Hitachi’s focus is squarely on virtualization of the control plane with its recently announced, fully virtualized MME/SGSN that supports the NFVI. It is an evolution of the existing ATCA-based MME/SGSN that was introduced after Hitachi acquired Nortel’s EPC assets.
The control plane is a good candidate for virtualization in mobile networks, as the processing requirements are intense, and performance benefits from the dynamic allocation of hardware resources. Within the control plane, a virtualized MME/SGSN can help mobile operators to deal with the increase in signaling loads, which is due to the high level of signaling generated by application-based and power-saving background activity from smartphones, and by M2M applications.
In a virtualized network, Paul Boudreaux says, “An operator [can] buy and deploy servers without a specific application predetermined, and decide in real time what to deploy, and deploy it in minutes. As opposed to, “Oh, I’m now out of MME capacity and I need another ATCA chassis; I’ve got to order that. Well, that’s a three-week lead time; we’ve got to get that deployed – oh, that’s another three- to four-week lead time to get cabling done.” Now you can build out your server farm, decide on your engineering cycle what you need when, and elastically grow your network to suit your demands.”
The benefits of virtualization go beyond flexibility in allocation of network resources. We talked to Paul about the way virtualization will also change the cost structure and deployment models for operators, as well as the way they operate their networks.
This conversation will be included in the Senza Fili report “The emergence of the NFV ecosystem: Laying the foundation for a new way to run mobile networks” that will be published on October 6, 2014. If you would like to receive a complimentary copy of the report, please click here and you will be the first to receive the report when it is finalized.
