Enabling zero-touch automation of network operations

Vodafone Group NOC-CIAS project, supported by Celfocus, was featured in the latest edition of Vodafonewatch.

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Vodafone Network Operations Centres (NOC) in Europe are undergoing a major, digital revamp towards end-to-end automation and a holistic approach for the full operational lifecycle (from event detection to resolution confirmation). The article about this project supported by Celfocus was published in June’s edition of Vodafonewatch.

Besides automation, the Cognitive Intelligence and Automation Suite (CIAS), developed by Celfocus’ OSS and Analytics teams, has a cognitive module that translates massive events into meaningful incident patterns and root causes to run data-driven automation flows and predictive analysis, keeping a record of past events and learning from them. As a result, cost efficiency is increased and quality and customer service are improved, thanks to increased network availability and SLA compliance.

CIAS forms one part of Vodafone’s Digital Technology Programme, which focuses on digitisation of the “entire lifecycle of the network — the planning part, the deployment part, and the running part”, states Mario Volonterio, Head of OSS & Network Infrastructure Engineering at Vodafone.

According to Bruno Silva Santos, Vodafone Group Networks Account Executive at Celfocus, Celfocus has been strongly committed with project, setting a close fit with Vodafone’s strategies of updating business processes in the Group Network Operations (GNO) team and consolidating OSS tools. Once these applications are consolidated further, the partners will be able to accelerate CIAS deployment and enhancement across multiple markets, he added.

Focused on speeding-up first-line network support tasks, a minimum viable product (MVP) has been completed for networks in Vodafone’s regional Atlantic and Danubio’s NOCs, placed in Portugal and Romania, which cover all the operator’s European territories. Additional OpCos will be onboarded, including UK, over the coming months. “Our target for the year ahead is to go deeply across the ‘big four’ European markets”, refers Simon Norton, Head of OSS Operations & Digital Transformation in Vodafone’s GNO organisation.

To learn more about this project, check the Case study.