Overview
Blue Planet is an intelligent automation platform that integrates various Operations Support System (OSS) applications to simplify and automate CSPs’ operational environments. It aims to drive network automation, monetization, and digital transformation, enabling CSPs to become more software-driven and agile businesses.
Key Features and Functionality
Cloud-Native Architecture
The Blue Planet Cloud Native Platform is the industry’s first cloud-native OSS platform, built using Kubernetes (K8s) technology. This architecture allows for the deployment of individual OSS applications independently or together, supporting in-service software upgrades, agile software development, and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD). It also ensures full portability across various cloud environments, including AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, reducing vendor lock-in.
Unified OSS Applications
The platform converges inventory, orchestration, and assurance applications into a single, unified environment. This includes:
- Inventory: Blue Planet Inventory (BPI) provides a federated view of all network and service resources, synchronizing information from existing legacy systems and multiple domains.
- Orchestration: Blue Planet Multi-Domain Service Orchestration (MDSO) orchestrates services end-to-end across any vendor’s infrastructure, using open REST APIs.
- Assurance: Unified Assurance and Analytics (UAA) offers end-to-end monitoring and advanced analytics with AI and ML to simplify network and service assurance and enable AIOps.
Intelligent Automation
Blue Planet enables closed-loop automation of network and IT operations. This involves using software elements such as analytics, policy, orchestration, and APIs to link discrete steps in a process workflow, allowing for continuous automation. The platform leverages network data to derive business insights, shape network control policies, and inform IT systems in real-time.
Advanced Analytics and AI
The platform incorporates AI and ML to analyze network performance data, predict potential network problems, and anticipate trends. This helps CSPs develop smarter, data-driven business policies and adapt to customer needs in real-time. The AI Studio within the Cloud Native Platform allows for the application of AI models to various operational processes.
Software Control and Automation
Blue Planet Manage, Control and Plan (MCP) unifies network and service management, software-based control, and online planning. It provides real-time software control, advanced visualization, and multi-layer service provisioning and performance monitoring, improving service agility and operational efficiencies.
Extensibility and Scalability
The platform is built on a microservices-based architecture, which provides extensibility, ease of use, and scalability. It supports Web scale, reduces resource utilization, and is highly instrumented to export real-time network performance data. This architecture allows for rapid deployment of new technologies without service interruptions.
Open and Vendor-Agnostic
Blue Planet products are designed with open interfaces, enabling seamless integration with third-party network components and business processes. The Unified Assurance and Analytics (UAA) is vendor-agnostic, supporting over 1,300 products across more than 135 vendors, making it highly adaptable to diverse network environments.
In summary, Ciena’s Blue Planet is a powerful tool for CSPs, offering a cloud-native, intelligent automation platform that streamlines OSS environments, enhances operational efficiency, and drives digital transformation through advanced analytics, AI, and open, extensible architectures.