Gartner defines cloud infrastructure management (CIM) systems for communications services providers (CSPs) as a set of operations and management support applications and tools to enable CSPs to orchestrate and manage the use of cloud-based network resources. These cloudified compute, storage and networking infrastructure resources may be located in far-edge, near-edge or regional/national CSP premises, or in partner data center locations — such as those of public cloud providers, other CSPs or technology vendors. These network infrastructure resources are used to host virtualized and/or containerized network functions and applications, and related support systems. The CIM systems for CSPs deliver efficient, intent-based, API-diven, zero-touch planning, provisioning, and operations of hardware and software resources, enabling the hyper automation of the network cloud infrastructure.
The CCI market covers solutions that include the equipment, software and services that enable customer service organizations to manage multichannel customer interactions holistically (using self-service and assisted service) from a customer experience and an employee engagement perspective. Central to the definition of CCI is that the solutions are dedicated to supporting a single customer or tenant on each instance of the system, even if that customer or tenant supports multiple contact center operations on that dedicated instance. CCI solutions are used by customer service and telemarketing centers, employee service and support centers, help desk service centers, and other types of structured communications operations.
The data center and cloud networking vendors covered in this market provide hardware and/or software solutions to deliver connectivity primarily within enterprise data centers. This includes data center core/spine switches, access switches (top of rack [ToR], leaf), virtual switching, Ethernet fabrics, network operating systems (NOSs) and network overlays, and the requisite management, automation and orchestration of those components.
Gartner defines the enterprise wired and wireless LAN infrastructure market as wired and wireless networking hardware and the related network software. Related components of the solution include enterprise switches, access points and the requisite tools to secure, manage, test and optimize the network infrastructure that provides connectivity for users, devices and applications that may reside on the network or on other networks. Enterprises in all vertical markets use enterprise wired and wireless networks to connect and transport data for fixed and end-user devices to applications that may be local or remote to the physical end user. In addition to physical connectivity, these solutions provide the following capabilities in diverse markets, including the ability to: 1. Discover, identify, secure, manage and segment Internet of Things (IoT)/operational technology (OT) devices 2. Support, test and maintain network infrastructure components 3. Provide a resilience infrastructure 4. Secure the network infrastructure 5. Provide scalability and flexibility for management and control plane communication processes 6. Provide no-touch/low-touch Day 2 environment
Meeting solutions are real-time communication services with their associated devices that support live interactions between participants for internal and external collaboration, presentations, learning, training sessions and webinars. Meeting solutions power diverse use cases, such as one-on-one meetings, remote sales engagements, board meetings, telehealth sessions, remote banking and consulting services, to name just a few. Meeting solutions enable rich information sharing and interaction by combining audio and video, in-meeting chat, content and screen sharing, and visual collaboration and whiteboarding.
A self-organizing network (SON) is a framework that automates some planning functions as well as maintenance functions for mobile networks. Its main goals are to enable self-configuration, self-optimization and self-healing of radio network elements. It also minimizes interference between adjacent cells and between macro and small cells. SON is an automation technology for the operations and maintenance (O&M) of LTE networks, defined in Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 8 and onwards (as such, W-Fi support is not natively included in 3GPP's definition of SON).