Subject: Information System Science
Title: Transitioning to Zero-Touch Edge Networks: An Architectural and Strategic Roadmap for a Telecom Connectivity Management Platform
Abstract:
Telecommunications operators managing the residential network edge face a structural mismatch: the proliferation of connected devices has made reactive, manual troubleshooting economically unsustainable, while incumbent Cloud Monitoring Solutions remain observational by design — able to surface service degradations but not to resolve them autonomously. This thesis asks what architectural, data, and operational capabilities such a platform must acquire to move from reactive, human-in-the-loop troubleshooting toward proactive, Zero-Touch management aligned with the ETSI Zero-touch network and Service Management (ZSM) Level 4 autonomy criteria.
The research adopts a hybrid Design Science strategy that combines an embedded single-case study of a commercial connectivity-management platform with the design and evaluation of a concrete artefact. Its empirical basis comprises two interview phases with five expert informants, a technical analysis of the platform’s telemetry pipeline, and a supervised-classification feasibility probe testing whether fault detection is extractable from the constrained data substrate the platform currently retains.
The probe established that fault detection is technically feasible from the existing telemetry, at performance consistent with operational use. On this basis the thesis designs a six-block Target Architecture, traced to ETSI GS ZSM 002, and sequences it into a three-horizon Maturity Roadmap evaluated by the same informants.
The central finding is that the binding constraints on Level 4 autonomy are organisational and regulatory rather than technical, and that the realised autonomy ceiling is co-determined by operators — and even by client devices — outside the platform’s control. The architecture reconciles this through a supervised-autonomy posture: it provides full closed-loop capability while exposing the closing of the loop as a policy-governed, progressively widening authority. Level 4 is thus reached as a capability and approached as a behaviour — a qualification offered as a transferable design pattern for autonomy adoption under trust and accountability constraints.
Keywords: Cloud Monitoring System, AIOps, ETSI ZSM, Zero-Touch Networks, TR-369 USP, Design Science Research, Operational Maturity, Cloud Deployment Models