Accedian Launches Intent-Based Assurance to Drive Operational Efficiency
Accedian, a leader in user experience and performance analytics solutions, announced new intent-based assurance capabilities built into the Skylight platform. This innovation represents the next level of auto insurance, making Skylight the first platform to offer these features on the market. Intent-based assurance provides the underlying visibility needed to drive intent-based networking and enables insights into network performance.
One of the biggest challenges facing communications service providers (CSPs) is the complexity of today’s networks and the stacking of legacy systems, domains, and silos that don’t communicate with each other. . This is not possible with dynamic 5G services with strict performance requirements nor with segregated cloud-based networks. Intent-based networks tend to focus on enabling services: Configure and provision devices based on intent. Intent-based networking, orchestration, end-to-end assurance, and service visibility must go hand in hand.
With Skylight intent-based assurance, CSPs gain advantages, including:
- Direct visibility into service quality and user experience without the operational complexity of having to provision the behind-the-scenes details of assurance/testing.
- Increased intelligence in assurance – Skylight’s intent-based assurance capability understands how the service should behave. It can understand when the service is having an issue – or may potentially have an issue in the future (predictive) – and immediately trigger the controller layer for closed-loop optimization or remediation.
- Accelerated time to market for new services – Intent-based assurance understands how to instrument the network to assure a service without manual intervention. Adding assurance to the network is easier to automate and deploy efficiently, helping to speed up time to market for new, performance-assured services.
- Cost savings – Proactively address issues and rapidly determine the root cause of performance degradation, reducing the operational cost of running increasingly complex networks.
“Ensuring consistent service quality requires more than simply knowing the status of equipment in the network. CSPs need visibility into end-to-end service quality, agility for assurance monitoring at the time of service deployment, and to move beyond simple SLA monitoring to predictive analytics. Our partnership with Accedian, adding Skylight’s intent-based assurance to Cisco’s Crosswork Network Automation portfolio, strengthens our joint efforts in helping CSPs to further elevate customer experience and drive efficiency in operations.
Kevin Wollenweber, SVP/GM, Cisco Networking – Data Center and Provider Connectivity, Cisco.
“Network complexity has accelerated beyond the manageability of manual intervention. Automation is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. It’s a journey that takes open integration, standardization, and simplification work to get there. Intent-based assurance understands how the service should behave, and it can understand when the service is having an issue and inform the orchestration layer. This added intelligence will provide customers with the continuous visibility and feedback loop on service quality that they need.”
Dion Joannou, Chief Executive Officer,Accedian.
“The exploding number of network elements and connections that require management and maintenance shows no sign of abating. Because of this, network managers and operators urgently need to improve manageability and increase scalability even as they try to rein in expenditures. Intent-based assurance adds value to today’s networks immediately.”
Roy Chua, Founder and Principal Analyst, AvidThink.
