Colt Technology Services announced a proof of concept for a feature that enables businesses to define their preferred network route on a packet network, directly from its network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform.

The Smart Path feature removes the need for traditional manual ordering processes, giving customers the ability to define and implement their network routes in near-real time.

The pilot will see one of Colt’s global media customers become the first to trial Smart Path to manage network performance for its live-streamed events, avoiding downtime by accelerating the provisioning time while providing enhanced resilience and low latency.

Detailing Smart Path's features

The Smart Path NaaS solution was developed by Colt to address customers’ requirements around selecting a specific packet network route for connectivity between their offices and data centers to meet different business objectives, including data sovereignty, security, compliance, and sustainability.

Through the NaaS portal, customers would be able to select routes with lowest latency and define specific subsea routes to be used for network resiliency reasons.

Real-time network orchestration can allow new services to be provisioned in minutes. Instantaneous changes using a live inventory, such as network routing, bandwidths, and contract terms, can also be changed in near-real time.

On the sovereignty front, Colt reports clients can ensure their traffic remains within a specified country or region. And on sustainability, Smart Path can potentially provide customers with greater clarity around the incremental network carbon emissions linked to a specific circuit.

“Just as we can click and activate compute power and storage in the public cloud, businesses should be able to choose their network routes with the same level of ease, autonomy, and simplicity," Peter Coppens, VP infrastructure and connectivity solutions for Colt Technology Services, noted in a statement. “Until now, this hasn’t been an industry standard option on packet networks. As an early pioneer of NaaS, we’re constantly exploring new digital-first features in the platform that solve real challenges for our customers, so we developed Smart Path to meet this need.”