Towards Cognitive Autonomous Networks

7Cognitive Autonomy for Network Configuration

Stephen S. Mwanje¹, Rashid Mijumbi², and Lars Christoph Schmelz¹

¹Nokia Bell Labs, Munich, Germany

²MSD, Dublin, Ireland

Network configuration is typically used as the general term to describe the processes of making changes to one or more network parameters, be it to one or multiple devices, to achieve some objective. Although procedures thereof have been described in the fault, configuration, accounting, performance, and security (FCAPS) configuration management framework [1], the automation of network configuration remains an open field of work within the wider Network Management Automation (NMA) research. Specifically, there remains opportunities for cognitive decision‐making mechanisms aimed at raising network's autonomy at configuration management.

Configuration, and specifically the term self‐configuration, has been used within the Self‐Organizing Networks (SONs) context in a restrictive way, to refer to the activities and processes that are needed to put network devices into operation. This chapter takes the general view of network configuration as the processes for managing the network configuration parameters both on commissioning as well as in operation. Herein, four use cases are discussed here as an attempt to answer the question on how cognition and autonomy could be realized in network configuration. The considered use cases apply cognitive concepts to different degrees, but all propose means for increasing autonomy ...