NFV orchestration to bolster CenturyLink’s enterprise customers
Regional telecommunications provider CenturyLink said it plans to tap Cyan for its Blue Planet NFV Orchestrator to provide network function virtualization-based services to CenturyLink’s enterprise customers.
The deal calls for Cyan to supply the orchestration platform for the telecom operator’s Programmable Services Backbone software solution that is designed to allow enterprise customers to scale services as needed. The companies said the platform will bridge multiple technologies to “instantiate virtual network functions from multiple vendors,” which is seen as a core tenant of virtualized platforms.
Cyan noted that beyond multivendor support, its Blue Planet platform can coordinate with physical and virtual network resources, and interconnect virtual functions such as firewalls, encryption, deep-packet inspection and routers in support of service chaining.
Cyan was part of an NFV demonstration last year sponsored by CenturyLink that also included RAD, Fortinet and Certes Networks working together on a European Telecommunications Standards Institute NFV ISG-approved multivendor proof-of-concept. The demo was based on RAD’s dedicated customer-edge distributed NFV equipment running Fortinet’s Next Generation Firewall and Certes Networks’ virtual encryption/decryption engine as virtual network functions with Cyan’s Blue Planet system orchestrating the entire ecosystem.
Cyan last year announced that its Blue Planet platform will support products from Cisco Systems and Juniper in a move to allow customers to “automate, manage, inventory and provision Ethernet services across networks” using the Cisco and Juniper platforms. Cyan noted the move was important in supporting operators deploying multivendor solutions for their virtualization needs. The company said it is able to provide this support through the development of “element adaptors,” which it describes as “pieces of software that interface to third-party network elements using whatever standards-based protocols are available to mediate between those network elements and Blue Planet.”
Cyan said at that time that the industry needs to move toward a standard method of interfacing with southbound network equipment, noting that such an arrangement could be made using OpenFlow, which Cyan currently uses, or a standard from OpenDaylight, which Cyan said it would adopt.
Bored? Why not follow me on Twitter
Photo copyright: / 123RF Stock Photo
