Convergence
NaaS: Network as a Service
A solution for connecting applications to network services, NaaS enables new and seamless experiences through a common set of industry-scale application programming interfaces (APIs), creating consistency across operators and ease of use for the developer community.
Applications today have increasingly complex network needs. Without a standardized approach, operators and developers must create tightly integrated solutions to expose network services, provide data to internal operations teams and automate workflows.
A Need for a Dynamic Ecosystem
Without a standardized NaaS layer, operators’ capabilities are limited and fail to offer a straightforward process for applications to exchange information and data with the network. This results in lost growth opportunities for operators, limited innovation for developers and poor user experience for consumers.
Imagine if third-party developers and partners could seamlessly connect to an operator’s network services and data. What kinds of services and innovations would become possible?
This is the essence of Network as a Service (NaaS). NaaS closes the gap between a network’s capabilities and an application’s needs, making access easier for developers and creating consistent service experiences. The approach speeds up the development of applications across operator infrastructures, regardless of underlying access network technologies.
Streamlining for Scalability
NaaS empowers operators to achieve greater scale in new and more programmable services that are designed to meet consumers’ demand for dynamic, personalized experiences. It standardizes how programmers’ applications interact with underlying network technologies. This streamlined approach means developers can rapidly add new services that take advantage of capabilities in the operator’s network.
NaaS further benefits operators because it allows them to exchange information with the application layer to understand Quality on Demand (QoD) capabilities and improve outcomes.
APIs Made Simple
By eliminating the complexity and domain knowledge of the underlying access network technologies — DOCSIS®, mobile and passive optical networking (PON), for example — programmers can write their applications to a single, simplified API.
High-level, intent-based APIs allow developers to request network services and data in a scalable and streamlined fashion. These APIs are designed so that programmers do not need to know the specifics of access networks. This simplified approach ensures efficient development of applications that can seamlessly run across all networks.
Achieving Industry Scale
Industry standardization is the key to the success of NaaS — and to the value to be gained by stakeholders across the ecosystem. Because of its foundational focus on interoperability, the industry is already uniquely positioned to leverage this standardized, software-centric approach in a more simplified way than current alternatives can.
Proofs of Concept
In this scenario, an operator activates a speed boost for a user’s mobile or fixed connection based on a particular service offering. The proof of concept (POC) demonstrates how a single QoD, intent-based API can be used to activate QoS settings, such as an increase in throughput, regardless of the underlying access network technology (e.g., DOCSIS, mobile or PON).
This scenario demonstrates how a user can control and customize home network traffic based on his or her needs, applications and device requirements. The use case leverages a home network to illustrate different users’ expectations and needs for video communications, cloud gaming and virtual reality (VR) applications. Using a self-service application, users are able to gain more control over their devices and how the traffic flows across those devices to meet their needs.
In this scenario, a user working from home can connect an employer-owned device to his or her home network. Because the device belongs to a Corporate Work-From-Home (WFH) service, it is automatically authenticated, authorized and connected to a dedicated network using a secure tunnel back to the employer’s network. This POC demonstrates how NaaS enables a network to automatically recognize a device, grant it special access and create a corporate service set identifier (SSID). This enables a connection that is secure and capable of broadband speeds that match the corporate service level.