Programmable Network — not a pipe dream

Continued from my earlier post on Enabling the Enterprise- 5G private network.

For long the networks and the end applications have existed in silos. Most of our deployments have been around setting up our applications independently, and finally connecting it to some form of connectivity like Wifi, or fixed or even cellular. Therefore most application deployment are “network un-aware” , technically the deployment is based on an assumption there will be a superior network available.

With 5G, that will change. The Service based architecture (SBA) allows the network itself now to be “application aware”. The programmable aspects of the SBA now makes all this possible. The network now can respond based on what the application needs.

The benefit here is immense. Instead of keeping the network as an after thought, there is an opportunity to automate the whole process of deployment the application “as a service” .

The service ensures the application is pre-tuned, integrated and tested with the underlying network, and deployed with the right configuration reducing or eliminating any onsite configuration.

And there are opportunities to orchestrate new configuration on demand based on needs of the applications without disruption or degradation of service.

Introduce AI/ML into this , will only enrich this marriage between the applications and the network.

That’s the holy grail of end to end Automation.

To be continued ……