Digital Age Networking

Digital age technologies that improve efficiency are being adopted by businesses at an increasing rate. To stay competitive, enterprises need to integrate the latest mobility, data analytics, cloud, and Internet of Things (IoT) digital innovations into their operations, processes, and computing systems.

This trend, known as digital transformation, enables organizations to evolve to an infrastructure that supports connectivity for digital applications, IoT and user devices, while supporting workflow optimization and differentiated products and services, resulting in improved customer and employee satisfaction.

An Autonomous Network simplifies operations

The ALE Autonomous Network architecture provides automated service provisioning between users, devices, and applications and ensures a robust network infrastructure by automating moves, adds, and changes, reducing the time and effort it takes to maintain and operate a network.

The Autonomous Network ensures a seamless experience between wired and wireless networks. It provides a high-performance network with ultrafast convergence, secure access control and hardened switch OS. Our Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Stellar WLAN portfolio is coupled with our comprehensive Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch LAN portfolio that supports deployment ranging from access, to core, and data centres.

A single network management system (NMS) provides an additional level of integration between wired and wireless networks. The Alcatel-Lucent OmniVista NMS provides unified service management and network-wide visibility, improving IT efficiency and business agility.

Automation from the edge to the core

The Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Autonomous Network architecture operates from the network edge to the core.

Unified edge. Users, devices, and IoT can connect to the Local Area Network (LAN) and/or Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) with a consistent connection experience and performance capabilities. Switching from fixed LAN to wireless LAN with the same device is simple and secure.

Unified fabric. LAN, WLAN, core/data centre, and soon, a branch portfolio with cloud management and embedded security.

Network services automation. This is the key layer in the autonomous network that enables network automation through programmability, provisioning, analytics, the Rainbow by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise workflow engine, as well as third-party integration.

An Autonomous Network simplifies operations

Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Stellar Location Services, which includes asset tracking and location-based services, helps generate revenues, increases safety and reduces both operational and asset-related costs.

Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Stellar Asset Tracking provides real-time and historical location data of users or objects in indoor facilities. This information allows businesses to optimize workflows, increase equipment use, reduce the time it takes to find someone or some item. This helps avoid lost or stolen assets, track hot spot areas and conduct contact tracing, thereby increasing productivity and safety while enhancing user experiences.

Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Stellar Location-based Services (LBS) includes wayfinding (self-navigation indoors) and geonotifications (push messages) based on location, all managed from a cloud application. The LBS cloud application provides analytic dashboards that help business and facilities run more efficiently and generate revenues by offering customer promotions and services based on the customer’s location.

Real-time and historical data with a geolocation context enable the development of digital business processes and services. Integrating data from OmniAccess Stellar Location Services with a business collaboration tool like Rainbow by Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, enables automation of simple or repetitive tasks, as well as workflows that can be automated using triggers, rules, and actions.

Network control in a hyperconnected world

Once an object is compromised, the whole enterprise network becomes vulnerable to Trojan horses, attacks and threats. When you consider that enterprises connect thousands, if not millions of these objects, the challenge becomes clear: configuration and management of individual devices is totally unrealistic, and the security risks are enormous.

Three major steps to connect, manage and properly control any IoT device must be followed.

Discover and classify

Each object connected to the network must be discovered and classified. Digital Age Networking provides the ability to access a very large (29+ million) device database to immediately identify the device (camera, sensor, door lock or other), automatically provision and apply the appropriate configuration policies.

Virtual segmentation

It is critical to segment a single physical network infrastructure into separate virtual networks (containers), to ensure each service or application has its own dedicated segment, guaranteeing proper function and secure operations.

Continuous monitoring

The network monitors behaviours to ensure the devices and applications are functioning as desired. Each authorised object is stored in an inventory. This enables IT to know exactly and instantly how many devices are connected to the network. It is important to continuously monitor a connected network object so that immediate action can be taken if there is a deviation from usual behaviours.

In the event of unusual activity, a faulty device can be disconnected by the network and a notification sent to the network administrator, or the destination of the dedicated container can be changed to allow further verification.