Home > Blogs > VMware Telco NFV Blog

Open Works Here! Migrating Telco Providers and Partners to a Tried and True Multi-Cloud Ready Open Stack

Leave a reply

Greetings from OpenStack Summit! We’re here this week to talk about the opportunities for OpenStack. Telcos and CSPs in particular have looked to OpenStack as the centerpiece of their virtualization and software-defined infrastructure strategy, which is needed as we move towards 5G, multi-access edge computing (MEC)/edge and IoT scenarios. Unfortunately, OpenStack has not quite realized its potential in this regard. Telcos trying to stand up OpenStack for their NFV deployments today face significant operational complexity, cost overruns and scaling challenges—inviting questions about the efficacy of their deployments and causing them to look for new ways to problem solve for OpenStack. Further complicating matters is the drive to a distributed architecture with cloud, core and edge computing, and the move toward modern application architectures in the mobile-cloud era.

VMware has embarked on a two-pronged approach to address the dire need to make OpenStack work:

  1. Deliver a robust OpenStack offering VMware Integrated OpenStack, that provides the best of OpenStack, yet fixes some of its key flaws, and
  2. Enable providers and partners to convert & migrate their VNFs to be able to take advantage of VMware Integrated OpenStack and vCloud NFV, leveraging VMware HCX.

VMware Integrated OpenStack: OpenStack That Works:

VMware is addressing the need for more effective OpenStack deployments head-on with a leading virtualization platform, allowing our system integrator partners to provide a unified framework across IT, network and edge for telcos worldwide. VIO is VMware’s answer to the challenges of operationalizing OpenStack—and customers using the VMware OpenStack migration service will automatically have access to VMware Integrated OpenStack. We released VMware Integrated OpenStack 5.1 today.

Key features include:

  • Queens-based OpenStack Distribution—take advantage of the latest upstream functionality using the most recent OpenStack release
  • Streamlined OpenStack Deployment—quickly deploy a standard OpenStack on top of VMware SDDC. Perform upgrades with minimal disruption. This results in accelerated time to revenue.
  • Best-of-Breed Infrastructure—take advantage of advanced enterprise and cloud features and capabilities delivered by VMware vSphere, VMware NSX and VMware vSAN, including better security, high availability, simplified maintenance and disaster recovery.
  • Integrated Operations and Management—Out-of-the-box vRealize Operations, vRealize Log Insight and vRealize Automation integrations for streamlined operations such as health checks, troubleshooting and capacity management, as well as governance and control with user management, role-based access control (RBAC), quotas and more.
  • VMware Integrated OpenStack “in a box”—build small-footprint, highly-resilient micro data centers based on VMware Integrated OpenStack and have full control over these micro data centers and apps via automated, API driven orchestration and lifecycle management.

HCX – OpenStack Migration Services:

We talked about how VMware Integrated OpenStack significantly solves some of the critical issues above. But how do we get to the desired state? To help with this change, we’re introducing new migration services to enable customers to move from alternative OpenStack deployments to VMware Integrated OpenStack. We welcome providers and partners to contact us regarding early engagements with VMware to leverage such migration services.

 

The migration service leverages VMware HCX technology, which provides a seamless way to migrate workloads across private, hybrid and public clouds. HCX now additionally can convert OpenStack VMs running on KVM to migrate and run on VMware Integrated OpenStack. For telcos and CSPs, this capability now creates a common foundation across their IT, B2B, and NFV environments (the telco cloud). Additionally, it also connects these telco clouds to private, public, hybrid and edge environments. Thus, for the first time, we can have a unified architecture across IT, cloud tech (CT), network tech (NT) and edge tech (ET), accelerating the journey to 5G, edge/MEC, and IoT use cases.

 

“VMware has made a breakthrough in OpenStack production readiness—no question,” said John Antonio, CSO of IDX, a VMware partner. “Telcos and CSPs have struggled with making OpenStack work effectively in their environments, and instead of abandoning their investment, they can now work with VMware to benefit from their “PRODUCTION READY” legacy and entirely managed migration of their OpenStack deployments. VMware has the virtualization chops and the right mix of traditional and new technology to effectively serve these customers and enable them to make the most of OpenStack.”

By providing a dependable OpenStack solution that includes a robust stack, and a migration service to get there, VMware is taking the complexity out of OpenStack to enable customers to capture value from their existing deployments. Finally, there will be an OpenStack that can work for carriers and CSPs at scale.

For more information on VMware’s OpenStack migration managed service, please visit booth B14 at OpenStack Summit in Berlin.

 

 

VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud Named Best SD-WAN & Enterprise Service and VMware vCloud NFV wins for Best NFV Ecosystem – Layer123 SDN NFV World Congress Network Transformation Awards 2018

Leave a reply

VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud was recognized again for a prestigious industry award when it was named the Best SD-WAN & Enterprise Service at the Network Transformation Awards 2018 gala in the Hague, Netherlands. This award is another feather in VMware’s cap for its SD-WAN by VeloCloud solution which is widely recognized as the #1 SD-WAN solution in the market.

 

Additionally, VMware’s vCloud NFV group was awarded the SDN/NFV World Congress Network Transformation Award for Best NFV Ecosystem. The simultaneous awards by both leading VMware business units demonstrate the best-in-breed solutions that are available to customers.  

These Network Transformation Awards recognize achievement in advancing the industry to the next generation of networks and celebrate innovation and excellence in delivering the next generation of products and services founded on SDN and NFV.  

Layer123 is one of the very important SDN/NFV industry events, and the Network Transformation Awards are known for the highest credibility and integrity.  

The Awards were judged by an independent panel comprising leading industry analysts from firms including Analysts Mason, ACG Research, 451 Research, Appledore Research, IHS Markit and Strategy Analytics. 

Click here to see all the awards bestowed on VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud. 

VMware at Mobile World Congress Americas: Service Assurance is Key to 5G Success

Leave a reply

Today at Mobile World Congress Americas, VMware is highlighting the next phase of 5G readiness for communications service providers (CSPs) worldwide. At the event, we will showcase how the VMware Service Assurance Suite will integrate into VMware’s NFV portfolio and illustrate real-world service assurance use cases for CSPs as they prepare for 5G.

2018 has been a year of unprecedented momentum for VMware’s Telco NFV business. Solution innovation, the movement to acquire Dell EMC’s Service Assurance Suite, continued customer momentum and expansion and the ability to address more use cases have defined the first part of the year. 5G deployments will not be possible without virtualization, service assurance and a solid multi-cloud strategy. With VMware, customers have everything they need to become 5G-ready while still meeting the demands on today’s networks and reaping the benefits.

Last month, we announced our intent to acquire the Dell EMC Service Assurance Suite portfolio: software spanning network health, performance monitoring and root cause analysis for communications service providers (CSPs) and their customers. The addition of the Service Assurance Suite to the portfolio of VMware telco solution offerings will enable CSPs to maintain operational reliability in their core network, cloud and IT domains across physical and virtual infrastructure and operationalize competitive new services faster. Service Assurance Suite is now a part of VMware’s robust telco portfolio, engineered to enable CSPs to bridge the gap from 4G to 5G through simplified networks, service enablement and multi-cloud support.

So how does it work? VMware Service Assurance Suite focuses on automating a variety of key operational use cases for CSPs aimed at reducing operational costs and improving customer experience,  such as:

  • Network and Service Availability Management: with automated root-cause and service impact analysis
  • Performance Management and SLA Monitoring: with deep analysis for historical and real-time views, trending, forecasting and adaptive alerting
  • Network Configuration Management: enabling automated network infrastructure change and compliance management
  • Application & Service Level Monitoring: with cross correlation of Network Applications and/or Virtual Network Functions (VNF) with service delivery infrastructure
  • Hybrid Assurance: Correlation spanning physical, NFVi, VIM and service layers offering unparalleled operations management with deep NFV closed loop integration

VMware Service Assurance Suite covers a rich variety of network segments such as: Backbone/Transport, IP, MPLS, Mobile, SDN/NFV, SD-WAN, IPTV, Unified Communications and Managed Enterprise Networks.

We will be showcasing the VMware Service Assurance Suite and NFV solutions in booth #S1714 at Mobile World Congress Americas, September 12-14 in Los Angeles, Calif. Our executives will also be participating in a panel on network analytics, diagnostics & service assurance on Wednesday, September 12, 2018 from 1:00-2:00 pm PDT. Stop by for more information—we hope to see you there!

 

VMware & Nokia at MWC Americas 2018

Leave a reply

 

Nokia and VMware continue to collaborate to deliver integrated and proven end-to-end NFV solutions which are widely deployed at communication service providers (CSP) globally.  Together we bring joint value with decades of telecom innovation combined with virtualization and cloud expertise. Powered by continued networking and cloud technology portfolio investment, supported by the research and creativity of Bell Labs, Nokia has the industry’s most complete, end-to-end Telecom portfolio of products and services. Likewise, VMware brings more than two decades of innovation and has delivered the most trusted and widely deployed virtualization and cloud solution to the market. The end result is a solid, unified solution that helps our customers address not only today’s rapid technology shifts, but also capitalize on new opportunities as they arise. Ultimately positioning CSPs for rapid growth by accelerating their digital transformation journey to the new era of enhanced mobile broadband,  IOT and 5G

Leveraging VMware vCloud NFV Platform, Nokia and VMware have delivered the following joint Virtual Network Functions (VNFs)

Additional details such as solution overview, solution white papers and  ready for NFV certification details can be found on the solution exchange: https://marketplace.vmware.com/vsx/company/nokia

Nokia and VMware have put their heads together to simplify the day to day operational requirement to efficiently run NFV services.   To learn more about our joint capabilities of how we intelligently automate network functions on a virtualized telco cloud, visit us at Mobile World Congress USA in Los Angeles in South Hall Booth 1714 and see a live demonstration.  Here is a sneak peak of what you will see:

In one demo, we will show an instance of a Nokia Cloud Packet Core network function that is exceeding its defined capacity thresholds.  Our joint solution will show the automated scaling of a Cloud Packet Core network function to address dynamic VNF demands.

As more and more CSP networks transition from bare metal to NFV, the upgrade of the NFV infrastructure has quickly become a significant operational challenge. Over the past 20 years, VMware has evolved to become the industry standard for seamless and effortless upgrades. This fundamental capability is also readily available in VMware’s vCloud NFV platform. Nokia and VMware have partnered to demonstrate how to upgrade NFV infrastructure without service disruption of traffic through Nokia’s Cloud Packet Core functions.  Join us to see how effortless NFVI upgrade can be with Nokia and VMware.

 

Telco Operations in an NFV World: eBook

Leave a reply

Over the past year, I have written about and demonstrated the operational intelligence framework within VMware vCloud NFV. The intent was to help communication service providers (CSPs) anticipate and mitigate challenges associated with deploying and operationalizing NFV based services. While NFV environments provide a new level of flexibility and service agility, dealing with new layers of operational complexity can often make or break the business viability of a CSP transformation effort.

Several CSPs we work with see the vCloud NFV Operational Intelligence framework as a crucial enabler of the tangible transformation required to deliver best in class services, and somewhere along the way, we realized the need to bring these learnings together in an easily-digestible format. The result is the “Telco Operations in an NFV World” eBook – a free resource to help guide CSP operations through various stages of the NFV services lifecycle.

The eBook first introduces key components in the vCloud NFV Operational Intelligence framework – vRealize Operations Manager, vRealize Log Insight, and vRealize Network Insight.

After getting familiar with the framework and component functionality, we then take a deeper look at the CSP operations lifecycle and the capabilities required at each stage of service evolution. You may find this comprehensive approach to end-to-end service operations particularly useful when calibrating your own approach to complete operations automation. The eBook breaks this down into five phases:

  • Phase 1: Onboard Service Operations – Service and resource discovery, Security and alert definitions, Remediation workflows, Multi-tenant dashboards, and Micro-segmentation
  • Phase 2: Launch Service and Operate – Unified visibility from apps to infrastructure, Availability, performance, capacity, and security monitoring, Interactive analytics, API/SDK access
  • Phase 3: Dynamic Optimization and Issue Avoidance – Automated closed-loop optimization, Predictive Distributed Resource Scheduler (pDRS), Pattern recognition-driven alerts
  • Phase 4: Issue Isolation – SLA violations, Performance degradation alerts and recommendations, Network and app visibility, Underlay and overlay traffic routes
  • Phase 5: Plan Demand and Expansion – Capacity and utilization, Combined operational and business insights, Procurement planning, Resource reclamation

Within each phase are detailed considerations and links to demo videos that illustrate the operational intelligence built into the vCloud NFV platform. The eBook also contains a reference section with links to other related solution briefs and whitepapers.

 

Service onboarding, performance monitoring, and dynamic optimization are quickly becoming primary considerations in a well-designed operations management strategy. CSPs must achieve simplification, multi-tenancy, proactivity, and efficiency with a shared infrastructure layer, dynamic re-sizing and movement of workloads, distributed topologies, and owned and leased cloud environments which will drive the need for self-correcting and self-adjusting automation. The eBook attempts to take a critical look at the operational intelligence CSPs need to manage such dynamic environments. I hope you find the eBook a useful resource in your NFV journey.

A Transformation Towards a 5G-Ready NFV Infrastructure

Leave a reply

Mobile wireless technologies have gone through systematic generational refreshes over the last three decades. The next such refresh, called 5G, isn’t just an incremental upgrade from 4G, but represents a significant leap forward.  5G promises to improve efficiency, enhance security, reduce latency times, increase network capacity, and accelerate current data connections by 10, or even 100 times.  And for the first time, 5G brings wireline technologies into greater prominence and convergence with wireless infrastructure, enabling telecom carriers to extract efficiency from their full network.

However, before the benefits of 5G can be widely exploited, Communications Service Providers need to invest in virtualized and cloud-based infrastructure. 5G requires both a software-driven architecture and Network Functions Virtualization, or NFV, to be successful.

At VMware, we see 5G as a big opportunity and challenge for Communications Service Providers to leverage the benefits of 5G with new business models and to reassert their influence in the cloud economy.  While NFV is the foundation to deliver 5G, CSPs are going to require a telecom transformation that represents a new approach to delivering agile services and enables the ability to have these services move between clouds, include private, edge, and public clouds.

A key aspect of 5G networks is network slicing.  For CSPs, network slicing provides the ability to divide and scale the network on an as-a-service and ‘on-demand’ basis.  This requires an advanced, software-defined infrastructure that allows multiple virtual networks to be created atop a shared physical infrastructure. Virtual networks can then be customized to meet the needs of applications, services, devices, customers or other global CSPs.

For CSPs, network slicing enables new business opportunities. Services such as remote health and surgery, smart metering, smart drones, and connected cars all require connectivity, but with vastly different network characteristics.  New technologies, such as virtualization, network programmability, and network slicing will enable networks to be customized and meet the needs for each application.  As a result, new products and services can be introduced to market quickly and can be easily customized, deployed, and adapted to fast-changing demands.

VMware and Telia have jointly collaborated on a 5G Technical Whitepaper: 5G-Ready NFV Infrastructure- A Transformation Journey Towards Full Automation.  In this paper, we have outlined the characterization of the network driven by 5G and the requirements that CSPs should take into consideration to support new services and SLAs.  In addition, the paper highlights the requirement to provide an efficient network infrastructure that can deliver services at the best price point, along with creating an on-demand network to support new business consumption models and a frequent service rollout cadence.

We believe 5G to deliver massive changes as it will create a larger, more efficient network that offers new possibilities for developers and CSPs.  The collaborative nature of 5G may also prompt more partnering across the ecosystem and alter the competitive landscape of the industry.  Hybrid environments that leverage the best of both worlds, coupling hyper scale public cloud infrastructures like those from Amazon Web Services, or IBM, and the NFV enhanced clouds from CSPs, could become the basis for new marketplaces for consumer and enterprise applications and tools.

 

 

 

 

How do you plan to deliver 5G services?

Leave a reply

 

You can do what with your phone?

As we continue to predict how the world will look according to 5G, Telcos are also considering how to deliver on the promise that the new standard holds. Fundamentally it will improve user experiences by delivering new, faster (one millisecond end-to-end round trip delay) and more seamless (1000x bandwidth per unit area) services. This entails providers improving their ability to deliver and support a heavy line-up of data-intense services.

It’s a big shift; both in customer expectations and in technology. It requires new approaches to network operations; new skills and effective ways of providing a bridge from what is, to what will be. Consumers will be looking for exquisite personalized services delivered instantaneously to their smartphones. The world will be real-time. Meanwhile, the enterprise and society will expect far more.

The GSMA suggests that 5G will cover a third of the world’s population by 2025, approximately 1.4 billion connections. Providing a thought-provoking context for the impact of 5G on network operations, the GSMA says:

“5G will see a major shift in how cellular networks are designed and what they are used for. Mobile operators will use new network architectures…Advanced software will enable the mobile network to adapt to the needs of the service, rather than the other way around.”

The 1.4 billion connections won’t, of course, all be enthusiastic gamers on their morning commutes thrilled with faster speeds. They’ll be connections changing the way society functions, becoming the base enabler of autonomous driving, remote robotic surgery, smarter manufacturing, and, yes, great fun gaming. A bigger focus than ever before will bring data analytics to the top of the agenda; the ability to assimilate huge volumes of data and extract the meaning from it in real-time to drive ever-more responsive services and deliver the fundamental requirement of IoT; the ability of machines and systems to talk to each other and react accordingly.

Enormous commercial opportunity

Autonomous cars will be communicating in real-time with traffic systems and other vehicles. Smart homes and office buildings will be sensing environmental influences to activate internal building systems. Transportation systems in smart cities will be more in evidence. Virtual Reality will become a widespread, well, reality. Healthcare will embrace remote intervention and prevention capabilities. IoT, in short, will lean heavily on 5G.

It’s time to make sure not just that your network can take the weight, but also that your entire approach to network architecture – the creation of 5G-capable infrastructures – and servicing customer needs is geared around an enormous commercial opportunity and potential new revenue streams.

Planning for transition and beyond

I’d like to explore how to put this ‘bridge’ in place; allowing the crossing-over from a 3G/4G world into 5G while taking a view that also goes beyond that. Any CSP needs to be concerned with the long-term value of investments and/or the sustainability of changes to network management, technology and company culture; it’s not just about the opportunity to come but the many opportunities that may then come after that.

Network changes undertaken in response to the requirements of 5G will stand the network in very good stead for many years to come. These changes may well dictate bringing new skills into the business, restructuring teams, and basically becoming the sort of organisation that can thrive in a substantially redefined competitive environment. Solutions should be robustly future-proofed; capable of evolving as demands on the network evolve, which they certainly will.

The NFV path to innovation

NFV is a prime enabler in the essential network transformation. My colleague, Gabriele Di Piazza, discusses the essential agility that NFV brings to network infrastructure automation and orchestration in his blog: The network is at the epicentre of all that happens next; Multi-access Edge Computing is right there alongside it. Network operators can react faster when they decouple core network functions from hardware appliances.

An Ericsson spokesperson puts it in perspective:

“NFV is now a prerequisite for having the kind of network that you need to be able to address the IoT workload for 5G. Furthermore, the time is now for operators to formulate their strategies to transition their core network in preparation for 5G in 2020.”

Changes made to the network now need not be regarded as fixed in stone or, in other words, embedded in the machine. At VMware we’re delivering solutions that enable CSPs to build the bridge now, work with containerised applications, but also lay the foundations for the road ahead after the transition, wherever that may lead. Without NFV there is no easily operable solution to grasp the enhancements that 5G will bring.

Telcos should consider that NFV is a mandatory first step towards 5G, but effective deployment depends on a partner, architecture and technology strategy to pin down the journey path and streamline network operations.

What do you think? Have you made the shift to NFV ahead of the arrival of 5G? If not, do you think you need to be exploring why not? Is it something you’d like to explore further? Contact me if you want to continue the discussion.

Dell EMC and VMware – Better Together for Service Providers

Leave a reply

Co-authored by:

Kevin Shatzkamer, Vice President, Service Provider Strategy and Solutions, Dell EMC

Honore’ LaBourdette, VP Global Market Development, Telco Business Group, VMware

Some of their main challenges CSPs face include:

  • Slowing growth & innovation due to increasing technological complexity
  • Rising CAPEX and OPEX for legacy network infrastructure
  • Price/Margin erosion due to disruption in existing businesses models
  • Uncertainty in new business models – new value chains, new competitors
  • Operational transformation requires workforce and process retooling

Dell EMC and VMware are teaming together to help solve these challenges and are excited to demonstrate of the value of Dell Technologies end-to-end for service providers.

As a starting point, at Mobile World Congress Americas last fall, we announced the Dell EMC NFV Ready Bundle for VMware to simplify and accelerate NFV deployments for service providers.  This bundle includes open standards-based Dell EMC Cloud Infrastructure (compute, networking, Service Assurance Suite and management tools) and a choice of a Virtual Infrastructure Manager (vCloud Director or VMware Integrated OpenStack) with vSAN or Dell EMC ScaleIO.

The Dell EMC NFV Ready Bundle for VMware was just the beginning of joint, pre-validated solutions between both companies.  Dell EMC and VMware are on a journey to integrate and demonstrate the value of our joint solution in other areas as well.

SD-WAN is another area where both companies are working together to expand SD-WAN opportunities for service providers.  According to IDC’s Worldwide SD-WAN Forecast, 2017-2021, SD-WAN sales will grow at a 69% compound annual rate and will hit $8.05 billion by 2021.

Enterprises are increasingly searching for cost-effective and simpler alternatives to WAN connectivity for their sprawling branch networks. SD-WAN addresses many enterprises needs around WAN costs, simplified operations and improved application performance.  For service providers, offering SD-WAN as a Service is a new revenue opportunity because they can manage WAN services for enterprises.  This is appealing to enterprises that don’t want to manage the WAN network, or applications, and would prefer to outsource these services to a service provider.

To help with SD-WAN adoption, Dell EMC and VeloCloud, which is now part of VMware, offer the Dell EMC SD-WAN Ready Nodes for VeloCloud to accelerate SD-WAN revenue for service providers. VeloCloud can also go one step further by hosting and operating SD-WAN service on behalf of the service provider to accelerate adoption.  We will also be demonstrating leading edge joint SD-WAN solutions for service providers at Mobile World Congress.

We understand that the industry is constantly moving and evolving, and Dell EMC and VMware will continue to integrate capabilities that service providers want.  Our goals as both companies is to significantly reduce deployment complexities by offering more joint pre-architected and pre-validated solutions that integrates industry leading Dell EMC hardware and VMware software, reduce installation complexity, and provide confidence that the joint solutions are ready to work in production for service providers.

 

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV): Early adoption or a timely and essential strategy?

Leave a reply

A hot topic in a cold climate

MWC, once again, captured multiple developments, ideas, initiatives, inventions and new ways of looking at things and delivered universal focus to help us all calibrate our efforts, or at least sensitise our plans. It was great to catch up with colleagues and share ideas and insights about the hugely significant year that 2018 is shaping up to be for Telcos. We can count on an increasing wave of pressure building up around 5G and its natural and ever-present partner, network transformation.

Just about this time last year I posted a blog pre-MWC17 where I said “As MWC17 approaches…there is every sign that things are about to change. To put it another way, there is overwhelming pressure to make sure they do.” My thoughts were around the advent of the IoT and the requirement for carriers to invest carefully in new technology and networking infrastructure as they set about the task of creating the network of the future.

There is more than just a technology issue involved. The business case for modernising the network is strong; new customer demands will require new business models from Telcos, representing a clear step forward on traditional services and demonstrating true organisational agility in giving customers what they want.

For an organisation to be able to respond rapidly to market pressures, revitalising and innovating its services to deliver outstanding customer experiences, it has to have the technological agility to do so. Technology for its own sake is just a way of diluting your ROI. Technology associated with a clear revitalised business strategy and models is a winning combination.

Unprecedented resilience and reliability

I’m not a lone voice in such views. An article in TechTarget suggested:

“ Network functions virtualisation andsoftware-defined networking will play increasingly large roles in the future of networking, converting what used to be specialised hardware or local virtual machines into software running in the cloud. All management functions, including analytics, will reside in the cloud, providing full-function, extensible, manage-anywhere flexibility and unprecedented resilience and reliability.”

Finding the way forward isn’t always easy in a market where so many pressures continue to pile up, so many technologies present themselves as the optimum solution, and so much remains invested in legacy infrastructures, not to say legacy approaches. VMware’s focus at MWC18 was on engaging with individuals to clarify strategies around NFV adoption. To hold back simply because the methodologies may be new is not the soundest of strategies, while all around the signs (5g/IoT/4th Industrial Revolution primarily) are consistently pointing to the need for change.

Virtualisation is a tried and tested technology that has for so long been delivering new efficiencies in the datacentre and across the enterprise in general. The natural assimilation of abstraction into network infrastructures therefore has many use cases to prove its effectiveness. Network operators need only look beyond their own sphere to appreciate what NFV can bring to their networks.

Be different now or be just the same later

Innovation is just that – doing new things, taking on board new approaches and ultimately, daring to be different. Those who do it first are different and they gain the first mover advantage. Those who delay, by definition, become followers. When they do there will be a risk of finding that the best claims have already been staked. At MWC18, VMware showcased how our multi-cloud-to-edge infrastructure and support for OpenStack and cloud-native apps empower CSPs to digitally transform from being no more than ‘connectivity providers’ into agile enablers of rich 5G & IOT services, dynamic content and personalised experiences. We also presented a path for CSP’s to participate in the new “cloud economy” across private, public and Telco clouds to further enable new revenue opportunities.

The hunt for mass market NFV

One of the overall discussion themes at MWC was ‘The Hunt for Mass-Market NFV’, a session described thus: “NFV has been much discussed, and much trialled. There have been few substantial live deployments, though. This session investigates what lessons have been learnt from live NFV so far and what barriers to wider adoption remain in the technology, the market and the mobile industry itself.”

I was a little surprised to see this topic outlined in the way it was, given that VMware now has more than 100 live NFV deployments in production, some running multiple VNFs and multiple services across our NFV infrastructure platform. There are numerous Telcos well ahead of the curve, or where MWC18 believes the curve to be.

NFV is a large constituent element in any strategy to meet the future head-on with agile operations and a responsive network that can scale on demand; and demand for bandwidth there will be, in abundance. From cities and transportation systems to cars and houses, and every industry you care to name, IoT is upon us. The need to transport data rapidly is upon us.

What’s the hold-up?

Telecommunications will respond with both new technologies and increasingly more aggressive competitive spirt. It will be, quite simply, a gold rush. The question must be asked, therefore, what’s holding anybody back from at least exploring their options around NFV?  Why hesitate when evidence shows that competitive companies are advanced on their virtualization journeys? Do they know something you don’t?

If there’s hesitancy in the industry, where is it coming from? There certainly will be golden opportunities for Telcos with the right network capabilities. There can be little sound rationale for not assessing what those capabilities are, and how they can be assimilated into current network architectures.

At MWC18 VMware provided not only demonstrations of how to pin down the benefits of NFV, but also showed the ease with which NFV can be adopted. Our vCloud NFV platforms, for example, enable CSPs to:

  • Accelerate services deployments and foster innovation for IoT and 5G services
  • Simplify operations, delivering operational intelligence and visibility across the network
  • Access enormous choice through a best-in-class NFV partner ecosystem

We looked also at on-boarding, with our partners, Intel. This technical session looked at accelerated NFV adoption through open sourced tools and a community that helps remove the roadblocks of on-boarding network functions. As the year unfolds and the challenges mount, VMware can help you gain agility in the network to respond, revitalize, and reap the rewards of the opportunities ahead. Get in touch if you’d like to discuss further.

Accelerating the reality of NFV can be achieved when you integrate best of breed technologies. VMware and Intel are collaborating to deliver High-Performance, Open and Tested Network Functions for Operators.

Leave a reply

VMware and Intel are expanding their collaboration to enable cloud-optimized, 5G-ready networks with high performance and efficiency. These requirements meet the most stringent standards and service level agreements (SLAs) required by communication service providers.

Service providers are being pressed to deliver new and differentiated services faster, in an on-demand model, and maintaining a high quality of experience for the user. This requires a new architecture that blends software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV), while creating a new delivery method that will support an all IP infrastructure.

Operators will get there first glance at the new types of use cases that VMware and Intel are working on at Mobile World Congress this week.

At the show, the two companies will be demonstrating several use cases that will showcase the ability to deploy telco services in a hybrid cloud environment, a multi-cloud infrastructure supporting connected drones, and the use of a distributed compute fabric at the edge that will help bring to market next generation 5G applications.

Through this collaboration, VMware and Intel will provide customers with:

Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) network acceleration that delivers market-defining performance on Intel® Xeon® processors;

  • Native Intel poll mode drivers for VMware vSphere for improved throughput;
  • Improved memory throughput on Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors for more efficient VNF performance;
  • Enhanced Platform Awareness support to help ensure VNFs run on the optimal HW platforms;
  • A new VNF Onboarding Program with a rich ecosystem of VNF vendors that have been certified through the VMware Ready for NFV program;

You can learn more about these initiatives at the Intel demo pod in the VMware booth at Mobile World Congress, Hall 3 Stand 3K10

Operators face a large learning curve and with the number of components needed to run network functions in the cloud, no single vendor can tackle this landscape alone. VMware and Intel are committed to making NFV a reality and helping Communications Service Providers accelerate the transformation of their networks.

login