Sparkle, TIM’s international subsidiary, has launched ‘Genome’, an integrated set of platforms and tools for network automation, programmability and virtualisation.
The service provider says Genome.NFV, which is already being deployed at Sparkle’s core data centres in Catania, Athens, Miami and Secaucus, with Milan to follow later this year, will help it evolve its traditional Physical Network Functions (PNF) into dynamic, cloud-native, highly resilient Virtual Network Functions (VNF).
The initial set of VNFs will be available to all new customers of Sparkle’s Global Signalling and LTE Diameter Signalling for international roaming services.
Sparkle plans to introduce virtual IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and virtual Session Border Controllers (SBC) in 2020.
Automation
Genome.SDN, described as a “modular, vendor agnostic, scalable and feature-rich network automation solution for physical and virtual networks,” will be gradually extended to all Sparkle network domains, starting with the integration of Nibble Optical Transport Network in early 2020.
It features an automation workflow manager to help network engineers automate complex but repetitive Method of Procedure (MOP) and operations tasks. The platform creates, visualises and executes automation workflows across the whole Seabone IP/MPLS backbone through a single interface.
Towards the autonomous network
The solution is complemented by a planning tool which allows abstraction and modelling of the IP/MPLS network, helping engineers to simulate availability and failover scenarios, automate traffic balancing and link optimisation and build comprehensive forecast requirements based on traffic trends, regional growth and other inputs.
“The relentless process of hyper-automation of industries requires service providers to deliver global network services at lightspeed, satisfying extreme reliability requirements,” said Daniele Mancuso, Sparkle’s VP ICT Engineering.
“The introduction of Genome sets the path towards the autonomous network of the future, confirming Sparkle’s leadership in technological innovation.”