The project involves the financing of two research fellows on the use of artificial intelligence techniques to support the operations of "data centers".

Sant’Anna School and Vodafone are strengthening their partnership in 2021 as they commit to deepening their efforts on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Network Function Virtualization (NFV), to support timely, efficient and effective data center operations. Following two successful years of working in the “AI for NFV” projects, the two partners have renewed their collaborative initiatives to the core themes of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence for anomaly detection,  load prediction and proactive monitoring of Virtualized Network Functions (VNF)  in facilitating capacity planning and placement mechanisms.

In the context of the mentioned “AI for NFV” projects, the Sant’Anna School research team engineered software-based solutions embedding appropriate AI algorithms that have been connected to the data processing pipeline supporting operations within the Vodafone network. The realized architecture is inherently scalable leveraging on cloud computing technologies, having to process data coming from NFV data centers across 12 EU member countries. The resulting system has proved to constitute a valuable key element in the decision making process performed by the Vodafone Network Virtual Infrastructure Design team.

The new project Artificial Intelligence to Support Anomaly Detection in Virtualized Network Functions III focuses on network traffic analysis, real time anomaly detection and recovery, infrastructure protection, and “self-healing” capabilities to improve performance and next generation network robustness.