Introduction to the NCE System

Product Positioning

NCE is an innovative network cloud engine developed by Huawei. Positioned as the brain of future cloud-based networks, NCE integrates functions such as network management, service control, and network analysis. It is the core enablement system for network resource pooling, network connection automation and self-optimization, and O&M automation.

NCE is located at the management and control layer of the cloud network:

• NCE manages and controls IP, transport, and access devices on lower-layer networks, supports unified management and control of SDN and legacy networks, and supports automation of single-domain, multi-domain, and cross-layer services.NCE can also connect to a third-party management and control system to implement cross-vendor service orchestration and automation.
• NCE also opens capabilities to support interconnection and integration with upper-layer OSSs, BSSs, and service orchestrators to support quick customization of the application layer.

The goal of NCE is to build an intent-driven network (IDN) that is first automated, then self-adaptive, and finally autonomous.

• Automated: Network deployment and maintenance are automated throughout the network lifecycle.
• Self-adaptative: Service policies are automatically generated based on big data using the real-time Analyzer to implement proactive maintenance and closed-loop optimization.
• Autonomous: Artificial intelligence and machine learning are used to build an intelligent network that can automatically generate dynamic policies.

Main Functions and Features

NCE provides functions and features in the form of apps.

Functions and features of NCE (transport domain)

Function and Feature		Description	Navigation Path
Network management	Topology management	Creates and manages NEs and fibers in the topology view to display the networking and running status of the entire network.	Network Management app
	NE management	Manages NEs in the NE Explorer, including configuring NE attributes, boards, and services on a per-NE basis.
	E2E service management	Configures and manages traditional network services in E2E mode (trail mode).
Network visualization	Resource visualization	Displays the SDN network wavelength, sub-wavelength, and port resource usage in a graphical manner, helping users better understand the network resource status in real time.	Optical Service Provisioning app
	Latency visualization	Displays the latency between sites based on the network topology and supports query of the latency and available bandwidth of multiple available trails with specified source and sink nodes.
Service automation	Agile service provisioning	Quickly provisions client services, E-Line services, SDH services, ODUk channels, and OCh channels on an SDN network using templates.
	Bandwidth on Demand (BoD)	Supports real-time and scheduled bandwidth adjustment (bandwidth calendar) and reserved service activation.
	OVPN	Slices link resources on an SDN network and reserves specified link bandwidth for users to form a logically independent private network.
Monitoring and assurance	Alarm monitoring	Monitors alarms of NEs, system services, and third-party systems in a centralized manner, and quickly locates and handles network faults to ensure proper service running.	Alarm Monitor app
	Performance monitoring	Monitors the performance of ports, links, and services on the PMS system.	Network Management app
	Key service monitoring	Proactively monitors and maintains key services and services related to major events, detects network faults and potential risks in advance, and notifies customers of the faults and risks before they register complaints, improving customer satisfaction.	Key Service Assurance app
Intelligent O&M	Network survivability analysis	Simulates node or link faults on an SDN network using the software and automatically analyzes the impact on dynamic services (such as protection downgrade, rerouting, and interruption). This helps users determine whether service quality meets the service level agreement (SLA) and take measures in advance.	Optical Network Survivability Analysis app

Portal for NCE (transport domain) apps

Software Logical Architecture

Based on the cloud platform, NCE implements three logical modules (network management, network control, and network analysis) and various scenario-oriented applications as services and components. This allows customers to deploy NCE in a flexible and modular manner to meet their specific requirements.

NCE software logical architecture

The functions of each module in the NCE software architecture are as follows:

• Web portal

Provides graphical user interfaces (GUI) to ensure consistent and smooth user experience: management plane, O&M plane. You can log in to each plane through a specific IP addresses and port number. This helps users focus on their own task scenarios to ensure efficient system management, network O&M.

GUI type description

GUI Type	Intended Audience	Function Description
Management plane	Installation and commissioning engineers System administrator	Centrally manages NCE software resources, applications, and databases to implement functions such as installation and deployment, system monitoring, system maintenance (including user and password management, data backup and restoration, certificate and key management), and system troubleshooting (including system health check, fault data collection and demarcation, and disaster recovery).
O&M plane	Security administrator Network O&M engineers	Provides system settings (including license management and interconnection with southbound systems), security management (including user and permission management, security policies, and log management), alarm management, network management, optical service provisioning, key service assurance (KSA), network survivability analysis, OVPN, what-if analysis, network analysis and optimization, automated private line provisioning, private line analysis and assurance, IP+ optical multi-layer synergy, resource management, service deployment, service assurance, and tenant monitoring for the following O&M scenarios on the network: Network planning and deployment Service design and provisioning Network monitoring, analysis, adjustment, maintenance, and troubleshooting

• Open API

Provides northbound open capabilities and supports integration with external systems such as traditional OSSs, the orchestration layer, and third-party applications. Open capabilities include REST NBIs and Legacy NBIs (such as CORBA, MTOSI, SNMP and TL1).The API gateway provides a secure and reliable access and supports the REST protocol. In an NCE converged deployment scenario, the unified API gateway is supported.

• Business scenario applications

Provides application packages for business scenario automation. Users can define service requirements based on their business intentions without considering how the network implements them or what resources are utilized. NCE converts these service requirements into specific network configurations and delivers the configurations.

• O&M scenario applications

Provides application packages for network O&M automation to implement automatic E2E lifecycle management.

• Manager

Provides traditional management capabilities (FCAPS) for device configuration, alarms, performance, links, and QoS, as well as automated E2E service provisioning capabilities for traditional networks.

• Controller

Provides single- and multi-domain control capabilities (including IP cross-domain, optical cross-domain, and IP+optical cross-layer control) for SDN networks, and computes globally optimal routes taking multiple factors into account, and delivers related control configurations.

• Analyzer

Provides real-time data collection, status awareness, in-depth analysis, and intelligent prediction capabilities for network traffic and performance. Based on big data analysis, proactively identifies faults and potential risks and proactively generates warnings.

• Cloud platform

Provides basic services, public services, and system management functions based on the virtual machine (VM) cluster cloud system on the OS.

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