Amdocs First to Announce a 5G-Ready Online Charging System for Communications and Media Companies
New cloud solution enables service providers to monetize the advanced services made possible by 5G network slicing
- LOUIS Jan. 17, 2018 Amdocs (NASDAQ: DOX), a leading provider of software and services to communications and media companies, today was first in the industry to announce a 5G-ready online charging system. This new solution enables service providers to process traffic from multiple network slices through a common online charging system, in accordance with the 5G standards guidelines1 published by 3GPPTM in December 2017.
Network slicing is a key capability in 5G networks, as it allows service providers to run multiple logical networks that meet the varying performance needs of different services – from eHealth and autonomous vehicles, which demand the lowest possible latency, to less-critical but bandwidth-demanding virtual and augmented reality applications.
The latest release of Amdocs’ market-leading digital monetization suite provides a centralized charging entity for the monetization of all service configurations made possible by network slicing. It includes an innovative isolation mechanism that ensures the level of activity in one network slice does not impact another. Deployed in the cloud with the OpenStack cloud framework, the solution provides the elasticity to scale on-demand in support of changing activity levels.
“Our customers are leading the way in the industry’s transition to 5G, which will serve as the backbone for a new generation of services that require the higher bandwidth, lower latency and greater agility that 5G provides,” said Anthony Goonetilleke, group president of Amdocs Technology. “As such, we have developed the latest version of our Digital Monetization suite to help them monetize the advanced product configurations that network slicing enables. It will also help them ensure that a customer connected to a 24/7 vital eHealth service, delivered over one network slice, is not impacted by an overload of events from another network slice streaming a live football match.”
“We are happy 3GPP has adopted guidelines that are consistent with the direction we have taken with our portfolio. This ability of our online charging system to support multiple network slices, coupled with its deployment in the cloud with the OpenStack cloud framework, is going to be critical to agility and the customer experience in 5G environments,” added Goonetilleke.
1 3GPPTM standards guidelines 32.899: “Study on charging aspects of 5G system architecture phase 1”, December 2017; 3GPP is a trade mark of ETSI
Supporting Resources
Meet Amdocs at Mobile World Congress (Hall 3, Stand 3G10) to see a demonstration of our 5G Monetization capabilities and our 5G Network Slicing ready OCS
Learn more about Amdocs’ digital monetization for 5G
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Cloud-Native Early Adopters Gain Digital Dexterity, Innovation and Customer Experience Advantages
New global study[1] commissioned by Amdocs finds that communications and media providers are rapidly adopting cloud native technologies. Early adopters and fast movers will reap the crucial agility and innovation advantage needed in the digital economies to outpace competition
- LOUIS ¾ Jan 17, 2017 ¾ A select group of communications and media providers are rapidly adopting cloud-native technologies in order to obtain the agility and continuous innovation needed to meet the digital experience benchmark set by digital disruptors. However, most service providers are moving slower, hindered by legacy technology, culture and processes, as well as the challenges of managing both legacy and cloud native systems in a hybrid, combined environment. While the move to cloud native systems is visible across the industry, mainstream adoption is unlikely before 2022. The laggards will find it challenging to close the early leads established by the fast movers.
These are part of the findings from an Amdocs-commissioned global study of leading communications and media companies by Analysys Mason, a global consultancy and research firm specializing in telecoms, media and technology. The results are based on in-depth discussions with senior executives of the surveyed companies.
“Communications and media providers are following the initial lead of web-scale software companies such as Amazon and Netflix in adopting cloud computing, DevOps practices, and cloud-native software architecture,” said Dr. Mark H Mortensen, research director of digital transformation at Analysys Mason. “What we see from the survey is that this is mostly being driven by the need to boost agility and innovation. Even though full transition is almost a decade away, those providers who can bring these technologies into their everyday operations quickly will secure the strongest competitive advantages.”
Need for greater agility and faster innovation trumps need for cost optimization: More than 82% of respondents said cloud-native and DevOps adoption is driven by the need for greater business agility and innovation. Only 36% said it is driven by the need for cost optimization.
Hybrid cloud infrastructure to be mainstream by 2022: Over 80% of digital, BSS and OSS systems currently run on physical or virtualized data centers. However, by 2022, over 90% of systems will run on cloud infrastructure, of which, over 60% will be on hybrid cloud.
Microservices are a key priority in cloud-native technology adoption roadmaps: 82% either have or are proactively working on a roadmap to evolve their digital, BSS and OSS systems to be cloud-native, with 64% saying that microservices architecture will be a requirement for new systems within two years.
DevOps still has a long way to go: 46% currently use DevOps in limited areas of their IT environment (primarily in digital domains), 18% have a plan in place to adopt DevOps within the next 1-2 years, while 27% are still evaluating transitioning to the methodology.
Managing a ‘hybrid’ IT environment is no simple matter: 91% believe operating cloud-native and traditional applications side-by-side will be a critical challenge, requiring 64% to re-skill their workforce and 27% to engage a third party.
“With early adopters such as Netflix, Amazon, Spotify already setting a high bar for agility and innovation, service providers who want to seize the advantage in today’s digital world need to view cloud technology, microservices architecture and DevOps adoption as ‘must-haves’ – and they need to move fast,” said Gary Miles, chief marketing officer at Amdocs. “The problem is that transition to the cloud is being held back by the daunting nature of managing cloud-native systems together with traditional ones. But while this ‘hybrid’ reality is likely to remain with us for the next 5-10 years, we’re already enabling service providers to overcome this co-existence complexity. In fact, customers who are adopting Amdocs cloud-native digital solutions, managed operations and services, are finding that their transition to digital is faster, and more cost-effective.”
Supporting Resources
Check out highlights of the research in the infographic
To see the full results of the survey in the Analysys Mason thought leadership paper; Market Pulse: Digital Transformation Of BSS/OSS To The Cloud & DevOps, please visit here
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[1] Analyses Mason Market Pulse: Digital transformation of BSS/OSS to the cloud & DevOps October 2017
