Nuage Networks projects highlight progress toward network slicing with data center SDN
The long-term vision of 5G includes network slicing–using virtualized network functions and software-defined networking (SDN) to enable operator networks to automatically create service-specific data pipes that precisely meet the needs of a particular application. Enterprise users get the ability to quickly deploy new services and operators make the most efficient use possible of network and spectral resources.
While the vision of network slicing is still some ways off, the addition of increasingly advanced SDN solutions to data centers around the world demonstrates the incremental progress toward the ultimate goal.
Nokia’s Nuage Networks, which specializes in SDN solutions, recently worked on data center transformation projects with Telefónica in Spain and China Mobile. In both cases, Nuage’s Virtualized Networks Services (VNS) solution was used to provide more elasticity at data center sites. The tool automates network configurations across public, private or hybrid cloud implementations and includes support for virtual machines, OpenStack and Kubernetes containers.
Telefónica is working with Nuage to leverage a 2017 investment in SD-WAN infrastructure. The addition of the VNS solution to further its goal of offering “enterprises the ability to easily order, customize and configure value-added services through a self-service portal for on-demand delivery.” So, closer to end-to-end network slicing, but still dependent on some level of hands-on time.
Joaquín Mata of Telefónica Espana said the operator’s cloud-based architecture lets it “meet the rapidly emerging business requirements for agility and on-demand deployments.” He said the new implementation brings “a highly scalable SDN architecture that could support all our services across all our regions without disruption…Our customers will significantly improve their businesses with these new cloud-based services.”
In China, China Mobile subsidiary China Mobile Communications Company worked with Nuage and Nokia Shanghai Bell to deploy the VSP solution for public and private clouds hosted on more than 1,000 servers in 10 data centers. The China Mobile company can support a mix of workloads automatically with an SDN controller and centralized policy manager.
Co-author of the AFCOM “State of the Data Center 2018” report Bill Kleyman, in a recent piece for Data Center Frontier, called out software-defined networking, Linux container management and OpenStack as new technologies gaining adoption from data center interests and also causing operational challenges, particularly related to sourcing an appropriately skilled workforce.
Kleyman said, regardless of challenges, “Today’s data center is so much more than a building with racks and gear inside of it. With cloud, virtualization, and new solutions, we’re removing the ‘walls’ of the data center and allowing it to become vastly more scalable and important to the business. Take the time to learn a new technology – like cloud – and help your own career as a data center leader take off.”
