Nokia WaveSuite open applications enable optical networking as a service

Nokia is using this week’s MEF18 event in Los Angeles to debut its WaveSuite portfolio of open optical network applications. The apps, which address service enablement, node automation, and analytics, enable the provision of optical networking resources through a variety of internal and external hierarchies. This includes the ability to “slice” physical network resources into virtual network entities, which themselves can be sliced to serve multiple customers. The apps therefore enable virtual network reseller business models, say Nokia sources.

The WaveSuite apps build upon the new MEF Optical Transport Services standards (MEF 63), according to Scott Larrigan, senior marketing manager, Nokia ION, but in a manner that enables service delivery through multiple hierarchies in a multivendor environment. Network operators can provide virtualized access to their physical optical network infrastructure to multiple wholesalers and other resellers, who can then offer cloud-enabled services to end customers. Nokia will supply a customer portal that those end customers can use to manage their services, Larrigan adds. Meanwhile, new network capacity can be pushed through the different levels of the hierarchy.

The WaveSuite portfolio contains three major elements. The WaveSuite Service Enablement apps, the heart of the offering, enable virtual network slicing and the support of reseller business models, including the sort of network control cloud-based services providers have begun to offer their customers. The apps should be available in the fourth quarter of this year, said Larrigan.

Two other app families complement the WaveSuite Service Enablement set. WaveSuite Node Automation is an existing app set that Nokia customers are using already to turn up services, with field technicians able to access the information they need via their cell phones. Meanwhile, the upcoming WaveSuite Network Insight applications – Health & Analytics and Optimizer – provide data analytics capabilities that monitor network health and performance (in the case of the former app) and recommend adjustments to network operations. The availability of the Network Insight apps are timed to coincide with that of Nokia’s third-generation programmable super-coherent Photonic Service Engine (PSE-3s) announced at OFC 2018 (see “Nokia touts ultimate in spectral efficiency via PSE-3 chipset and probabilistic constellation shaping”).

Trials of the new capabilities have been scheduled. Taken together, the apps suite (which can be deployed individual or as a group for maximum benefit) should help physical network operators better monetize their networks as well as open avenues to new partnerships, Larrigan concluded.

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