Network evolution: AI-ready telecom infrastructure demands AI-ready architecture
Song Toh, senior director of product management
Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform telecommunications by enabling network operators to predict and resolve issues before customers notice, intelligently optimize operations and enable new services.
It’s well understood that delivering on the full promise of AI requires modern, cloud-native infrastructure, but what sometimes gets overlooked is the requirement for a secure telemetry management strategy that can capture, store and analyze everything from service interruptions to customer interactions.
Is your network ready for AI?
Next-generation AI-powered networks can process metrics and telemetry in real time, enabling accurate problem detection and remediation at a speed and scale that is not possible with legacy environments. The result is a more seamless customer experience, which drives higher customer satisfaction and retention and ultimately has a positive impact on ARPU.
But AI’s effectiveness depends on making the right data available to the right systems in real time – everywhere – something that legacy environments can’t do.
In legacy networks, performance and fault metrics flow to a central data warehouse and are examined retroactively. With telemetry data increasingly being generated at the edge, this model does not work. Legacy networks were not designed to receive and analyze the tremendous (and growing) volume of information generated and captured in modern environments. CSPs also incur significant costs in the legacy network environment to transport, store and process this data.
To support AI-powered capabilities and associated real-time decision-making, CSPs need to proactively plan for data management, and they need the infrastructure to receive, store and archive vast amounts of data. This means moving from vertically integrated systems with tightly coupled hardware and software to open, disaggregated, cloud-native architectures that provide the flexibility, agility and scalability necessary to unleash the full potential of AI applications within networks.
A modern, disaggregated cloud model efficiently orchestrates diverse data streams across various technology layers, enabling seamless integration and real-time data sharing across various components, from edge devices to cloud services. This decentralized architecture creates a robust foundation for AI operations.
Leveraging scalable hardware and storage solutions (on-premises and cloud-based), optimized for AI workloads, this infrastructure empowers organizations to transform raw data into actionable insights in real time. Advanced data processing tools and data scientists positioned at the operational forefront can help drive this transformation.
Strategic collaboration helps unlock the power of AI
CSPs transforming their networks for AI capabilities need simplified approaches to deploying and managing distributed multi-vendor infrastructure, solutions that enhance reliability without increasing operational costs or sacrificing security.
Dell Technologies’ services for telecommunications, developed with the Open Telecom Ecosystem Community, help service providers navigate the complexities of data security, control and ownership within a disaggregated cloud-based model.
We collaborate closely with CSPs and Network Equipment Providers throughout the network transformation process, working with experienced partners to provide tailored solutions that deliver end-to-end protection across hybrid environments, safeguarding everything from traditional workloads to AI applications. Our unified approach ensures business continuity by protecting both application data and infrastructure components while maintaining consistent security policies across all platforms.
Our experience in cloud operations helps facilitate the adoption of AI and network automation with the operational controls CSPs will need to thrive in this new environment, unlocking innovation faster.
An open, dynamic ecosystem of AI vendors and solutions is a core component of the Dell AI for Telecom initiative. Working with CSPs to understand their defined objectives, we identify suitable ecosystem partners to provide solutions that simplify AI deployment and operations in complex telecommunications environments.
The future of the telecom industry lies with AI-enabled networks, and proactive planning for infrastructure information management positions CSP leaders to unlock value through both enhanced service delivery and new monetization opportunities.