IHS report found only a small percentage of telecom operators are running IMS in NFV environments
IP multimedia subsystems are seen by many as a stepping stone into the world of network functions virtualization, although a recent report from IHS found just 8% of global service providers are currently running IMS network elements in an NFV environment.
The research firm noted that while the current deployment trends are small, the benefits of running IMS in a virtualized environment are leading telecom operators in that direction.
“Though only a small number of service providers who took part in our IMS strategies survey are currently running IMS in a virtualized environment, more are on the path by starting to utilize software running on commercial off-the-shelf hardware as a stepping stone to full NFV,” said Diane Myers, research director for VoIP, UC and IMS at IHS. “One of the biggest drivers for NFV is the ability to scale services up and down quickly, and introduce new network services more efficiently and in a timely manner, which makes IMS a good early fit for NFV.”
IHS found that 80% of service providers surveyed said they expect part of their IMS elements will be running in an NFV environment by 2017, although the research firm said it found those claims “somewhat optimistic.”
Of current services being run over IMS, the survey found between 60% and 65% of respondents are running voice over broadband, SIP trunking or hosted business voice over Internet Protocol services today, with that number expected to hit 88% by 2017. Of those surveyed, 72% said they have installed voice application servers over their IMS deployments.
Among top IMS vendors, the IHS survey found Huawei, Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent as those named most by telecom operators.
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