Data migration considerations on your journey to software-defined access networks
Do you dream of waking up one morning and all your broadband network will be cloudified? If so, we need to talk. Firstly, because that is a very strange dream to have. Second - and you may want to sit down for this - it’s probably not going to happen any time soon. In the vast majority of cases the journey to the cloud will be a long-game transformation. Operators will incrementally add SDN-enabled elements and functions over time alongside their trusty, valuable legacy assets and operations, creating a hybrid traditional-virtual environment.
When and how you go about it, as market demands and your subscribers prefer, is where Nokia steps in. We help you build flexible business models and link the adoption of SDN networks with the adoption of services which SDN enables.
It’s important to ensure a smooth and risk-free transition, which we offer through the unique capabilities of our Altiplano cloud controller, our SDN-switchable ISAM and our SDN-native Lightspan access nodes. Irrespective of the chosen path, whether it’s turning an ISAM into a Lightspan or moving traditional ISAM nodes under Altiplano cloud control, the process of migrating software and services from traditional to new is well-established and managed.
We handle the migration with the combination of thoughtful process and automation, and we have some unique Services capabilities to support this as well. Thinking of your peace of mind, our Migration Operations Centers deliver specialized technical and operational management services to make sure the migration is executed smoothly. You benefit from the automation and orchestration of the process and logistics with our project orchestration tool, which covers the process workflow engine, communication and resources coordination, and highly customizable reporting. Our Services experts use innovative intent-based networking concepts to convert traditional data structures into the format required by a software-defined access networks (SDAN) data lake. And we have dedicated tools for automated data quality cross-check, conversion and transfer.
It’s perhaps the data migration that is the most critical step, as data is the bedrock of your services and revenues. Figuring out problems afterwards can turn your dream migration into a costly and complex nightmare. You can really benefit from what I would call a “migration factory approach”. Analogous to an assembly line, in order to run efficiently and produce volume products at high quality, it needs to be set-up and tested thoroughly before volume production can start.
So, as we design the project with you, we put a lot of effort into getting this preparation right, with simulation and pre-testing before any actual volume data migration occurs.
At the heart of our automated migration solution is the Mass Data Migration platform (MDM). The MDM platform first extracts data from your source (legacy) platform before translating it to the appropriate intent types and mapping the configurations from old to new. Along the way, MDM performs the crucial task of data verification for accuracy and completeness, flagging any discrepancies that might cause a failure in provisioning. The entire migration process is tracked at every stage by our migration experts including a post-migration data check to make sure that, when we flip the SDAN switch, there are no nasty surprises.
SDAN promises a brave new world of performance, efficiency and innovation and we want to help you get there as safely as possible. So, although your fully software-enabled network might be a few years away, we can make sure the transformation along your chosen path gets off to a dream start today.
Learn more about how we can help your SDAN transformation with our Cloud Acceleration Services, here.
