Fahim Sabir, Director Architecture and Development, Colt Network On Demand, keynote presentation at Light Reading's Automation and the New Carrier Network.

1. 06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt 1
Network Automation
at Colt
Fahim Sabir

2. Our network
2
Metropolitan Area
Network
Colt connected city
Operational network
managed end-to-end
06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt

3. Our network
3
Metropolitan Area
Network
Colt connected city
Operational network
managed end-to-end
25k+
Buildings directly
connected
200+
Cities connected
across 28 countries
6
Languages
supported by
24/7 customer
service
900+
Network to network
interfaces
100+
Industry awards
25k+
Customers
5k+
Employees
187k+
LDN, metro fibre
and subsea and
terrestrial leased
capacity
800+
Key data centres,
clouds and carrier
hotels connected
Network Automation at Colt06 November 2017

4. What is driving the automation
requirement?
• The flexibility of the public cloud has raised customer
expectations
• The typical 2017 telco experience is prehistoric even compared to
the 2012 cloud experience
• Eroding prices demand that we must do more with less
06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt 4

5. 5 years of automation at Colt
06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt 5

6. 06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt 6
Building automation is not that
difficult*
* with the right foundation

7. 06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt 7
The prerequisite for automation is
process change…
• Minimise and simplify manual tasks
• Convince Service Delivery and Operations to “trust the
engine”
• Double down on data quality and consistency

8. A process change that made automation easier…
06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt 8
MANUALLY ROUTED IN STATIC
INVENTORY AND NMS
MANUALLY ROUTED IN
STATIC INVENTORY
AUTOROUTED AND MANAGED
BY NMS
Before 2013:
Since 2013:
REACTIVE CAPACITY MANAGEMENT
PROACTIVE CAPACITY MANAGEMENT

9. Taking a different view of products
9
On Demand
Value Added ServicesConnectionsPorts
Ethernet Port IP VPN Endpoint
SD WAN EndpointMS Azure Port
Internet Port
AWS Port
Ethernet P2P connection
Ethernet Hub & Spoke
Wavelength
Internet Access
Security services
….
• Less bundling so less co-ordination
(and thus less complexity)
• Customers can combine the
components they want
• Allows for more flexible topologies,
previously limited by Order Form
• Congruent with the ‘Cloud’ experience
Today
Networking Point to Point
Virtual Private Network
Hub and Spoke
06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt

10. Colt on Demand platform
10
Colt
IQ Network
NOVITASColt On Demand
Web Portal
Service
Exposure API
(MEF LSO)
Network
Control
OSS
VNF VNF
VNF VNF
VNF VNF
3rd party
Networks
Business
Orchestration
Multi Domain Service Orchestrator
Packet Network
SDN Controller Optical Network
SDN Controller
SDWAN
Controller
Network
Virtualisation
Controller
NFV
MANO
…...
06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt

11. NETWORK INFRASTRUCTURE
The Novitas Engine
06 November 2017 11
NOVITAS
ENGINE
MICROSERVICES
BSS/OSS PLATFORM
• Microservices provide core functionality
of Novitas Engine
• Orchestrator component co-ordinates
activity across microservices and
BSS/OSS and network platform
• Same API is used by the Colt On
Demand portal and customer
applications
ORCHESTRATOR
API GATEWAY (SDN API)
COLT ON DEMAND PORTAL
CUSTOMER
APPLICATION
Network Automation at Colt

12. Real network on demand
12
3. Modify in real time the bandwidth of a connection
1. Reserve / release ports
2. Create / delete a connection between ports
Standard HTTP based RESTful API
delivered with TLS over the internet
Create
Read
Update
Delete
Building Database 
Location    
Port    
Connection    
Request  
Product / Price 
Charges 06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt

13. Automation beyond our own footprint
06 November 2017 13Network Automation at Colt
Partner Service Provider Cloud Service Provider
SDN API
Novitas Engine
Cloud Interconnect
API
Cloud TenantPartner Infrastructure
Partner BSS/OSS
Platform
On DemandPartner Portal
NNI NNI
• No carrier has full worldwide coverage
• East-west integrations between carriers
and with SPs in other domains are key to
providing a real on demand experience
• Colt demonstrated the first carrier-carrier
integration with AT&T in 2016
• Colt working in MEF to define standards
for carrier-carrier integration
• First demo of ‘standardised’ integration in
November

14. Sentio: Bringing about better automation through AI
14
• Fully automated service management
• service modification / restoration (e.g. by
automatic scaling in and out of VNF resources)
Real-time
Closed-Loop
Automation
Infrastructure
Analytics, Logs, etc.
Controllers Analytics Engine
• Intelligent data analysis
and correlation
• Based on new machine
learning and artificial
intelligence techniques
Network Automation at Colt06 November 2017

15. 06 November 2017 Network Automation at Colt 15
Lessons learnt
• You won’t succeed unless you convince operational and
delivery teams to trust automation.
• The traditional view of automating manual tasks doesn’t
work. In most cases, you have to change the task.
• Building an automation-first platform allows you to take a
fresh look at how products are modelled. Don’t squander
this opportunity.
• Data quality and consistency is a silent killer! Breaking 25
year old habits is very hard.
• Automation inside your own footprint isn’t enough, because
customers often don’t exist just in your footprint.
• Become part of the ecosystem by allowing yourself to be
automated by your customers.
• Your customers will choose to use your platform for different
reasons than you’d expect.

16. Thank you