Operator prioritizing NFV MANO
Proximus, Belgium’s largest telecommunications company, has selected Cloudify’s cloud-native orchestration platform in its push toward network functions virtualization (NFV). Proximus will leverage Cloudify’’s platform to provide management and orchestration (MANO), and assist with onboarding and deploying virtualized network functions (VNF).
NFV has been heralded as an effective way to pump out a steady stream of network services while slashing operating expenses (OPEX) and capital expenditure (CAPEX). The process involves decoupling software from hardware, allowing service providers to spin up network functions on inexpensive nodes automatically. According to a report from IHS Markit, the global NFV market is expected to be worth $15.5 billion by 2020.
As with many virtualization initiatives, the aim of Proximus’s adoption of Cloudify’s platform is to transform its hardware networks into virtualized, cloud-native domains. The company intends to use Cloudify’s cloud-native orchestration platform to better respond to shifts in market trends, deploy additional services, boost network security and promptly scale network services in response to customer needs.
“We’re lowering the adoption barriers for NFV by leveraging open source software that accelerates VNF onboarding while reducing technology risk, said Nati Shalom, CTO of Cloudify. “Working with Proximus, we’re deploying [a]…technology stack that is community-supported and interoperable with multiple cloud environments. As a result, Proximus will have better control of their destiny, costs and competitive advantage.”
Although NFV has taken the telecom industry by storm, the shift lacks proper oversight. Cloudify claims its platform is the only open source NFV MANO based on TOSCA standards, which uses multi-VIM interoperability capabilities, according to the company, with in-build support and blueprints for OpenStack and VMware. In addition, it includes extensibility for hybrid stacks, workloads, microservices and disaster recovery applications in public clouds.
“We’re lowering the adoption barriers for NFV by leveraging open source software that accelerates VNF onboarding while reducing technology risk,” said Nati Shalom, CTO of Cloudify. “Working with Proximus, we’re deploying an NFV technology stack that is community-supported and interoperable with multiple cloud environments. As a result, Proximus will have better control of their destiny, costs and competitive advantage.”
Proximus’s NFV adoption project originally took flight last year, and is currently in the design, VNF onboarding and acceptance-testing phase, reports the company. Cisco, F5, HPE, Palo Alto Networks, Red Hat, Spirent and Tech Mahindra are also participating in the project. Proximus plans to provide virtualized production services to its customers by 2018.
