Software-defined networking has been a buzzword in the telecom sector for a while now, but one question continues to go largely unanswered: Which carriers are actually using the technology? Industry observers have heard a great deal about the potential benefits of SDN, but the time is rapidly approaching for providers to start producing tangible results. Early adopters of SDN have begun to see their investments pay off, announcing the first successful forays into telecom SDN. With early results starting to roll in, we can finally identify a number of telcos that have launched SDN solutions as well as the resulting benefits:
Telecom Italia partners with Cisco for SDN deployment
One of the most pressing issues facing the telecom sector is the need to enhance the quality of service delivery while simultaneously broadening a carrier's reach and cutting back on operational costs. That's a pretty tall order, but as Telecom Italia found out, SDN is more than up to the challenge. Working with five major Italian universities, the carrier deployed Cisco's SDN solutions, enabling OpenFlow support across its shared network resources. By doing so, Telecom Italia engineers can more readily and easily make changes to the network on a software level instead of altering the hardware components directly.
Officials from Telecom Italia have highlighted two specific benefits in the wake of their SDN deployment. The first is the opening of the northbound interface between the OpenFlow controller and its applications, leading to new IT innovations. By granting engineers greater control over these assets as well as the capacity to dynamically manage them, Telecom Italia can introduce a number of new processes that will improve the performance of its internal channels as well as the quality of service delivery. For instance, the pairing of monitoring and automation capabilities can both streamline network traffic and enable engineers to divert resources when needed. Automation will significantly improve baseline operations, knocking down barriers and accelerating traffic speeds. Meanwhile Telecom Italia officials can oversee the entire network and allocate bandwidth to account for surges in localized demand, resulting in more efficient distribution of resources and happier customers.
Paolo Fasano, broadband network services innovation manager at Telecom Italia, explained that SDN will also decrease the carrier's reliance on manual maintenance and operations. Removing the human element in many instances will enable the telco to scale back its labor costs while retaining a high level of performance. Over time, this capability will result in a healthier bottom line for the organization.
"Creating a software model of the network would reduce the amount of human intervention needed, in turn improving service profitability," Fasano said. "We think this is the right approach to assess SDN-based networks."
China Telecom, Huawei launch joint-SDN solution
Huawei and the Beijing branch of China Telecom recently announced that they had successfully aligned SDN capabilities with the latter's Internet data center systems. Huawei has a great deal of experience in this field, making it an ideal partner for achieving what the pair have claimed is the first commercial implementation of SDN for carrier use.
Since completing the deployment, Beijing Telecom has been able to develop a wide variety of new services to improve network performance and delivery. Many of these applications are focused on monitoring features. For instance, "DC-keeper" enables engineers to track and report on traffic trends and situations with great detail. This information can then be used to help Beijing Telecom officials determine how to best utilize their network resources to meet user demand and avoid costly bottlenecks.
"The service-centric IDC network architecture effectively meets service customization requirements of tenants, improves IDC resource utilization and operations and optimizes network O&M efficiency, giving Beijing Telecom a competitive edge on the IDC market," Huawei stated.
SDN allows for low-cost, dynamic network creation
At the end of the day, many carriers are interested in SDN because of the technology's promise to reduce costs and improve service quality. NTT Communications' Arcstar Universal One Virtual Option service is designed to precisely meet those demands. Using the NTT Com Business Portal, users can launch new network assets in short order, substantially reducing the amount of time needed to make necessary changes to current configurations. The telecom has stated that clients can cut that time by as much as 80 percent after deploying Arcstar Universal One Virtual Option. Furthermore, because the configuration process has been streamlined and requires much less labor to execute, carriers can reduce related costs by 60 percent in some cases.
Mitigating signaling storms with virtualization
Infonetics Research recently conducted a webinar with multiple industry experts to discuss the benefits of SDN and networks function virtualization deployment in the telecom sector. Ericcsson project manager Stephan Skiba noted that poor network conditions can lead to a number of mundane but frustrating problems for mobile users. For instance, if latency issues lead to call setup times taking longer than expected, then the voice timer will engage, resulting in incoming calls going straight to voice mail without the user realizing he or she even received a call.
Another pressing issue that Skiba highlighted was mitigating signaling storms. Mobile networks face much larger data demands than in years past, placing major strains on available resources. When too many users attempt to lean on their carrier's infrastructure to run apps, the network can become overburdened with mobile signaling. If these conditions are not alleviated, assets will be quickly depleted and an outage may ensue. If SDN is deployed within an environment where carrier-grade virtualization has permeated the entire stack, engineers will have the control needed to scale up network performance and effectively neutralize signaling storms before they can wreak havoc. Although the webinar speakers did not cite any specific carriers that are currently using SDN in this fashion, the potential to repel signaling storms is likely to draw the attention of plenty of telecoms.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for SDN deployment. As the year progresses, more carriers will undoubtedly announce their successful implementations of this advanced technology.
