Collaboration has been a growing trend in the network virtualization space as vendors search for ways to work together on bringing more robust solutions to the market.
One of the latest moves in this direction was an announcement from Cyan, which provides software-defined networking, network function virtualization and packet-optical solutions for telecom operators, that it would support platforms from Cisco Systems and Juniper in its Blue Planet SDN Platform. Cyan said its platform allows customers to “automate, manage, inventory and provision Ethernet services across networks” using the Cisco and Juniper platforms.
The Cisco platforms supported include its ASR 901, ASR 903, ASR 9000 and ME 3600, with the Juniper platforms include its MX960, MX480 and MX2010. Cyan said its platform interacts with those offerings using standards-based interfaces “such as CLI and NETCONF/YANG.” The support is expected for commercial availability later this year.
Cyan noted the move was important in supporting operators deploying multivendor solutions for their virtualization needs. The company said it was able to provide this support through the development of “element adaptors,” which it describes as “pieces of software that interface to third-party network elements using whatever standards-based protocols are available to mediate between those network elements and Blue Planet.”
Looking ahead, Cyan said the industry needed to move toward a standard method of interfacing with southbound network equipment, noting that such an arrangement could be made using OpenFlow, which Cyan currently uses, or a standard from OpenDaylight, which Cyan said it would adopt.
Recently China Mobile, China Telecom, Telus and Verizon Communications announced plans to work with the Optical Interworking Forum and Open Networking Foundation to test transport SDN in lab environments. Also joining in on the testing are KDDI R&D Laboratories, Orange and the China Academy of Telecommunications Research.
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