Service assurance isn’t very visible in telecoms, but its importance is growing quickly. Today it is hidden and mostly reactive, using a combination of fault and event management plus trouble ticketing. It typically involves a high degree of manual copying and pasting across multiple data sources along with “swivel-chair” management to identify what’s broken, determine how much it matters and to whom, and figure out how to fix it. 

In line with the fundamental changes happening in network technologies and topologies which are rewriting operations, service assurance is undergoing dramatic evolution. It will move from an almost separate discipline to being front and central in supporting operations, especially network automation.