Amdocs NFV targets service providers managing both physical and virtual features
Amdocs continues to dip its toes into the network functions virtualization (NFV) market. The company recently unveiled Amdocs NFV powered by Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP), which oversees the lifecycle of virtual network functions. According to the company, its NFV is “a portfolio featuring modular capabilities that accelerate service design, virtualization and operating capabilities on demand.”
Service providers can use technologies in ONAP to create their own networks with a set of services. As a founding creator of various ONAP modules, Amdocs is equipped with modules like Amdocs Service Design and Create. Amdocs NFV powered by ONAP leverages open source networking technology, and can be deployed either on-premises or in the cloud using modern DevOps adoption techniques, according to the company.
More and more service providers are embracing NFV and software-defined networking (SDN), but the migration won’t happen overnight. Management systems are still under development to support a chimera of native and virtual functions. In an effort to smooth the transition, the company said it will allow service providers to test and verify virtual services on ONAP’s open source platform. Rather than require service providers to install various network features, users can test these virtual services in the cloud. The company said its NFV powered by ONAP will be available later this year.
“Amdocs brings unique expertise derived from working with ONAP’s early adopters, including North American carriers that include Bell, and European carriers such as Orange, to help service providers drive value from virtualization and this offering lays the framework for additional carrier-grade enhancements as the ONAP code matures,” said Gary Miles, general manager at Amdocs.
“Open source brings unparalleled agility and innovation to the market. In such a dynamic environment, it is important that the industry is able to package open source contributions into a mature capability set for live network operations. This is what we have achieved with the Amdocs NFV powered by ONAP professional portfolio,” he added.
Amdocs isn’t the only company seeking to boost NFV and SDN deployment with the ONAP project. Last week at the Open Source Summit, for instance, Vodafone Group, one of the world’s largest services providers, announced it had joined ONAP as a platinum member. The company said it joined the open source community to help accelerate the adoption of SDN and NFV.
