Vendor giants HPE and Samsung are set to work through the HPE OpenNFV Partner Program on open and pretested NFV and VNF products
Telecom operators looking to deploy network functions virtualization technologies can now opt for a package deal from vendor giants Samsung and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
The agreement sees Samsung joining HPE’s OpenNFV Partner Program as a “carrier-grade network equipment provider.” The firms said they will partner on providing carriers with integrated NFV infrastructure and virtual network functions solutions pretested for multivendor environments and based on an open architecture.
Specifically, Samsung said it will provide VNFs for mobile networks, including virtualized evolved packet core, virtualized internet protocol multimedia subsystem and VNF managers, with HPE supplying its OpenNFV platform and NFV management and orchestration solutions. The companies will jointly run go-to-market strategies with third-party solutions already verified by the HPE program.
“Together, the solutions will help carriers accelerate their transformation from networks built on monolithic, proprietary appliances to more agile cloud-based networks enabled by NFV,” the companies noted in a statement.
HPE earlier this year unveiled its Service Director platform, which the company said taps automation to foster interoperability for managing services in NFV deployments and existing physical environments, and builds on its NFV Director’s Management and Orchestration capabilities.
Samsung recently joined the Open Network Operating System project’s central office re-architected as a data center platform, which also includes members AT&T, Verizon Communications, China Unicom, NTT Communications and SK Telecom, as well as vendors like Ciena, Cisco, Fujitsu, Intel, NEC, Google, Radisys and Nokia. The CORD initiative, formed in early 2015, focused on accelerating the adoption of open-source software-defined networking and NFV solutions for service providers using open-source platforms like ONOS, OpenStack, Docker and XOS.
A recent report from IHS Markit found 81% of service providers surveyed said they plan to deploy NFV by the end of next year, with 100% of those questioned indicating they will deploy NFV “at some point.” Showing the market’s desire to roll out platforms, the survey also found that 58% of operators have deployed or will deploy NFV this year.
“Many carriers in 2016 are moving from their NFV proof-of-concept tests and lab investigations and evaluations to working with vendors that are developing and productizing the software, which is being deployed commercially,” the firm noted.
These early deployments are expected to focus on virtualized enterprise customer premise equipment, which has seen increased importance over the past several years. IHS noted these deployments are favored due to the ability to “assist with revenue generation because it allows operators to replace physical [Customer Premise Equipment] with software so they can quickly innovate and launch new services.”
In terms of continuing challenges, IHS found integrating NFV into existing networks remains an issue for a majority of service providers surveyed, with many citing a lack of “carrier grade” products. That concern is similar to what was expressed in an IHS survey from last year, which supplanted previous concerns over operations and business support systems.
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