• Enables ICT system updates without interrupting service -

Tokyo, May 13, 2016 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced the development of AI technology that quickly and automatically updates critical systems without causing service interruption. NEC aims to commercialize this technology as an ICT system operation and administration software by FY2017.

Currently, in order to update systems for communications services and financial services without causing interruption, highly trained administrators have to create a complex set of procedures, taking into account the systems’ interdependence and function scalability. As a result, system updates take a great deal of time. With this latest technology, system administrators simply input the structure of a target system in order to quickly and automatically generate update procedures, without any need to interrupt service.

“The creation of update procedures by a system administrator currently requires about one week, but with NEC’s AI technology, procedures can be created in a matter of minutes. As a result, security risks can be dealt with immediately and new services can be introduced swiftly to respond to customer needs,” said Yuichi Nakamura, General Manager, System Platform Research Laboratories, NEC Corporation.

Key features of this new technology include the following:

• AI technology for creating system update procedures without causing service interruption There are a great number of potential update procedures when migrating a system from its current configuration to a target configuration. NEC developed a method to automatically generate update procedures that meets the complex requirements for operating each component of a system, such as applications, middleware, virtual machines, and networks, using AI Planning Technology, an artificial intelligence that automatically determines the appropriate series of actions required to migrate to a target status. This enables safe and speedy system updates, without interruption of service.
• Abstraction technology that enables system configuration to be expressed as the information required for creating update procedures In order to create update procedures for a system, information is required concerning the system's configuration (its combination of components) as well as any executable operations and operational constraints. NEC developed a proprietary abstraction technology that expresses the conditions of each component as the information required to generate an update procedure. This made it possible for AI Planning Technology to create update procedures without interrupting the system, even under complex conditions.