Accedian and Cisco close in on closed-loop automation

When I started my career as a control system engineer, I did not envision that I would apply the principles of control theory for robotics and industrial control systems to Information Technologies such as networks. What is exciting, is that with the tools in the Cisco Crosswork portfolio, combined with the tools in the Accedian Skylight portfolio, real closed-loop automated control is now within reach of service providers whose business and product IS the network.

With just a quick dipping of the toe into control theory, one learns that there are two types of control systems, open loop and close-loop. Open loop control simply means that a set point, or desired outcome, is set, and then the machinery simply sets the control element to a certain value. That would be like setting your foot on the gas pedal to achieve a speed at a certain time. If you start ascending or descending a hill, the vehicle speed will change according to the laws of physics. 

In contrast, closed-loop control is like cruise control, there is a continuous measurement of speed, and the control element, in this case the engine combustion is adjusted to maintain the desired set point, speed. The difference is that you need instrumentation that measures and processes the real state and then sends data to the control plane to adjust the control element to maintain the desired state, the set point.

Cisco has a world class control plane, their Crosswork automation portfolio, which consists of various solution elements required to change the configuration and settings of a network to maintain a desired state. Cisco is partnering with Accedian to provide the feedback loop, the instrumentation and analytics that measure the real state of the network and its services, and feed that back to Cisco’s control plane, to automatically maintain the desired state in near real-time continuously, before network and service quality impact customer experience (CX) is impacted. Think of Cisco and Accedian in terms of delivering real-time continuous closed-loop CX control.

Together, immediate automated remediation of network and service performance degradations is now a reality. Customer experience can be maintained at the desired state across services and the underlying networks that support them. Think of a scenario such as a connectivity service where congestion occurs. Skylight, the feedback loop measuring real state, can detect that and signal back to Crosswork CNC to make a change in the CIR in near real time, preventing customer experience from being impacted, with no human intervention.  

The monitoring space is a broad, and often misunderstood market. There are many vendors, but what differentiates Accedian is the ability to detect sub-second, and even millisecond and in some use cases, microsecond transient performance degradations. This granular observability when combined with real-time analytics that can scales, across multiple cloud, DC and network domains and dissect full stack performance for each layer, is what separates Accedian’s Skylight from other possible solutions. When combined with Crosswork, Accedian’s Skylight delivers unparalleled closed-loop automation capabilities to the market. Service Providers will be able to put their networks on cruise control and improve services to help enterprises drive innovation.