Hitting all the right notes for capacity management and orchestration

Q Please can you provide some brief background on the company

to date?
A Since 2005, Aria Networks has been applying its sophisticated artificial intelligence technology to help service providers efficiently plan and manage capacity. Working with some of the largest web-scale IT and network providers in the world to optimise current assets and plan network upgrades, Aria Networks removes the guesswork often associated with predicting what the impact of new services could be on a network by modelling the impact on capacity, in real time. This enables service providers to make accurate decisions about their network based on business objectives rather than just technical considerations and to drive business driven network optimization.
Q Who are the key personnel involved?
A The combined Aria management team is an impressive force - each individual brings significant experience to the table and is highly regarded by their peers. The CEO leading the team is Steve Newton.

With more than 25 years’ experience in the telecoms sector, he is now a seed investor as well as having been part of the team which steered Geneva Technology from launch to a $700m acquisition. Technology innovation is led by Dr Jay Perrett who has spent more than 25 years developing evolutionary computing and Artificial Intelligence in academia and industry. Like Steve, he also has considerable experience in developing and bringing innovative products to market.
Q What have been the key milestones?
A Since the company was founded in 2005 there has been a series of milestones. In 2008 we received our first funding from leading venture fund Seraphim Capital, a company that invests in high growth and disruptive companies in the technologyspace.
Having launched a series of software products in the early years of the company, including the popular iForecast software that helps service provider more effectively predict future demand for capacity, we were fortunate to work with high profile clients such as Telus and Verizon.
As interest in and understanding of software defined networking has grown our market position has developed significantly. Last year we won a UK Business Angels Association award for most disruptive technology and earlier this year seasoned telecommunications executive Steve Newton took on the role of CEO.
Having launched our iVNT product for software defined data centres and our SD-WAN optimiser software product last year, we also received a patent for SDN/NFV technology in the latter part of 2014.
Most recently we launched our suite of applications for service providers, enabling them to visualise and optimise complex networks, to carry out failure impact analysis and “what if” planning and to understand the economics of a network through margin and contract analysis.
Q Aria Networks’ focus is on capacity management and
orchestration – why is getting this right important to your
customers?
A Historically, networks and data centres deployed additional hardware to guarantee service levels to new and existing customers. The growth in data services, combined with availability of ‘all you can eat’ data packages had driven a wedge between demand and revenues where demand is growing much faster than revenue. Aria Networks helps network operators find new ways to manage assets that make up the network to deliver a reliable service profitably. Capacity management and orchestration enables service providers to predict how much capacity they will need for services and provides the most effective way to deliver this, be it additional investment in hardware, optimisation of current network assets or ‘rules’ for the network as to how to behave in certain circumstances. Software ‘orchestrates’ the network to optimise itself against a set of rules.
Aria Networks is the only vendor independent capacity planning and orchestration software to work across all infrastructures, technologies and networks.
Q Is this a mature market, or an emerging one where end users
are still needing to understand what it is that Aria Networks
(and others) offer?
A Throughout the summer of 2014, Aria Networks was featured in a number of Gartner Hype Cycles positioned in the Early Mainstream stage of the adoption cycle, so from that perspective it is still considered to be an emerging space to some degree – but one that is gaining momentum quickly. There is always a benefit to providing more details around a technology and we work hard to educate prospects and partners on the longer term benefits of SDN.
With organisations increasingly under pressure to improve network speeds and ensure a substantial return from any new technology investments we are an attractive business partner and we are seeing adoption levels to accelerate quickly. This is evidenced by the opening of an office in the US this year to support a number of high profile customers and prospective customers in the Bay area.
Q Can you tell us about Aria Networks’ Operator Maturity Index?
A To support the need for a more detailed level of business understanding, and to provide advice on potential operational benefits for a service provider, Aria Networks developed the Operator Maturity Index (OMI). Aria Networks gives customers access to a series of applications, delivered as part of a comprehensive software suite, which enable operators to take a logical journey towards full network automation that develops as their understanding of the network grows. This unique process enables operators to take a 360 degree view of their network, identify and fix weaknesses and make robust provisions for the future.
The benefits to the business are often instant and impactful as service providers can easily identify areas of strength, or weakness, prompting better decisions around infrastructure investment and service provision. Aria Networks has worked with service providers that have seen double digit improvements in efficiency simply by being able to visualize their networks.
Q Can you explain the company’s Network Maturity Level Index?
A SDN and NFV offers the opportunity to vastly increase network efficiencies but whilst a fully software controlled, self-optimised network is something that all service providers aspire to having the route to achieving it requires careful planning andmanagement.
Networks vary in maturity on their way to a fully self-optimised state, with many service providers focused on adding levels of software control to network appliances whilst others are looking to deploy software at the service level of the network and beyond.
To provide clients with a comprehensive understanding of the route that should be taken when building a software defined network we created Aria Networks’ Network Maturity Services – a thorough process from which services providers can then quickly identify the maturity level of their network. Following the route of five pre-determined stages, we then work to support them by deploying a product suite that not only suits their level of virtualisation but also helps them move forward to the next stage.
Q What advice would you give to end users who are trying to get
to grips with implementing SDN across their organisations?
A Getting the SDN experience right is critical. An efficient network provides the opportunity to derive more value from operational and planned network and data centre assets. If these efficiencies can be achieved through machine rather than human control then it’s even more valuable. For a virtualised network to be fully realised however, a number of issues must first be tackled:
1. A generic representation of the network must be developed
2. A data driven representation of capacity will need to be created
3. A flexible way to create a process flow must be achieved

My advice is TAKE THE TIME to investigate these, as it all then becomes simpler to configure (or reconfigure) the network model. In turn, this will deliver your software defined network and once networks can be defined simply by data, any network architecture can be modelled or tweaked in real-time. In short, much like anything else, success comes in effective planning.

Q How does Network Function Virtualisation fit within the
SDN space?
A Unlike many new technologies, network virtualisation fulfils a clear business need beyond Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) and Operational Expenditure (OPEX) reduction. Network virtualisation provides operators with the opportunity to derive more value from both operational and planned network and data centre assets.
Combining the capabilities of NFV and SDN provides a unique opportunity to bring IT and telecommunications capacity planning together. Historically, IT and telecommunications capacity planning functions have existed in separate silos, using their own processes and methodologies. At Aria we argue that the consolidation of IT and telecommunications capacity management functions is required to obtain true end-to-end visibility of the networking real estate, and be able to match overall capacity to business demands. The ultimate end result is a self-optimised, self-managed network.
Q How does Aria Networks fit in the whole Cloud, Big Data, IoT
landscape?
A The demand for data services, both on a micro and macro level, has been the single most defining issue in computing across the last 10-20 years and is likely to remain so in the future. This is driven by a number of factors. The first is the explosion of data on mobile. Growth in mobile data demand (and the app explosion) is expected to continue, driven by widespread global adoption of smartphones and tablets. A second factor is the ease with which data intense content can be shared, whilst the third driver is the consumption of entertainment content in the home, particularly on-demand services. The final factor is the growing need to record and retain digital data for compliance.
In short, there are more devices and more services driving data demand than ever before. This will grow further in the future. The predicted growth of the Internet of Things has the potential, for example, to dwarf human demand for data. All this places unprecedented strain on networks (fixed and mobile), data centres and computing assets. Network operators are straining to keep up with an almost unlimited demand for new ways to create, share and consume data. How this data is managed in a network may be critical to maintaining the user experience, but ensuring profitability is just as important - which is why SDN is so appealing to the operator audience.
Q Recently, Aria Networks opened a US office. Can you tell us
about the company’s growth and geographical coverage to
date, and what plans you have to develop this over time?
A The new office was opened in Santa Clara and becomes the West Coast USA headquarters, supporting our current customers in the San Francisco Bay area and our planned expansion across the US. We now have a significant number of large customers across the globe, and are in active discussions with several more on the West Coast of America. Aria Networks is committed to building its global presence but geographic expansion overall is just a small element of our business strategy as we will still continue to service many of our clients through our highly successful online app store.

From a technology perspective, we remain focused in key areas which include lifecycle service orchestration and the OSS for future
SDN and NFV network architecture, and will expand the business further by extending our reach into new market segments, with both fixed and mobile carriers, ISP’s and large Enterprise organisations through Software-as-a-Service apps, customised OSS solutions and as OEM based orchestration becoming part of several SDN/NFV eco systems.
Q Aria Networks recently joined Cyan’s Blue Orbit ecosystem.
What’s the thinking behind this?
A Being a member of the Blue Orbit ecosystem is important to Aria Networks as it reduces the risk of interoperability issues in SDN and NFV deployments for our customers. An active and proven ecosystem helps to realise the full opportunity offered by SDN and NFV and to ensure that operators can manage the journey towards the self-organised/self-optimizing network. As part of this network we can also share information and best practices which is invaluable when it comes to product innovation in all areas.
Q You announced an SDN partnership with NEC?
A Yes. In February we announced a joint marketing and technology partnership with NEC, which means that we have become an NEC software defined networking partner. Essentially, we joined a select number of companies that define a quality standard for delivering software defined solutions and by entering into this ecosystem we can knowledge share as well as benefitting from a global reach.
Q Presumably, Aria Networks is a big fan of everything Open
OpenStack, OpenFlow etc.)?
A Yes, absolutely. Due to the very nature of our solution we have adopted the Opendaylight framework. This open standard interface, as part of our patented proprietary artificial intelligence, is a key differentiator for us.
Q The company seems to have done quite a lot of work
around Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) models in recent times.
How does this fit in with the overall SDN piece?
A BGP functionality enables service providers to plan and manage networks more effectively by allowing network operators, internet service providers and cloud/OTT networks to predict the impact of fluctuations in data demand across the internet.

In fact, Aria has already delivered a BGP modelling solution to a major over-the-top (OTT) service provider. Network efficiency was improved by a potential 35% and the customer was immediately able to identify, access and use more capacity in areas that were originally under-utilised. The customer can also improve rates of network survival, based on single and multiple failures, which will in turn reduce the utilisation of previously congested links by 20%.
Another significant area of improvement is the time taken to plan how the introduction of new services will impact the network, down from several hours to just five minutes. Understanding how networks behave and why they fail when they do, is a key requirement in delivering a reliable and effective network service. Introducing BGP gives operators an added insight into their network that then supports them in efficiently building, and managing software defined networks for the longer term.
Q Who are your customers and can you provide any information
on what benefits they have seen as a result of working with you?
A Aria Networks works with fixed line and mobile network operators as well as Over-The-Top service providers. Our client list includes some of the most familiar technology brands in the world. Named customers include Facebook, BT, Verizon and Telus.