The race to automate

An autonomous network was once seen as part of a utopian ideal, albeit one far off into the future. It would make up the backbone of everything we did, managing a hyper-connected world in which everything from the minutiae of knowing when the milk in the fridge needed replacing, to the ability of the network to automatically ramp services up or down, without the need for human intervention.

In a recent ACG Research survey of network service providers, internet content providers, cloud service providers and large enterprises, 100 percent of respondents said they felt the need to pursue automation, and 100 percent are optimistic about automation’s future. Additionally, 75 percent of respondents indicated that they’ll have full or significant network automation within the next five years.

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We live in a world in which we’re regularly streaming Netflix in 4K, using the power of the phones in our pockets to augment our realities with virtual gaming, and even watching basketball from a virtual courtside seat. Our networks have evolved to cater for these technologies, and each evolutionary step has brought with it a technological boom enabled by greater capacity, speed, automation, intelligence and programmability.

The next step has arrived and it’s just in time, because when you thought we were finally content with, well, content, new technologies have emerged that push beyond what we ever thought possible.

At the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Intel Studios unveiled what it’s calling Volumetric Video – and it’s nothing short of stunning. Volumetric Video uses multiple cameras to shoot a 360-degree field of view, but it differs from standard 360-degree or VR video in that it captures footage “from the outside in”. To picture how it works, visualize the action scenes from The Matrix, in which the cameras pan around a frozen-in-mid-air Keanu Reeves. But now imagine being a viewer with the ability to zoom in on any part of that scene or look at any part of the footage from any angle you want, at any point in the action sequence.

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The holiday season is as good a time as any to take stock of what we witnessed in 2017, and from a technology perspective it was a year unlike any other. We saw the value of crypto currencies skyrocket and the opening of a crypto-futures market. The first shipments of 400G technologies into the wide-area-network with AT&T and Vodafone New Zealand, the continued deployment of Software-Defined Networking, a technology we’ve long championed, an early example of augmented reality go viral with Pokémon Go and Virtual Reality start to reshape the way we interact with the world around us – such as changing how we watch live sports.

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Almost everywhere I travel these days I hear someone talking about making their city a "smart city." I personally put the most faith in those initiatives that have determined what they want "smart" to accomplish whether it be zero net water consumption, becoming energy neutral for the public infrastructure, reduction in commute times or improving services like refuse collection. Defining and agreeing to measurable goals is a key milestone in a city’s journey to becoming "Smart."

Another key milestone is making sure that the basic connectivity infrastructure, what we usually call "the network" is up to the task.  A useful “smart city” requires that the city services be connected and automated wherever possible via a strong, resilient, secure network. And while progress has certainly been made – one only has to look at what Barcelona has achieved since the “smart city” ideal was first envisioned – it’s clear there’s still a lot of work to do to get this right the first time. There’s a sense of urgency from governments and vendors alike to get smart city solutions up and running, and in that rush those solutions are often proprietary and, with no standards in place, we risk the smart cities of tomorrow being made up of a mish-mash of ecosystems that will only work in silos.

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Every year around this time we “gaze into our crystal ball” to identify key trends for the coming year. But this year I’ve decided to do something different. So, instead I’ll share some suggestions for New Year’s resolutions that we, as an industry, should work on together in 2017.

What’s the difference, you ask? Trends are defined by the general direction in which something is shifting or changing, whereas the dictionary defines resolution as “a firm decision to do or not do something” or “the action of solving a problem, dispute or contentious matter.” So while the trends of the past few years have prepared us to expect the unexpected when it comes to today’s networks and what users demand, now is the time for us to be bold in our solutions.

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