As communication service providers (CSPs) continue to evolve their networks to take advantage of new technologies to deploy innovative services such as voice over LTE (VoLTE) and voice over wi-fi (VoWiFi), they require agile, cost-effective solutions to address their customers' digital lifestyle expectations. To achieve these goals, CSPs are shifting more of their core network functions to the cloud. The latest version of Oracle Communications Network Service Orchestration Solution, accelerates this transition by providing key service orchestration capabilities that enable CSPs to rapidly design and automatically deploy, scale, heal and terminate services in the network core.

The solution is part of the Oracle Communications intelligent orchestration framework, which helps guide CSPs in their adoption of Network Function Virtualization technology and helps them maximize its benefits. The framework gathers and analyzes network performance information, evaluates the network's operation against predefined policies and business rules, and can trigger the appropriate action to automatically modify the behavior of services, network functions, and virtualized infrastructure -- in a closed loop manner.

"CSPs are looking to NFV as a means to both transform their networks and to generate new revenues from the increased agility enabled by network virtualization," said Dana Cooperson, Research Director at Analysys Mason. "For them to be successful, they must take a holistic orchestration approach, based on a modular set of orchestration functions, that facilitates an increasingly dynamic, virtualized network and integrates with end-to-end business and operations processes. Such an approach, of which Oracle Network Service Orchestration Solution is one example, will best position CSPs to realize the full business benefits of their NFV investment."

CSPs may use new capabilities within Oracle Communications Network Service Orchestration Solution to:

• Simplify the deployment of virtualized IMS networks that cost-effectively support a new generation of services, such as VoLTE and VoWiFi.
• Automatically configure customer and network traffic flows, through integration with the OpenDaylight SDN Controller, to scale services up and down while balancing the network load for improved service quality.
• Optimally configure network services on the underlying hardware -- specifically the organization and deployment of virtual CPUs, memory distribution and disk usage -- through integration with industry-leading virtual infrastructure managers.
• Support a broad range of third party virtual network functions by providing native VNF management capabilities to orchestrate VNFs that may or may not have their own VNF Manager -- allowing CSPs choice and flexibility in VNF selection for network deployment.

"As CSPs evolve their networks to take advantage of cloud technologies, they must consider how to rapidly introduce virtual network functions while ensuring services are delivered with consistent, prescribed levels of quality," said Doug Suriano, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Communications. "This new release of Oracle Communications Network Service Orchestration Solution enables CSPs to deploy and manage network functions optimally to ensure, for example, that premium customer services are guaranteed to be configured on appropriate resources from end to end."

Oracle Communications Network Service Orchestration Solution is designed to work with upstream operational systems to help CSPs quickly transition to the delivery of real-time, cloud-based services over virtual and hybrid networks. Oracle's solution for the end-to-end delivery of contemporary cloud-based services includes common, standards-based modeling of products, services and resources across Oracle's integrated architecture for lifecycle service orchestration and network service orchestration. This productized, end to end capability provides CSPs the service agility and automated operations to begin to truly transform their business, not just their network.

Oracle will showcase this solution as part of the "Offer and Orchestrate NaaS over the Elastic Network" demonstration in Hall 3, Stand 3B20 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, February 22 - 25, 2016.