.1 DCAE's Four Major Components 7.6.2 Platform Approach to DCAE 7.6.3 DCAE Platform Components Policy Engine 7.7.1 Policy Creation 7.7.2 Policy Distribution 7.7.3 Policy Decision and Enforcement 7.7.4 Policy Unification and Organization 7.7.5 Policy Technologies 7.7.6 Policy Use Active and Available Inventory (A&AI) System 7.8.1 Key A&AI Requirements 7.8.2 A&AI Functionality Control Loop Systems: Working Together 7.9.1 Design Framework 7.9.2 Orchestration and Control Framework 7.9.3 Analytic Framework 7.10 Legacy BSSs Interactions with ONAP 7.10.1 BSS Scope Building the Network of the Future As discussed in Chapter 2, the network cloud leverages cloud technologies, software control, and network virtualization in the new network. The goal is to deliver this new network cloud, while reducing capital, and operations expenditures by achieving significant levels of operational automation. Originally, AT&T created an internal network operating system, called Enhanced Control, Orchestration, Management, and Policy (ECOMP). That ECOMP software platform delivered product/service independent capabilities for the design, creation, and lifecycle management of the network cloud environment for carrier-scale, real-time workloads. It consisted of eight software subsystems covering two major architectural frameworks: a design time environment to design, define, and program the platform, and an execution time environment to execute the logic pro- grammed in the design phase utilizing closed-loop, policy-driven automation. In 2016, AT&T decided to open source ECOMP through the Linux Foundation with the belief that benefits to the entire ecosystem outweighed any time advantage AT&T would have by imple- menting a proprietary ECOMP platform. In addition, to scale the network cloud vision, something like ECOMP in open source would be required to jumpstart other service providers as they moved down the network cloud path. The Linux Foundation had a similar effort, called Open-O with members such as China Mobile, Huawei, China Telecom, 