Sophia Antipolis, 21 February 2017

ETSI is pleased to announce the creation of the Industry Specification Group 'Experiential Network Intelligence' (ISG ENI).

The purpose of the group is to define a Cognitive Network Management architecture that is based on the “observe-orient-decide-act” control model. It uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) techniques and context-aware policies to adjust offered services based on changes in user needs, environmental conditions and business goals. The system is experiential, in that it learns from its operation and from decisions given to it by operators to improve its knowledge of how to act in the future. This will help operators automate their network configuration and monitoring processes, thereby reducing their operational expenditure and improving the use and maintenance of their networks.

Operators see human-machine interaction as slow, error-prone, expensive, and cumbersome. Programming different devices and building agile, personalized services makes it increasingly complex to integrate different standardized platforms in their network and operational environment. These human-machine interaction challenges are considered by operators as barriers to reducing the time to market of innovative and advanced services. They also lack an efficient and extensible standards-based mechanism to provide contextually-aware services (e.g., services that adapt to changes in user needs, business goals, or environmental conditions).

“The unique added value of the ETSI ISG ENI approach is to define new metrics to quantify the operator’s experience; this enables the optimization and adjustment of the operator’s experience over time, taking advantage of machine learning and reasoning.” says Ray Forbes, convenor of ETSI ISG ENI.

The group’s work will include the requirements of the operator’s experience in and across legacy and virtualized networks including 5G networks, and a model-driven architecture that supports adaptive and intelligent service operation through Cognitive Network Management. Different types of policies will be reviewed to drive adaptive behavioral changes using various AI mechanisms. Existing mechanisms will be augmented and improved by using the networked intelligence defined by the ENI system.

This new group will drive innovative technologies in network telemetry, big data mechanisms to gather appropriate data at the right speed and scale, and machine learning for intelligent analysis. Innovative policy-based, model-driven functionality will also be needed to simplify and scale complex device configuration and monitoring.

Participation in the Experiential Network Intelligence Industry Specification Group is open to all ETSI members as well as organizations who are not members, subject to signing ISG Agreements. For information on how to participate please contact ISGsupport@etsi.org

The first meeting of the ISG ENI will take place at the ETSI premises in Sophia Antipolis, France, on 10-11 April 2017. The full list of members and participants in ISG ENI is available at:
https://portal.etsi.org/TBSiteMap/ENI/ListOfENIMembers.aspx

About ETSI
ETSI produces globally-applicable standards for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including fixed, mobile, radio, aeronautical, broadcast and internet technologies and is officially recognized by the European Union as a European Standards Organization. ETSI is an independent, not-for-profit association whose over 800 member companies and organizations, drawn from 67 countries, determine its work programme and participate directly in its work.

Contact
Claire Boyer
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 94 43 35
Mob: +33 (0)6 87 60 84 40
Email: claire.boyer@etsi.org
www.etsi.org