The network functions virtualization market received a boost today as the European Telecommunications Standards Institute and the Open Networking Foundation announced a strategic partnership to further the development of NFV specifications.
The organizations noted that the agreement will focus on how software-defined networking can enable forwarding-plane support for some NFV use cases.
“In particular, our two organizations will collaborate on the means to build dynamic, programmable virtualized network function forwarding graphs,” the organizations explained in a press release. “ETSI’s NFV [Industry Specifications Group] has launched a call for NFV proofs of concept and published a PoC framework. ETSI is now keen to see PoCs that employ both NFV and SDN and showcase the benefits of both technologies.”
Connected with the partnership, ONF released its OpenFlow-enabled SDN and NFV “solution brief” providing ideas for carriers in combining NFV and SDN on their networks.
Standards have been a growing focus of the SDN and NFV community as developers look for ways to ease deployment concerns from operators. RCR Wireless News recently spoke with Peter Jarich, VP of consumer and infrastructure services at Current Analysis, and Neela Jacques, executive director of OpenDaylight Project, to glean insight into the current virtualization space. Topics of the conversation included the growing demand for virtualization capabilities from carriers; operational benefits expected from increased used of virtualization; the impact standards and open source will have on deployment; and challenges that remain for carriers in deploying virtualization products across legacy network operations.
RCR Wireless News also conducted a webinar on the topic, with Jarich and Rick Aguirre, president of Cirries Technologies, delving into the virtualization, NFV and SDN topics from both an analytical and business-side point of view.
Bored? Why not follow me on Twitter?
