pretty complicated and at times there’s so much going on that you can’t possibly expect flawed, obsolete humans to stay on top of it. That’s why you need greater automation, we’re told, and that has to start with the network operations software, or OSS in old money. Nokia prides itself on its software, so the launch of a new OSS suite is presumably a fairly big deal for them.

“With 5G forcing traditional functions, like revenue management and customer care, to the cloud and helping drive software deeper into the network, communication service providers need a modern approach to performing network operations that is automated, more efficient and scalable,” said Ron Haberman, CTO at Nokia Software. “The Nokia Network Operations Master delivers these capabilities and allows our customers to perform lifecycle operations with ease, efficiency, and confidence.”

Network slicing will make automation and a much higher level of cloudy flexibility critical features of any network software. NOM also covers AI, machine learning, etc and is designed to just take care of all the plumbing, allowing network operations centres to focus on the stuff only people can manage, if such a thing still exists.

“5G networks will require significantly more operations automation than past networks in order to achieve promised levels of efficiency and new service support,” Nokia got Dana Cooperson, Research Director at Analysys Mason, to say. “Nokia’s Network Operations Master is a cloud-native network management system that is underpinned by machine learning and automated actions and provides the types of tools mobile network operations teams need now for 5G.”

Here are a couple of vids that may tell you more.