Intelligent IP Network Based On SRv6 Accelerate 5G Success

This Vendor View is sponsored by Huawei

With the explosive mobile data traffic growth, massive device connections, and emerging new services and application scenarios in the future, revolutionary service experience and new business application models is required, 5G poses diversified requirements on basic transport networks, transport network need to be upgraded in time. Therefore, carriers’ transport network transformation has become an inevitable trend.

At the 2021 Ultra-Broadband Forum (UBBF), Alan Loh, innovation & solutions executive general manager at Zain KSA, gave a presentation entitled “Intelligent IP Network Based On SRv6 Accelerate 5G Success”. In this he shared the experience of Zain KSA in constructing the agile and intelligent transport networks based on SRv6 and SDN.

Zain KSA Alan Loh’s speech at UBBF 2021

Alan Loh noted that, building a future-oriented advanced IP network for delivering the best end user service experience, there are major points: simplified protocol, agile provisioning, intelligent O&M.

First, simplified protocol: SRv6 + EPVN, improving service agility. Traditional networks have many protocols and complex configurations, making configuration, management, and maintenance difficult. Zain KSA uses the next-generation simplified protocols SRv6 and EVPN, can simplify network deployment and implement inter-AS one-hop connectivity without VPN combination. As the foundation of the SDN digital infrastructure, SRv6 supports network programming. By working with the Huawei SDN controller iMaster NCE, network-wide latency visualization, policy-based centralized path calculation and automatic optimization are implemented, facilitating traffic engineering and providing on-demand SLA assurance based on services.

Second, agile provisioning: Automatic service provisioning & optimization. Currently networks are manually operated and maintained by experts and skilled personnel. In the future, this will no longer be viable because of the numerous connections, increasing network scale, and on-demand cloud service provisioning. E2E service automation, policy-driven closed-loop automation should be applied to improve service deployment and maintenance efficiency.

Alan Loh shared a Zain KSA’s practise in network automation and closed-loop in KSA. Zain KSA B2B are recently facing challenges with customer requirements to have a pool of capacity either for DIA or IP-VPN. The customer request a pool of throughput to be defined in the offer while they have multiple sites , and each shouldn’t have a policer capping the traffic as long the total volume is still within the purchased bulk.

Zain KSA introduces the service dynamic BOD function of Huawei iMaster NCE to implement continuously traffic monitoring, and automatically bandwidth adjustment for sites. The automatic fast closed-loop function enable Zain to rollout new cost-effective offering for the users.

Third, intelligent O&M: Service visibility and AI-based troubleshooting. Over the past decade, operators’ O&M costs have been increasing in the overall revenue structure. Due to rapid technology development, complex network types, and complex network management and maintenance, operators’ OPEX has been rising continuously.

When 5G is being introduced, can carriers quickly identify abnormal service data from massive network data, accurately locate faults, improve service generation efficiency, and reduce repeated labor? Alan Loh introduced Zain KSA’s innovative ideas. By introducing the iFIT technology, service SLA can be real-time monitoring and enable minute-level fault demarcation and locating. AI technology will be continuously introduced in the future to support global network analysis, predict network traffic and faults, diagnose root causes, and provide troubleshooting suggestions, to achieve proactive O&M.

Zain KSA, a prominent service provider in the Middle East region, is setting new benchmarks for providing an extremely reliable and high performing 5G network experience, has won the Speedtest Award™ as Fastest Fixed Internet in Saudi Arabia for the third time in a row, since its rollout of the region’s largest 5G network.

By deploying Next Generation Technologies, Zain KSA is building the most advanced transport network in the region that can guarantee the best in class SLA and also cater for all future requirements of 5G and cloud Era. Zain KSA is believed to be able to use smarter networks to provide better services for users.