ABSTRACT
We are entering a new technological era with unprecedented demand to digitize everything, and with new value created from the automation of lives and systems. The network will be required to deliver information and entertainment content on a massive scale but with an economic outlay that is not vastly different than what we expend today. This requirement comes at a time when we have reached the physical limits of today’s network performance; so a top-to-bottom restructuring of networks is required, with a wholesale shift to highly distributed, highly intelligent optimized networking. Today’s self-contained, standalone networking constructs — whether it be an operator, network, network layer or element — will be disaggregated and then realigned and reintegrated at different levels using a set of new software platforms and interfaces. The shift will also require a new automated control paradigm, in which networks are truly programmable and become the essential building blocks of a new digital connected reality. Three essential elements are required to realize this new digital networking era.
A network OS — Truly automated networks will require a network “brain” or operating system (OS) that will control the functions and fabric of the
117network. The OS needs to be context-aware and adaptive to dynamically changing services and user demand through simple intent-based interfaces. A set of distributed autonomous controllers will give it a comprehensive end-to-end view of the network across all network domains and technologies.
Tunable network fabric — Achieving the “seemingly infinite” scale required for this new “digital everything” network affordably will require a new automated network fabric that fuses a distributed data center fabric, a scalable routing fabric and a massively scalable and flexible optical interconnection fabric into a single adaptive continuum under network OS control.
Dynamic connectivity marketplace — New technological eras bring with them new business models and wholesale economic transformation. A key part of this new networking reality will be the creation of a new global capacity marketplace where capacity can be bought and sold in near-real-time, which will enable the dynamic interconnection of web-scale data center providers, global network service providers and multinational enterprises.
