Oracle today unveiled its Network Analytics Suite, a cloud-native portfolio of analytics solutions aimed at network operators to help them make informed and automated decisions to ensure the performance of their 5G core networks.

The suite combines network function data with machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) so that operators can quickly identify anomalies that can cause catastrophic network function failures and impact customer service.

“Driving innovation with insights from trusted data and enriched analytics is not only critical to compete in today’s marketplace, but game changing in the way service providers can achieve greater cost efficiency, improve quality of service, and carve out new revenue streams," said Andrew Morawski, SVP and GM of Oracle Communications, in a press release about the news.

The solution is based on cloud native computing foundation (CNCF) principles and supports 3GPP standards. In addition, it's a containerized microservices-based architecture managed by Kubernetes, and serves as a key data and analytics repository with standard interfaces to store and share information that can support use cases across the entire 5G network, according to the company.

"The offering aggregates historical and real-time data such as control signaling measurements, the state of network functions, congestion, and quality of service. By applying machine learning, predictive analytics, and AI to this data, service providers can better understand how their 5G core is performing and make better decisions around any actions that need to be taken," an Oracle spokesperson told SDxCentral via email.

With the offering, operators can build automation into applications to monitor and audit software components. This supports anomaly detection to avoid events such as network function failure that could result in degradation of network quality. The offering can also support network monetization with data and insight sharing to third-party developers to create new services.

And because it is based on open standard interfaces and supports both private and public environments and multi-cloud deployments, the network function is interoperable and accessible regardless of network size or ecosystem of core network functions in use. This is particularly useful for service providers seeking a company-wide analytics strategy, who can implement the offering to reach beyond pre-defined 3GPP use cases and work with broader analytics solutions.

According to Andrew De La Torre, VP of Technology, Oracle, service providers are now able to fast-track the development and upgrade of new applications rapidly. "This is a necessary part of [communications service providers'] CSPs' ongoing journeys with business-wide analytics," he said via email. "CSPs [now] have access to the entire end-to-end analytics lifecycle, from data collection and storage to management. This is all enabled by common data governance practices to provide full accountability of available data and assure its quality and accessibility."

This story was updated on Oct. 12, 2022, at 1:12 pm ET.