A few weeks ago, Cisco announced Agile Services Networking. With this, the company wants to give service providers a blueprint or basic architecture for their networks. Today at Mobile World Congress, Cisco announces an expansion already. It is expanding Agile Services Networking to include ThousandEyes Connected Devices and something it calls Provider Connectivity Assurance.
Cisco Agile Services Networking is actually a combination of several components. Routers with Silicon One silicon form the basis of the architecture. There is also a lot of focus on simplifying this type of networking. The same software is used across the board, for example, but Cisco is also looking for convergence in the area of optics, the actual connections. Coherent Pluggable Optics should go some way to achieving this.
For more on the initial announcement of Cisco Agile Services Networking, read our article from a few knowles ago. We focus in the remainder of this article on the two new additions to this architecture.
ThousandEyes Connected Devices
First, we look at ThousandEyes Connected Devices. Cisco has been integrating ThousandEyes into more and more parts of its own offerings in recent years. Today it is the turn of the service provider network. This expansion allows service providers to focus even more on the subscribers’ user experience. It gives them more insight into the so-called last mile, in this case the user’s own network.
With the addition of ThousandEyes Connected Devices, service providers can start competing with each other in a different way. Until now, it has often been about the speed of the connection a provider can provide. However, that is becoming less and less distinctive. With ThousandEyes Connected Devices, providers can now also measure and monitor actual performance in subscribers’ home or business network in real time. This should make it possible to take the user experience (and thus the Net Promoter Score, so important in that world) to a higher level. Virgin Media O2 is already using it to drive their Smart Support service.
Provider Connectivity Assurance
The second piece of news around Cisco Agile Services Networking actually focuses on something similar to the first one we discussed above. That is, Provider Connectivity Assurance (the name Cisco gave its recent Accedian acquisition) is also about user experience, but for mobile networks. It’s about offering deeper insights into things like throughput, latency and finding out in real time how applications are performing on the network.
If providers use this new functionality, they can improve the user experience, reduce network congestion, maximize speed and make dynamic adjustments to spectrum usage. At least that is the thinking behind Provider Connectivity Assurance. For Odido Netherlands, at least, it is a very welcome addition from Cisco. Particularly because of the introduction of its Klik & Klaar (Click & Ready, in English) Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) offering, a feature such as Provider Connectivity Assurance is of great importance to the company.
All in all, the conclusion of the article we linked back to above holds true here as well. Cisco does not waste time when it comes to innovating in the networking space lately. Less than a month after the basis for Agile Services Networking was announced, it already expands it. That raises expectations toward the future. Not so much from us, but especially from the service providers. They can expect even more innovation with which they can compete in other ways.