Solution Brief Service Delivery Platform Enabling the transition to high-value and more differentiated network services with new consumption models for deploying VNFs. Keeping Up With Cloud Expectations In the cloud era, the connectivity needs of global enterprises are evolving constantly. By the time service providers roll out a new service, the requirements from their enterprise customers will often have changed. Additionally, modern enterprises think of services in terms of business outcomes, not technology acquisition. They expect more flexible ways of service consumption and freedom to instantly start and stop service subscriptions to align their technology spend with the growth of their business. As a result, new service creation methodology is needed that combines speed in service definition, agility in service provisioning and dynamic service operations with flexible subscription models. However, services providers are currently lacking service lifecycle management tools to make that critical transition. Revolutionizing the Way of Managing Service Lifecycle Riverbed Service Delivery Platform (SDP) re-invents service lifecycle management by introducing new tools and DevOps methodology. With Riverbed SDP, telco businesses can be more cloud-like, achieving growth instead of simply protecting their MPLS revenues. In short, SPs can become more relevant to their customers. Revolutionizing service lifecycle management
Business Challenge: 21st Century services can t be built with 20th century tools Conventional service lifecycle management tools and methodology are anchored in the infrastructure layer, with phases focused on infrastructure configuration such as preparation, planning, design, and implementation. This is fine for basic services, like firewall as a service. However, high-value, differentiated services demand a more sophisticated and flexible service lifecycle management process. Service-centricity requires infrastructure to be abstracted to enable SPs to focus on speed, agility, and the user experience. The service lifecycle phases are also different because the process begins with the research of customer requirements as opposed to a focus on infrastructure constraints. Enabling service-centric lifecycle management Business Solution: Managing infrastructure more efficiently while moving towards higher-value and more differentiated services By separating service design from infrastructure dependencies with Riverbed SDP, service providers can quickly turn customer requirements into a service blueprint. SDP allows service providers to create a high value and heavily customized service blueprint in days, not months. Visibility into service performance is an integral part of the lifecycle supported by the SDP so that service providers can continuously monitor user experience and act before issues arise. Benefits Create new services more rapidly to meet market needs Provide cloud-like agility to capitalize adapt cost-effectively to changing demand Automatically optimize service delivery for the best customer experience Service Delivery Platform Solution Brief 2
Riverbed SDP: Service-centric lifecycle management Monitoring service performance throughout the lifecycle Service research In the research phase, product managers and business analysts focus on customer requirements and desired business outcomes. Service authoring and augmentation Riverbed s revolutionary approach to service creation introduces a model that focuses on the desired business outcome. As a result, product managers, not technicians, can define service objectives without worrying about the implementation details. This approach enables Riverbed SDP to turn services into building blocks for innovation. Riverbed SDP comes with a library of prepared service models to simplify the creation of a customized, differentiated service. Service publishing and consumption Riverbed SDP s set of APIs make it easy to integrate a new service with existing operations and business support systems (OSS/BSS) and customer self-service portals. APIs can be further customized as part of the service model definition. As a result, the service can be published and made available for consumption with the click of a button in the admin portal or a simple API call. Service maintenance Riverbed SDP monitors service usage and provides product managers with insights into user experience, service performance, availability, and consumption patterns. Product managers can use that feedback to further refine the service to deliver more value to customers. How Riverbed SDP Turns Services Into Building Blocks For Innovation Step 1: Defining a basic value-added service With Riverbed SDP s library of re-usable service models, which are effectively service building blocks, product managers, not technicians, can define new services. So, when a product manager wants to create a premium SD-WAN service, they don t have to start with a blank canvas. They don t even have to move below the Service Management Layer, but can instead use existing service models for SD-WAN and visibility. Service Delivery Platform Solution Brief 3
Step 2: Augmenting a basic service to boost business value Service modifications are easy with Riverbed SDP as each service can build on top of one or more existing services. For example, if the customer of a premium SD-WAN service asks for cloud tenancy and optimization capabilities, the product manager does not have to create the service from scratch. Instead, they can use all the capabilities of the existing premium SD-WAN and compose an optimized cloud connectivity service by adding a building block from the service catalog (WAN optimization). Only 25% of the service needs to be created from scratch (cloud tenancy). The new capability can be contributed back to the service catalog and made available for future use. In fact, the entire service model can be saved in the service catalog. Similarly, if the customer asks for another enhancement of the service to include edge compute to form a secure and optimized IoT infrastructure service, the product manager re-uses all the capabilities of the optimized cloud connectivity and simply adds edge compute. It really is that simple. Turning services into building blocks for innovation Riverbed SDP is a Foundation for Service Creation Ecosystem This building-block approach dramatically shortens the time-to-market of new services. The library of re-usable service components can easily be expanded by integrating with external marketplaces. Partners and communities of developers can contribute service components or gain access to building blocks that the SP may want to share, creating a market of service models. Service Delivery Platform Solution Brief 4
Cloud-like Agility in Service Provisioning and Operations Today s SPs must respond instantly to changing customer needs. Riverbed SDP enables a service centric lifecycle that allows SPs to focus on the functionality they want to deliver to customers. This is in stark contrast to traditional approaches that focus on how to deploy the service, and which results in brittle services that are near-impossible to change. Riverbed SDP brings cloud-like agility to service provisioning and operations Just-in-time provisioning of new services using infrastructure designed for pre-provisioning Riverbed SDP brings established just-in-time provisioning from the cloud to SPs. No infrastructure upgrades are needed because the solution works seamlessly with existing infrastructure. Policy-based control to adapt rapidly to changes Riverbed SDP policy specifies rules that are not part of service models. This allows an SP to define a service model once, and quickly adjust it to fit local market needs. For instance, an SD-WAN service model defines globally applicable service capabilities, while local market requirements, such as different encryption types for Chinese and US markets, are defined in the policy. Automated continuous feedback to assure service performance Riverbed SDP brings cloud world service standards like auto-scale, auto-re-start and continuous service components optimization to the SP domain. Riverbed SDP will provision the necessary resources for the service to satisfy user demand. Metering and licensing to evolve business models Micro-transactions give customers more flexible ways of consuming services. Riverbed SDP decouples entitlement from licensing, helping SPs to deliver services the way customers want to consume them. This also aligns with the way SPs purchase technology from their infrastructure vendors and ensures SPs can accurately report usage and track used licenses. This also removes barriers to service adoption. Service-level APIs re-use service models Service-level application programming interfaces (APIs) enable other systems to use service capabilities. APIs also allow modifications of specific service characteristics. Riverbed SDP service-level APIs enable efficient and instantaneous change management. Platform-level APIs for integration with other systems Platform-level APIs are critical components of success because they allow integration with self-service portals, markets, and OSS/BSSs to support rapid provisioning of a service. Service Delivery Platform Solution Brief 5
Insight Into the User Service Experience Customer Experience Management is a high priority for most SPs. However, virtualization and NFV rollouts often obstruct the SP s view of service performance. Riverbed SDP provides visibility of the service performance and user experience as an integral part of the service lifecycle. This enables SPs to: Define service Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as part of the service model Measure service performance and benchmark against KPIs Detect problems before users are affected Fix problems proactively Gain insight into future value-added services to enable SPs to evolve their relationship with customers to a trusted advisor level. Constant visibility of service performance for customer success Riverbed SDP helps SPs become trusted advisors by focusing on customer success. The platform makes it easy to offer on-demand hosted network performance management (NPM) and application performance management (APM) services and provide dashboards that show customers how services are performing. Using service performance metrics to become a consulting partner By assuming a consulting role, SPs can identify new sales opportunities and rapidly deliver high-value, professional services. Armed with service performance data and user experience insights, SPs can grow their business and strengthen their customer relationships. Service intelligence to meet KPIs Riverbed SDP makes service intelligence an integral part of the service lifecycle, allowing SP service desks to not just focus on shortening Mean Time to Innocence (MTTI), but take ownership of resolving issues to minimize Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR), even if the issue is not network related. Service Delivery Platform Solution Brief 6
Riverbed Service Delivery Platform Overview The Riverbed SDP service centric workflow ranges from the management of software packages needed to assemble a service, to service maintenance. Continuous visibility of service performance is available at every stage of the lifecycle. Plug-ins and Service Packs extend the platform: Plug-ins allow SPs to swap Riverbed SDP s packaged components, such as the license management module, with another vendor s product or a home-grown solution Service Packs are used to import ready-to-use service models or entire VNFs for the platform to deploy A comprehensive set of APIs supports platform administration and service consumption. Service consumption APIs allow integration with customer selfservice portals and external marketplaces. Riverbed SDP also provides open interfaces to allow the OSS system to be seamlessly integrated with the SP s network. The platform can even be integrated with a mixed environment of hardware and virtualization to support an SP s evolution from traditional networking investments to a full NFV/SDN implementation. Business Outcomes: Re-inventing the SP business and evolving the infrastructure The Riverbed SDP approach is unique as it tackles service lifecycle management from both technology advancement and process improvement perspectives. Riverbed SDP solution integrates into any legacy infrastructure environment and is fully operational from day one. As a result, Riverbed SDP allows service providers to roll out differentiated services and deliver them to their customers quickly and efficiently. Learn more at www.riverbed.com/sdp. Request a meeting with the Riverbed Service Provider team at SP_Bus_Dev@riverbed.com. Service Delivery Platform Solution Brief 7
About Riverbed Riverbed, at more than $1 billion in annual revenue,is the leader in application performance including user experience analytics and optimization. Riverbed s vision for service providers is to bring an application centric approach to managing service lifecycle in traditional and fully virtualized environments. Riverbed revolutionizes service creation, delivery, and maintenance during runtime, while evolving service provider infrastructure to NFV/SDN in incremental steps and ensuring that services are delivered to customers as intended. Riverbed s 28,000+ customers include 97% of the Fortune 100 and 98% of the Forbes Global 100. Learn more at riverbed.com. 2017 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved. Riverbed and any Riverbed product or service name or logo used herein are trademarks of Riverbed Technology. All other trademarks used herein belong to their respective owners. The trademarks and logos displayed herein may not be used without the prior written consent of Riverbed Technology or their respective owners. 3584_SP_SB_US_072017