KDDI and China Mobile move forward on NFV PoC, SDN cloud deployments
Proof-of-concepts continue to be a major focus of vendors and operators looking to test the bounds of virtualized network components. The latest to join the PoC fray are Wind River and Japanese telecom operator KDDI, which announced plans to participate in a PoC targeting automated operation for network functions virtualization test beds.
Wind River said the test uses its Titanium Server as a foundation for demonstrating the deployment of virtual network functions. Previous testing by KDDI R&D Laboratories showed full automation of the operational flow for both mobile equipment and fixed-line facilities.
“For example, the demonstration includes management control systems that can automatically and immediately perform failure recovery for defects in software-based functions or virtualized platforms,” the companies noted.
Wind River earlier this year partnered with China Mobile on a number of NFV projects, including an NFV test lab, and worked on developing virtualized small cell gateway and cloud radio access network solutions. The test lab was based on the Open Platform for NFV Project launched last year, which is looking to develop a “carrier-grade, integrated, open source reference platform intended to accelerate the introduction of new products and services” tied to NFV.
China Mobile deploys Nuage Networks’ SDN platform
China Mobile’s Software Technology Co. also recently deployed Nuage Networks’ SDN technology in its development and operations private cloud architecture to support the deployment of cloud-based services.
Nuage, which is part of Alcatel-Lucent, said the deployment is designed to unify China Mobile’s existing distributed networking environments, with each subsidiary allocated its own virtual private cloud of resources located across one or multiple data centers.
Alcatel-Lucent earlier this month scored a pair of contracts with China Mobile and China Unicom valued at $1.3 billion to provide mobile and fixed “ultra-broadband access,” IP routing, optical networking, NFV capabilities and SDN technology from Nuage.
A recent report from ACG Research, sponsored by Affirmed Networks and VMware, found mobile operators would begin saving money on NFV deployments within the first year and realize an investment payback within three years; adopting a virtualized evolved packet core can reduce capital expense by an average of 68% and operating expense by 67%; and that the deployment of virtualized network components can happen within six months, compared with an average of 15 months for traditional network hardware, resulting in a quicker time to market and return on investment.
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