亚信科技

Recently, China Mobile announced the results of the centralized procurement of 5G NFV integrated SMS gateway equipment from 2019 to 2020. AsiaInfo was successfully awarded the southern region node of the Group to undertake the construction of the 5G NFV-converged SMS gateway virtualization system on the network cloud of China Mobile’s southern region. Once completed, the 5G SMS gateway systems of the original 31 provincial branches will be concentrated on the four nodes of Guangzhou and Chengdu in the South and Baoding and Jinhua in the North. AsiaInfo will support China Mobile to realize the virtualization, cloud and centralized deployment of 5G-converged SMS gateways.

In the personal communication world full of various social apps, SMS is no longer popular, but it is still the communication method with the lowest barrier to use, the highest penetration rate and the most terminal types other than voice services. At the same time, with the increasing demand for SMS in the finance, education, Internet, logistics and other industries, the business volume of corporate SMS continues to grow. The market size is expected to reach 31.68 billion by 2020, which is still amazing.

Faced with the needs of new business scenarios, how to effectively use the booming cloud computing and other ICT technologies to centrally integrate and flexibly schedule their own resources, capabilities and businesses has become an important direction for the main players of various industries to promote transformation. The SMS is no exception for telecom operators.

Virtualization at the technical architecture level, and the integration and collaboration of resources and services become the next development node of SMS services. Under such context, China Mobile launched this SMS convergence gateway project. The project shoulders the important tasks, including constructing the national Monternet SMS gateway and the interconnection SMS gateway, completing the original business migration, replacing the old systems and equipment of provincial branches, and supporting the Monternet SMS service, the interconnection SMS service and the SMS-related services of the Marketing Department.

Once completed, the project will effectively support the complex scenarios of the SMS business in the new era to refresh the SMS; moreover, the reduction of nodes will bring about a drop in operating costs and an improvement in business efficiency, for example, a project requiring the collaboration of 31 provincial branches in the past now only need to be carried out at four regional nodes, which will better meet business needs, support business transformation, and achieve cost reduction and efficiency enhancement. The achievement of the above goals depends on the strong support of AsiaInfo’s network function virtualization (NFV) products.

At present, AsiaInfo has established a relatively complete O-domain product system. Different from traditional OSS products, AsiaInfo has adopted new architectures and technologies such as big data components, artificial intelligence and microservice architecture in the product development process. Compared with the OSS products running on the existing network, they perform better in terms of basic performance, capacity support and networking flexibility.

The core product applied in this project - AISWare NFV virtualization management platform product of AsiaInfo, is a set of platforms and tools that connect network domains and business domains and realize global virtualization. It has realized the automation and intelligent operation and maintenance of networks and services from the perspective of neutrality (network neutrality, business neutrality), serving as an enabler for virtualized basic platform and new businesses in 5G networks. It realizes centralized management of network resources, layered architecture decoupling, and highly efficient and intelligent operation, which can help telecom operators effectively reduce the cost of element replacement and improve operation and maintenance efficiency.

AISWare NFV products mainly consist of virtual network element manager (AISWare VNFM), network orchestrator (AISWare Orchestrator) and multi-cloud management platform (AISWare CMP). This product not only conforms to the NFV standard of ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), but also enhances the functions according to the actual needs of telecom operators. Its product advantages are mainly reflected in the following aspects:

1. A neutral position contributes to business integration

The inherent conditions of neutral equipment and network help AsiaInfo to integrate and manage the network element environments of multiple manufacturers; in daily operation and maintenance, it can also assist customers in locating faults and solving problems from a neutral view, and provides automatic and intelligent operation and maintenance management tools and solutions;

2. Outstanding NFV technical capability

AsiaInfo is able to provide integrated PasS platform functions, and has large-scale network intelligent orchestration capabilities and “carrier-grade” infrastructure virtualization capabilities;

3. Customized development capabilities

AsiaInfo is customer-oriented and can flexibly deploy all or part of its product modules in response to individual needs, as well as fit for and integrate external systems;

4. The company’s overall strength and excellent platform products facilitate the integration of O and B domains

AsiaInfo has strong R&D, consolidation and management capabilities for large-scale software systems. The technology, product and business advantages accumulated in the BSS field can also be smoothly connected with 5G OSS products such as AISWare NFV, providing strong support for the development of O domain business; by relying on the PaaS platform developed by the company, it empowers NFV and BFV (Business Function Virtualization), facilitates telecom operators to integrate O and B domains, and can better meet the business-oriented “end-to-end” operation and maintenance requirements in the 5G era.

With the acceleration of China’s 5G network construction, 5G applications will become increasingly prosperous, and various value-added services will continue to emerge. Only by focusing on full-service management and operation can telecom operators continue to meet user needs and be commercially successful. The centralized construction of the NFV converged gateway of China Mobile exactly expresses this idea.

This change also puts forward new and higher requirements for the new generation of 5G-oriented OSS systems. AsiaInfo’s OSS network management products not only provide basic capabilities, but also incorporate elements such as AI, big data, and microservices. With the opportunity of turning this converged gateway product from a physical form to a virtual form, AsiaInfo’s NFV products will kick off another critical period for upgrading and evolution.