Ericsson and NEC tout their support for NTT DoCoMo’s multivendor NFV deployment
Ericsson and NEC both came out as vendor partners for NTT DoCoMo’s network functions virtualization plans, including the telecom giant’s recently announced multivendor NFV platform.
Ericsson said its platform is based on the Open Platform for NFV network architecture and was used for NTT’s commercial service launch late last week, which the vendor claimed was the first of its kind. The platform is said to provide interoperability and connectivity with any “carrier class virtualized network function” and software-defined networking solution. Ericsson said it also provided system integration and support services for the deployment.
Anders Lindblad, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Unit Cloud & IP at Ericsson, says: “We believe our mutual experiences from the (OPNFV) network architecture will accelerate global standardization and interoperability,” explained Anders Lindbald, SVP and head of Ericsson’s Business Unit Cloud and IP. “We will continue to bring cost effective network operation and flexible, dynamic resource management for them.”
NEC said the NTT deployment also included its NFV solution made up of its virtualized evolved packet core and virtual network function manager. The VEPC is said to virtualize the LTE core network functions, including the mobility management entity, serving gateway and packet data network gateway, with a VNF manager from NEC subsidiary NetCracker handling creation, activation, termination and updating of VNFs.
NTT DoCoMo previously stated its NFV launch would help support stable network operation by improving connectivity when data volume is high, as well as following natural disasters or in the event of hardware failures. The technology is also expected to accelerate delivery of new services by enabling software from multiple vendors and hardware to be combined openly in a mobile network.
“To maximize benefit of NFV, DoCoMo expects to virtualize many other key components of its mobile network, aiming to eventually establish a fully virtualized network,” explained Seizo Onoe, EVP and CTO at NTT. “I’m convinced that our multi-vendor NFV is the first step toward our goal.”
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