Editor’s Note: With 2015 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from leading industry analysts and executives on what they expect to see in the new year.
Throughout 2014, virtualized and software-defined technologies have been hot-topics in enterprise IT. These topics have sparked a great deal of “buzz” in the service provider community as well, but what do these two technologies accomplish, and what does the future hold for them in service provider networks?
Many people use network function virtualization and SDN interchangeably, and while they do have the capability to work together, there is a great deal of difference between the functionality of these two technologies. NFV was created by service providers in order to accelerate the installation of new services on their networks. It shouldn’t be a surprise then that NFV focuses on the relocation of network functions from dedicated appliances to generic servers, giving service providers increased service agility. SDN, however, was created on campus networks by researchers who, when updating software, didn’t want to have to monotonously update every network device. SDN focuses on the separation of control and data. This centralization of control gave the researchers complete programmability of a network.
As for the future of these two technologies, in 2015, we expect to see NFV surge ahead of SDN in service provider networks. NFV is incredibly appealing to service providers as they race against the competition to offer new services and drive down operational expenditures. Service providers are eager to virtualize in any way possible and we feel that NFV has finally matured enough to see initial deployment in the service provider space in 2015 followed by widespread on-ramp in 2016. Here are a few reasons why.
NFV has already proven itself in the enterprise
Service providers have watched as enterprise IT staff began to deploy virtualized network equipment, decoupling their network from costly and time-consuming hardware components. Just as server virtualization has become the standard for enterprise data centers, NFV promises to be just as important for telecommunications networks. The majority of large service providers have already begun building their NFV architecture and strategy with the goal of migrating network functions off purpose-built hardware. NFV provides the combination of increased service agility in a low-touch manner that reduces operational expenditures and the access to policy-on-demand. Telcos will now be able to turn their service up or down based on need at that particular time, without paying for more than is necessary or waiting for delayed roll-outs or site visits for installs. This migration will initially focus on software applications that do not have strict real-time requirements, such as billing and management applications, and then move closer to the network edge where real-time performance becomes critical. As the NFV architecture is fine-tuned, expect to see firewalls and caching servers become virtualized, followed by real-time communications, with session border controllers and application servers becoming part of the NFV story.
SDN is estimated to lag behind by 12 months
Hot on the heels of NFV, we expect to see the telco migration toward SDN. Just as virtualized hypervisors allow businesses to uncouple their software from their hardware, SDN performs a similar function for routers and switches, while making the network highly programmable. With SDN, service providers can help enterprises provision capacity on demand, enforce quality of service profiles in-line with application requirements,and define policy so that they can intelligently ramp-up and deploy unified communications right to the edge of their network’s capacity. This advancement allows operators a granular view of network utilization in real time, which in turn allows them to run the networks “hotter,” fully monetizing their infrastructure. Service providers will leverage SDN to support customers in a way that is more nimble and helps them address the potentially disruptive flood of video demand. While these changes are coming, we believe that SDN will spend most of 2015 following in NFV’s footsteps and proving itself in the enterprise space. Expect to see some early adopters deploying SDN in service provider networks in 2015, but mass adoption won’t come until 2016.
Programmability will be most disruptive
The biggest disruptor stemming from virtualized service provider networks will be the speed of programmability. Service providers will gain the ability to alter policy on-demand, shape services and manage congestion in real time.
It is clear that we will see a drastic amount of improvements in 2015 when it comes to service providers’ network technology. There are many reasons why virtualization is attractive to service providers, but their primary drivers are accelerated service deployment and increased service agility by breaking the dependency on specialized hardware infrastructure. Now that the enterprise has paved the way, NFV is finally ready for prime time in provider networks. Continuing to look ahead, the implementation of SDN into service providers’ networks will become mainstream; providers will be able to build highly virtualized IP networks using both NFV and SDN technologies. The “new IP,” as it is being coined, will allow service providers to lower their overall costs and create services – offering new ways to monetize networks.
Kevin Riley is the CTO of Sonus Networks.
Photo copyright: / 123RF Stock Photo
