Networks that support a digitized smart society

As technological innovations such as 5G, AI, and IoT accelerate the development of a digitized smart society, network systems that can flexibly incorporate these technological innovations and respond swiftly to social needs are becoming ever more important.

We have made deliberate capital investments when demand for services was growing as it once did, but in the future it will be necessary to make network systems that can flexibly and quickly respond to unpredictable service demand. NTT Network Service Systems Laboratories (NS Laboratories) is conducting research and development that makes active use of open innovation, in order to realize network systems that can flexibly respond to such needs and technological innovations.

Integrated administration of networks, made "flexible" and "smart"

In addition various technologies that realize networks, NS Labs is doing research and development into operation technologies for integrated administration of networks (Fig. 1). This R&D follows is based on two keywords: "flexible" and "smart".

"Flexible" means making network systems that can flexibly meet customer needs based on virtualization technology, general-purpose technology, OSS (Open Source Software), and other such technology.

It is thought that efficiency will decrease with capital investment using conventional dedicated systems customized for communication carriers. Therefore, NS Labs is conducting research and development of network systems that can flexibly respond to changes in service demand utilizing virtualization technology and general-purpose technology, and provide various value-added functions quickly according to customer’s needs. We are also working on cost-effective, speedy system development by building systems that maximize implementation of commercial technologies, including OSS.
With regard to technologies that have not been realized by commercial products at present, NS Labs is taking the lead to incorporate these products into OSS and commercial technologies, in collaboration with standardization organizations and the OSS community.

One example would be our work to develop and open-source the network OS called "Beluganos". We are promoting the use of white box switches as general-purpose technology in the switch field, but the commercially available network OS for white box switches was not suitable for carrier networks. Therefore, we are developing Beluganos for the purpose promoting implementation of carrier requirements. We have also established a "CANDI subgroup" of the TIP (Telecomm Infra Project) community in collaboration with overseas carriers and OTT operators, and NS Labs researchers are leaders involved in formulating and promoting CANDI policies with the aim of global expansion of development technology.
For transfer functions, a part of the architecture proposed by CANDI, we are conducting demonstration experiments with overseas carriers using white box switches equipped with Beluganos ^[1].

The most important goal of these initiatives is to realize network infrastructure that can meet the individual requirements of each service and application, and operate flexibly and efficiently. In order to achieve this, we are conducting research and development of network slicing technology and international standardization. Network slicing technology realizes multiple logical networks with different characteristics on shared network infrastructure. NS Labs is verifying this technology and working with related standardization organizations to actively reflect carrier requirements.

Skillfully using various network systems the "smart" way

Our second keyword "smart" means technology that makes full use of flexible network systems. In recent years, ICT environments can be used even without owning them, as exemplified by the Cloud and SaaS. On the other hand, because ICT environments are constructed by combining a wide variety of resources, operational complexity and process complexity pose challenges.

Therefore, we are working to realize smart operation technology that enables social infrastructure which can support customers’ lives without the need to worry about the ICT environment. It is expected that AI will automate work which was once performed by humans in order to improve the efficiency of operation work. Yet, because existing AI cannot avoid making mistaken judgments, it is difficult to use AI for mission-critical operations where errors cannot be tolerated.

In order to solve this problem, by realizing False-aware AI (FAI) that evaluates the certainty of judgment results on its own, we can narrow down judgment results to the uncertain ones, and allow operators to intervene so that they can keep mistakes to a minimum while improving the efficiency of operation work. Furthermore, we are conducting research on environment-adaptive software technology, which automatically generates efficient code according to the environment, in order to optimally use diverse ICT resources connected to the network.

PSTN Migration

In addition to advanced services, we are also conducting research and development that incorporates the latest technologies into existing services in order to update them. Currently, plans are underway for "PSTN Migration", to migrate functions provided by conventional public switched telephone networks (PSTN) to IP network-based next-generation networks (NGN). PSTN migration also shifts connections for telephone services between telephone carriers from conventional PSTN type connections to IP-based direct connection type (IP interconnection type). In order to realize IP interconnections, we are undertaking the necessary technological development, international and domestic standardization, and related system development.

Future Development

NTT has proposed "IOWN" as an innovative network concept for the future. We will continue to promote research and development of network systems that support the creation of a digitized smart society, and will work to realize all-photonics networks with higher capacity, lower latency, and lower power consumption.

Reference Materials

1. [1]NTT Press Releases, "NTT and Telefónica start PoC on Open Optical and Packet Transport technologies within Telecom Infra Project", (October 16, 2019)
   https://group.ntt/en/newsrelease/2019/10/16/191016b.html