While an established player in the virtualization software world, VMware sees new opportunities for NFV in the telecom market.
On this week’s NFV/SDN Reality Check we speak with Gabriele Di Piazza, VP of products and solutions for VMware’s Telco NFV Group, about the company’s growing focus on telecom-based software solutions, including software-defined networking and network functions virtualization.
VMware is a subsidiary of Dell Technologies and best known as a provider of cloud and virtualization software and services targeting x86 architecture. A recent report from IHS Markit touted VMware as one of the top vendors in terms of market share in the SDN market serving data centers and enterprise local area networks.
Last month, VMware bolstered its position in the OpenStack software market with the purchase of some assets from Plumgrid. Details on the deal were scarce, but VMware did acknowledge it closed on a deal to acquire certain IP assets from Plumgrid as well as taking on “a number of employees.”
Highlighting its growing interest in the space, VMware recently joined the Open-O Project as a “premier” member and said it will participate in the organization’s governing board, and technical steering and marketing committees. Open-O was founded early last year in an effort to guide an open source approach to orchestration for software-defined networking and NFV work being conducted by networking companies. Initial partners included Brocade, China Mobile, China Telecom, DynaTrace, Ericsson, F5 Networks, GigaSpaces, Huawei, Infoblox, Intel, KT, Red Hat, Raisecom, Riverbed and ZTE.
Di Piazza provided some insight into the firms view on the pace of development and deployment of NFV-based systems targeting the telecom space; what have been some of the bigger challenges facing the ongoing development and deployment of NFV-based platforms by telecom operators to this point; what benefits telecom operators are garnering from the deployment of NFV into their network operations; and what impact open source has had on the ongoing development and deployment of NFV by telecom operators.
Thanks for watching this week’s show, and make sure to check out our next NFV/SDN Reality Check when we speak with Orange Business Services on the value of software-defined wide area networks.
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