2017
What does next gen OSS look like? No-one knows
It might not be the answer anyone wanted to hear, but it is probably the one they are least surprised to hear.
The question of what the next generation of OSS should be was the discussion at the ‘OSS in the Era of SDN & NFV’ event in London, but there isn’t really much of an answer to offer. This isn’t necessarily a massive issue though. When you consider the number of moving parts in the telecoms and technology industries, a right answer will always be an old answer before too long.
So perhaps we should be asking different questions. Finding a specific answer might be a maze to madness, but looking at whether we have made any progress is certainly an area which will offer more encouragement.
“OSS and telco transformation is like trying to change the wheels of a car while driving down the motorway,” said Heavy Reading’s James Crawshaw.
Some might call that a cop-out, but it is very true. Transformation in any sense of the world is complicated because you not only have to make sure the wheels are tightly bolted on, the oil is topped up, the engine is configured correctly and your passengers are safe and comfortable, while also keeping an eye on whether the car is pointing the right direction. And don’t forget, you can’t spend too much.
Extending the metaphor, OSS is getting lost in a growing traffic jam of buzzwords, acronyms and breakthrough technologies. SDN and NFV may no longer be the most prominent conversations in the telco space anymore, though they still are important. But what about cloud native? Microservices? Containers? How can DevOps be coherently integrated? And who is keeping an eye on 5G and the IoT trends which are emerging?
“There is a lot of noise right now, and OSS is the bottleneck in the telco transformation journey,” said Crawshaw.
This might not sound that encouraging, but we picked up on a couple of underlying comments throughout the morning presentations which do offer a glimmer of hope.
Firstly, telcos seem to have recognised the problem. The problem is not the messaging platforms which destroyed SMS revenues, or the OTT businesses which are capitalizing on the network investments. The problem is the fact telcos were stood still while the rest of the world moved on.
To read the entire article please click here: Source: Telecoms.com
