OREANDA-NEWS. Telstra has become the first carrier in Australia to introduce a software driven Orchestrated Assurance Solution for its enterprise and business customers, by announcing its intention to choose Cisco's Network Services Orchestrator (NSO), enabled by Tail-f, to fully automate both provisioning and assurance of the IP networks and services.

The deployment means that Telstra customers are now set to enjoy a new level of service as the Cisco NSO delivers a faster time to service and less delay in new service introductions or changes.

Cisco's new automated solution deployed by Telstra turns older processes on their head and provides additional reassurance with its always on integrity check running in the background.

First of all it is software driven not hardware driven, so instead of manual detectors and probes a "virtual" probe is immediately installed providing the same, if not greater, level of carrier class assurance in a fraction of the time and a fraction of the cost. Upgrades and enhancements are also easily introduced to the automation process as software downloads ensure a continuous flow of enhancements, rather than the "intermittent" hardware upgrade, keeping the system consistently up to date.

Cisco's NSO is also proactive not reactive: carriers currently respond to customer concerns by initiating a series of manual tests, with often limited resources, to ascertain the fault and then rectify any issue. This is not only inefficient, time consuming, and costly for the carrier but also for the customer. With automated assurance, a "virtual probe" can be immediately enabled on the system once it's deployed, consistently monitoring the service and proactively notifying the carrier of potential problems before the customer notices them. The result is a better SLA, a happier customer and less cost for the carrier.

Although orchestrated provisioning is gaining traction with a number of carriers, Telstra has seized the initiative and will be the first to automate the full lifecycle of its network and enterprise services.

Telstra's deployment of orchestrated assurance is based on a recent ETSI NFV Proof of Concept using open third-party software that is easily deployed and activated on demand. The implementation is part of Telstra's strategic migration to cloud based services, leveraging virtual test agents and other software to ensure services are delivered right first time, and to provide constant measurements of QoS levels, individual end-to-end services and applications along with network KPIs.

The Telstra announcement is yet another example of how networking giant, Cisco is increasingly employing software and virtual resources as part of its offering to customers.

Supporting Quotes

Mike Wright, Group Managing Director, Networks, Telstra

"This model-driven approach to network automation will enable us to dramatically increase our level of automation and assurance for our customers. The flexibility and open nature of the Cisco solution will provide us some of the tools needed to innovate new services at a rapid pace in line with the expectations of our customers, particularly in the area of orchestrated assurance."

Gee Rittenhouse, SVP & General Manager, Cloud & Virtualization Group, Cisco
"Extending orchestration beyond just provisioning is a huge step for our customers as they make the transition to cloud-based infrastructures. Now for the first time, Service Providers will be able to see in real-time the health and performance down to a specific customer level, even for NFV-based services. A key component of the Cisco Evolved Services Platform, Network Service Orchestrator lets operators configure service activation testing, ongoing monitoring, and service-level agreement assurance functions synchronously with fulfillment -- all using the same common data model."

About Telstra
In Australia, we provide 16.9 million mobile services, 7.2 million fixed voice services and 4.1 million fixed data services. Telstra's international businesses include Telstra's global networks and managed services business and Telstra'sChina-based search and advertising business. We understand our customers want technology and content solutions that are simple and easy to use -- that's why we have built networks like Australia's largest fully integrated internet protocol (IP) network and Australia's largest and most reliable national mobile network.

About Cisco
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