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Introduction

ZSM members participants image

The pivotal deployment of 5G and network slicing has triggered the need for a radical change in the way networks and services are managed and orchestrated. In particular there is a need to handle:

  • the increase in the overall complexity resulting from the transformation of networks into programmable, software-driven, service-based and holistically managed architectures, and
  • the unprecedented operational agility required to support new business opportunities enabled by technology breakthroughs, such as Network Slicing.

These new deployments come with an extreme range of requirements, including massive seemingly infinite capacity, imperceptible latency, ultra-high reliability, personalized services with dramatic improvements in customer-experience, global web-scale reach, and support for massive machine-to-machine communication.

Full end-to-end automation of network and service management has become an urgent necessity for delivering services with agility and speed and ensuring the economic sustainability of the very diverse set of services offered by Digital Service Providers. The ultimate automation target is to enable largely autonomous networks which will be driven by high-level policies and rules; these networks will be capable of self-configuration, self-monitoring, self-healing and self-optimization without further human intervention. All this requires a new horizontal and vertical end-to-end architecture framework designed for closed-loop automation and optimized for data-driven machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms.

The ETSI ZSM (Zero-touch network and Service Management) group was formed in December 2017 with the goal to accelerate the definition of the required end-to-end architecture and solutions.

Our Roles & Activities

The ISG ZSM group works to strengthen the collaboration the relevant standardization bodies, open-source projects and fora in order to promote the adoption of and alignment with the ZSM architecture and solutions to ensure automated end-to-end network and service management can be achieved.

The relevant standardization bodies, open-source projects and fora in order to promote the adoption of and alignment with the ZSM architecture and solutions to ensure automated end-to-end network and service management can be achieved.

We have just embarked on an exciting journey towards the automation transformation that will help operators meet user expectations for service agility and create new business opportunities. End-to-end automation is a “big deal” and represents the industry’s coming years journey. The use of AI/ML will evolve incrementally. Findings from real deployments and operational experience need to be fed into the specification work.

The ISG ZSM encourages the creation of Proof of Concepts (PoCs) to demonstrate the viability of ZSM implementations. The results and lessons learned from the ZSM PoCs will be channelled to the ISG ZSM specification work. In its specification work, the ISG will take into consideration also feedback and findings from real deployments and operational experience.

Specifications

A list of related standards in the public domain is accessible via the ZSM committee page.

Blog

ZSM Blog

The direct link to this Blog is https://www.etsi.org/newsroom/blogs/blog-zsm

Blog-ZSM

2022:  major strides marked on the network automation transformation journey

Nurit Sprecher, ISG ZSM Vice Chair

Another exciting year in the AI/ML-powered network automation transformation journey is beginning during which the ETSI ZSM (Zero-touch network and Service Management) group will build on the significant achievements of 2022 – in the context of published specifications/reports, cooperation with SDOs, POCs (Proof of Concept) and the strong momentum created in the industry.

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Blog-ZSM

Zero-touch network and service automation are essential to unleash the business potential of 5G and beyond. The ultimate automation target is a largely autonomous operation driven by high-level policies and rules, enabling self-configuration, self-monitoring, self-healing and self-optimization – without further human intervention. 

Automation is not only about technology; it also requires changes in the mindset of people. Trust is a major barrier to adoption and striving to build it requires a continuous learning process. As more automation processes are deployed and operate safely and efficiently, human trust will increase and the requirement for a level of supervision/intervention will diminish. Having native security (e.g. an adaptive secured framework, access control, trustworthiness, data protection) can help to establish confidence and instill trust as the automated processes deliver the intended business outcomes.

The threat surface in the ZSM environment is extensive, firstly due to the openness of the ZSM framework. The framework is modular, extensible and service-based and expands across multiple domains. Its interfaces are open and offer model-driven services. Protecting the interfaces and the management services within and across the domains is essential to ensure the trustworthiness of the ZSM framework. 

In addition, the ZSM services can be produced and consumed by new players coming from diverse industries (e.g. government, vehicle industry, energy, transport, etc.). Each player may require or support different trust levels according to its own deployment/execution environments, security policies and regulations. This variety demands flexible and adaptive security control.  

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Technologies
Blog-ZSM

The ETSI ZSM end-to-end network slicing specification has been released.

Network slicing is expected to become a fundamental enabler for value generation: a $300 billion global revenue opportunity by 2025, according to the GSMA.
It has been designed to support a broad variety of use cases (including the unknown) with extreme requirements, providing tailored network capabilities for each individual service. But building a network that supports tens of thousands of individual slices – all of which can be created and set up, operated, scaled, assured to meet each slice’s service-level agreement (SLA), and torn down at a moment’s notice – presents several challenges.

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Technologies
Blog-ZSM

The accelerated worldwide deployment of 5G networks poses a significant challenge to the way networks and services are created, orchestrated and managed. Full end-to-end automation becomes crucial for the delivery, dynamic adaptation and continuous assurance of the highly diverse services – each with its own broad range of requirements – while still ensuring economic sustainability. In addition, the network’s performance, coverage and capacity should be constantly assured to satisfy the requirements of the active services.

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