Delivered at the Network & Services Management Conference in Bonn, Germany on December 6th 2016. It comprises Deutsche Telekom's strategy and vision as it relates to real time network & services management and aggressive automation through AI and applied machine learning. It is fairly high-level but does include reference for further study and read-up, particular towards IETF and RTC publications.

1. Zero Touch Networks
NSM Conference
Bonn, Germany
December 6th, 2016
Dr. Kim Kyllesbech Larsen,
Group Technology, Deutsche Telekom.

2. 2Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.
Today’s Network & Service Management (NSM).

3. 3Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.
Vision for tomorrow’s NMS.

4. Network Autonomy … Zero-Human-Touch.
 Support ultra-heterogeneity.
 100% automation.
 Self-restoration.
 Self-Healing.
 Security.
 “Zero-touch” Operations.
Network Operations
 Utilization management.
 Self-optimization.
 Self-configuring.
 Resource management
 Congestion management
 Zero-touch” Optimization.
Network Optimization
 Reporting, KPIs, ….
 Data enrichment/augmentation.
 Classical (re-active) CEM.
 NG (pro-active) CEM (NRT).
 AI-driven customer care.
 “Zero-touch” UX Mngmt.
User Experience
4Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.

5. In the mean time … did we drop the ball?
5Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.

6. The sophistication of network management remains
largely “stone age” in most Telcos!
6
CLI still most
prevalent
way to
interact with
a Telco
Network.
SNMP is still
alive and
kicking
despite
RFC3535*
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks. (*) 2002 IAB Network Management Workshop.

7. 7Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.
Humans are very good a mastering complexity!

8. 8Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.
But we have not YET managed to extract simplicity!
Recommend read; Scott Schenker (UC Berkely) ’s seminal paper “The Future of Networking, and the Past of
Protocols”, Open Networking Summit, October 2011 (http://opennetsummit.org/archives/oct11/shenker-tue.pdf).

9. 9
“Einstein’s razor”
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.

10. Value drivers.
10
€
User Experience
Management
Network & Service
Incidents
Network & Service
Optimization
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.

11. Future of what our Networks should support …
Millions of IoTs per Telco under management.
11
Germany2024Expect
250– 500+Million
IoT Connections
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch.
Internetof Things
Connections
2014 - 2024
Ca. 2.5 million C-IoT
per Operator (global)
Ca. 4.5 million NB-IoT
per Operator (global)

12. Future of what our Networks should support …
12Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch.
5G Intro
5G Intro
Lots of
Small Cells
Expect 100s
of thousands of
Small Cells per
Telco operator
Source: author’s own estimate.
Really a Lot!

13. Importance of Real & Right Time.
13
 Use case dependent time-scale.
 Reaction times; µs, ms, sec up to min or even hours.
 E.g. if relevant time is hours, no need to analyze in millisecond.
time scale
~50ms ~500ms~5ms minutes hours daysµs
SQM / CEM
Status reporting
“Tactile” apps
Network optimization
Fault detection
Incident mgmt
RT Telco World
Marketing related data analytics
streaming
micro batch processing
batch and backend processing
new territory
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.

14. Converged network vision – towards 5G & Terastream.
14
BigDataincl.MachineLearning
Virtualized Network and Service functions
Infrastructure Cloud
NG IP Network (BNG/TeraStream)
Mobile Access Fixed Access
CPESIM
Hybrid
Virtualized Network and Service functions
Infrastructure Cloud
NG IP Network, e.g., terastream
Mobile Access Fixed Access
CPESIM
Hybrid
Real-timeNetwork&
ServiceManager
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.
Foreign Infra Cloud
Foreign NFV & SFV
Access (e.g., Roaming)
SIM / CPE (e.g., Roaming)
Foreign Network / CountryHome Network
DT’s NG
OSS

15. 15
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.
Our RT-NSM architectural vision.
Common
Enablers
Production
Infrastructure
Domain
Managers
Inter- Domain
Management
E2E Service Fulfillment
E2E Service Assurance & Network Big Data Analytics
Infrastr. Cloud Domain
Appl. Orch-
estration
Openstack
DC
Server
DC
Router
DC
Switch
Application Domain
TV
vIMS
eMail
vEPC
…
cVPN
CPE Domain
M2M
devices
HGW
Set-Top
Box
…
managed
IOT
IP Domain
DHCP AFTRDNS
R1 R2
Home
Router
Common Middleware
Access Domain
MSAN
Vector-
ing FTTH
eNode
B
5G
RAN
SON
YANG Layer (DHT, YANG Router, Stats Collector)
Apache Layer (Cassandra, Apache Spark/Storm, Kafka)
Service Quality /
Customer Exp.
Cross-domain
C-SON
RT-Network
Events Analytics
Service
Performance Mgmt.
eSIM / Network
Identity Mgmt..
User & Rights
Management
Service Inventory
Provisioning &
Activation
Federation
Management
Network Slice
Configuration
Network
Slicing Assurance
5G!

16. Zero-human-touch network & service management.
AI & Machine Learning very essential for our
RT-NSM Architecture
16
Billions
of Events
Relevant
Events
Advanced filtering;
Fully automated filtering,
e.g., entropy filtering, deep
learning neural networks
might be applied as well
(e.g., RNN/CNN)
Advanced Clustering;
e.g., k-Means, k-NN,
mixture models, CURE, etc.
This might longer term be
replaced by deep learning
network methodologies
etc…
Converged Fixed-
Mobile Telco Network.
Automated Event
Categorization
AI-based network & services
graph that real time provides a
continuous dynamic picture of
service & application state
topology across whole
network.
Recommender System;
Provides an AI-based
automated highly reliable
operations & optimization
engine based on event
clustering. Reinforcement
deep learning algorithms
would be applied here.
Actions
Reinforcement Learning;
Continuous improvement of
operational performance of
our NSM AI-based
architecture.

17. 17Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.
How to get to where we want to be?

18. 18
Does it
work?
No
Yes
Fail Fast
Fail Often
Rapid proto-typing & proof-of-concepts.
Nice ideas & visions (or powerpoints) are not enough.
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.

19. Our Core Technology Beliefs.
Non-exhaustive, i.e., just a subset.
19
Aggressive
automation is
required.
Zero-Human-Touch
1
Focus on data
model-based
approach as
opposed to
information models.
Machine centricity
2
Harmonization &
standardization an
absolute must in
order to extract
simplicity.
4
and of course …
EASE OF USE
(also for machine intelligence)
5
Real-Time capable
design essential for
in-time network
optimization to
leapfrog
User Experience.
3
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.
RFC3444 describers the
difference between a data
model & information models.

20. Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks. 20
Industry collaboration is key!

21. Deutsche Telekom NSM Vision.
21
Strategy & Vision.
 Full automation, model-driven approach towards Zero Touch.
 Develop Big Data Analytics & AI/ML for future NSM.
 Drive Open Source collaboration together with Peers & Industry.
 RT NSM critically important for leapfrogging UX.
Industry Alignment Required.
 Common work on harmonized information model framework.
 Focus on achieving highest degree of automation (100%).
 Agreed action how to move forward.
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.

22. 22
Acknowledgement
and many other
colleagues who have
contributed with
valuable insights &
comments throughout
this work.
Dr. Kim K. Larsen / Zero Touch Networks.
Contact:
Email: kim.larsen@telekom.de
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/kimklarsen
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/KimKyllesbechLarsen
Twitter: @KimKLarsen
Klaus Martiny