When looking towards advancements in Diameter platforms, many in the industry have pointed towards virtualization. The telecom virtualization space has witnessed significant moves towards the use of software-defined networking, network functions virtualization and cloud in order to help mobile operators gain further network efficiency and increase network agility, and the software-centric nature of Diameter lends itself to such deployment models.
Infonetics Research recently reported it expects Diameter signaling controllers to be implemented as virtual network functions beginning this year, with North American operators and a few European mobile operators leading the charge.
Oracle’s latest Diameter market index predicts Diameter signaling will become more common in virtualized network deployments, as “the ability to virtualize various components provides CSPs with more flexibility in their implementations. Adding more components means adding to the Diameter signaling MPS.”
“LTE innovation is still in the early stages, but it is gaining momentum,” said Doug Suriano, SVP and GM at Oracle. “And we’re looking beyond today’s LTE – NFV is developing, creating a very attractive cloud-based LTE opportunity. The time for CSPs to plan for Diameter signaling growth is now.”
Analysts also see the opportunity virtualization can provide for Diameter plans, noting the scalability and agility expected from virtualized deployments are a good fit for carrier Diameter plans.
“Virtualization is a great option for Diameter,” said Greg Collins, founder and principal analyst at Exact Ventures. “A lot of computing is needed and virtualization offers a lot of advantages in its ability to handle the elastic demand.”
Larger telecom operators appear to be heeding that advice, with vendors noting a growing interest from their customers in platforms with virtualization as part of their roadmap.
“We have some major tier-one operators in Europe sending out RFPs and RFIs for full blown automated NFV architectures,” explained Bill Welch, senior product manager of Diameter signaling controllers at Sonus, who added he has been a bit surprised at the advanced nature of these efforts.
“I did not expect to have these discussions on bringing NFV to market until 2016, so it’s sort of six months ahead of schedule,” Welch said, adding that while advanced in terms of discussion timing, telecom operators are still a bit perplexed on just how they plan on virtualizing their Diameter operations.
“Most of the talks are looking at [capital expense] and [operating expense] savings,” Welch said. “Some are looking at the mobile core first then coming back to Diameter later, but then they come back with RFPs asking about moving first with Diameter. This mostly seems attached to their risk tolerance. If they are starting from scratch and have not had any type of acquisition for a cloud player then they are still scratching their head. But, if they have picked up cloud players or software players they are thinking more about it a move.”
Despite the seeming match between Diameter and virtualization, there remain concerns over the reliability of NFV and SDN deployments, especially in terms of handling something as important to network integrity as Diameter signaling.
“Signaling is really critical and operators are still a bit averse to move from the platforms they know and love to virtualized environment,” Collins said. “A lot of Diameter platforms now are software based and run on third-party hardware so there’s really not much of a stretch to move towards virtualization, but valid concerns remain.”
Welch admitted that those questions are indeed still out there and will likely result in telecom operators dabbling first with virtualizing less mission critical platforms before making the jump to virtualizing their Diameter efforts.
“Probably the first thing we will see will be just in support of Diameter instead of a full blown scalable model,” Welch said.
Check out more insight into the Diameter signaling market by downloading RCR Wireless News’ latest feature report: “Diameter to be tested by data, VoLTE demand; evolve in a NFV, SDN, cloud world.”
Also, check out our webinar on the topic here.
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