As Network Mining, Information Modeling is the essence of what we do, since we bring together network inventory and configuration data from different network management systems in a unified data model, as a basis for all sorts of reporting, analysis and simulations.
By adopting and promoting the use of the information model of the ONF we can position ourselves at the core of an industry-wide development that is reshaping the way in which networks are being built and operated. As an active member we can participate in the definition process rather than being a follower.
Speed and capacity became more important
The main area of advancement in the past decades has been the increase in speed and capacity. The next area that is currently in focus is what is called network disaggregation, to support software-defined networking or SDN. Until now, human intervention is needed to supply capacity to places in the network when and where needed, for example for large events that require live TV coverage and where many mobile users generate streaming data. These human actions are performed on network management systems (NMS) - centralized software applications that are supplied by the equipment vendors, which communicate with their own equipment only to implement the changes in the network. In SDN, these decisions and actions are taken by a software application called an SDN Orchestrator, and the role of the NMS is performed by an SDN Controller. Then of course the communication with all the equipment throughout the network must be standardized.