Development of broadband networks is the evolution history of human civilization in miniature. Each major technical change brings rapid development of industries and blossom of human civilization. The early narrowband dial-up modem and ISDN access mode has led to emergence of data services and the Internet, while emergence of ADSL-based access takes us into a broadband access era for the first time, followed by popularization of website services and Internet applications. The innovated broadband technologies based on various access media increase the user bandwidth constantly, bringing us into the megabit times. More and more diversified services and applications, including high-speed Internet surfing, video chatting, and 4K video, have promoted rapid development of the broadband industry. With the spring-up of gigabit cities, residential blocks, and the continuous rollout of new services, such as 8K video and virtual reality (VR), the access bandwidth starts to move from megabit to gigabit. The gigabit access era is coming, providing an ultra-high speed Internet as the network foundation for emergence and development of cloud services. 

Future Service Oriented Access Network Cloud Architecture

To keep pace with the times, Huawei constantly updates the access network solution along with technical evolution, leading the industry to move fast forward. In 2007, Huawei launched the SingleFAN 1.0 optical-copper integrated access solution, which allows the same device to support both cooper and fiber access. In 2012, Huawei launched the SingleFAN2.0 heterogeneous access (HetAN) solution. This solution implements broadband access in the home, office, and mobile multi-service scenarios and allows operators to quickly build networks through a unified platform to meet different service requirements. In 2014, Huawei launched the SingleFAN3.0 solution that supports gigabit access through any medium. By introducing innovative technologies and a large-capacity and distributed OLT platform, this solution increases the access speed of any medium towards gigabit, and meanwhile provides better 4K video user experience and more diversified services such as the smart home. 

To implement the total cloud strategy after reaching Gigabit bandwidth, the network will transform to the data center–based architecture, and network functions and services will all run on the cloud. Operators will focus on how to develop new services to increase ARPU, how to reduce the OPEX of the network, and how to introduce new technologies and protect the investment. To cope with this change, Huawei officially released its cloud-oriented access network solution called CloudFAN at Broadband World Forum 2016. 

Cloud Platform Provides Richer Home and Enterprise Services, Supports Operators to Increase ARPU

New services and customized services for users are the most important growth points of home services. CloudFAN can move some smart home service functions upward to the cloud, after this, it can reduce the terminal software upgrade and provide new home services more efficiently. Meanwhile, cloud platform supports better services customizing and network optimization capabilities, for example users can choose their own house layout drawings, and cloud platform can give the best Wi-Fi coverage solutions, and also the best Wi-Fi channels according to other users’ channels around the house, to avoid interference and increase the bandwidth.

CloudFAN supports network slicing function in regard to enterprise services. E2E tunnel management and configuration migration can be implemented through interconnected network controllers, to provide new services faster. In this way, operators can virtualize multiple different networks base on one physical network, providing home, enterprise and mobile services, maximizing the utilization of network resource and guarantee the security by dedicated network for dedicated service, and guarantee the experience of end user.

Cloud Management Significantly Improves Efficiency of Service Provision and Equipment Management

CloudFAN supports cloud-based management and communicates with a centralized network controller using open protocols, which improves equipment management capability and utilization of network resources. Traditional network management system uses a special operating system (OS) and is restricted by hardware performance of servers. Therefore, the system upgrade and backup efficiency is low, and the scalability is poor. The cloud-based management platform and network controller can be flexibly expanded because they use mature open-source software. Unlike the traditional network management system, CloudFAN supports centralized processing thanks to centralized management. For example, network-wide end-to-end (E2E) tunnel configuration management can be implemented on the enterprise private line (EPL), centralized user rights management and user behavior statistics can be implemented for the multicast video service, and unified server management can be implemented in RADIUS authentication. 

CloudFAN supports the use of open protocols to communicate with the cloud management system or network controller. The service provisioning and configuration processes are simplified to shorten the time required by operators to integrate new equipment and develop new services. Furthermore, cloud-based self-services can be provided for users. Users can change their service packages by themselves on the website, and update the equipment configuration and complete service provisioning in real time through cloud management after they pay online. These self-services enable automated service change and significantly improve the service provisioning and change efficiency for operators. 

Smooth Evolution from SingleFAN towards CloudFAN, Protecting Existing Investment

The existing Huawei SingleFAN 3.0 platform supports smooth upgrade and evolution towards the future-proofed CloudFAN. The platform adopts a large-capacity and distributed architecture, and all service boards are equipped with high-performance network processors. In the future, the platform will support open protocols, evolution towards cloud-based management and control, communication with network controllers, and access to future cloud services by means of software upgrade.

Furthermore, CloudFAN platform supports introducing future innovative services better, and guarantees end-to-end bandwidth and connection. Thanks to the open cloud platform, CloudFAN supports future technologies constantly evolution, guaranteeing the fast introducing of innovation technologies such as 100G PON, NG-fast, 25G DOCSIS, and flexible resource distribution adjustment through cloud.