Nokia sought to strengthen its network and service automation expertise by acquiring Deepfield, a small US-based analytics firm.

In a statement, Nokia said Deepfield provides integrated cloud, application and IP network insights in real time, allowing customers to “quickly” improve network performance, efficiency and security.

The Finnish vendor plans to integrate these services into its own network to provide “greater network and application insight” to customers including communication service providers, cable operators and technology companies.

While cloud applications and services including Netflix and Facebook make up more than 60 per cent of network traffic today, providers have limited insight into the apps running on their networks and how such traffic impacts their infrastructure and subscribers, Nokia explained.

The vendor stated Deepfield’s Genome technology counters the visibility problem by identifying 30,000 popular cloud applications and services and tracking the flow of the traffic through the network to subscribers in real time.

Noka plans to couple Genome with open SDN platforms such as Nokia Network Services Platform (NSP) and Nuage Networks’ Virtualised Services Platform (VSP), to enable automated changes to WAN and data centre networks in line with traffic flow.

Basil Alwan, president of IP/Optical Networks business at Nokia, said the ability to provide real-time, analytics-driven, network and service automation will “only increase in importance as networks and applications become more complex, diverse and dynamic”.

The fee was undisclosed and the deal is expected to close in Q1 2017, subject to regulatory approvals.