A recent TBR report found AT&T and Verizon NFV and SDN development and deployment plans continue to push virtualization progress
AT&T was tabbed as being furthest along in network functions virtualization deployments, even though telecom rival Verizon Communications is becoming more vocal in its own advances, according to a recent report from Technology Business Research.
In touting AT&T’s progress, TBR also highlighted the telecom operator’s own touting of its moves toward network virtualization technology using NFV and software-defined networking. The research firm explained AT&T has been aggressive in its deployments, citing its AT&T Integrated Cloud, Network on Demand and its enhanced control, orchestration, management and policy project, which AT&T said is designed to automate network services and infrastructure running in a cloud environment.
“AT&T’s strategy with respect to these initiatives is to gain the benefits of NFV as quickly as possible,” noted TBR executive telecom analyst Michael Sullivan-Trainor. “AT&T hopes to work out the technical options in initial deployments, then scale those deployments across its footprint before finally federating the solution.”
Sullivan-Trainor said AT&T’s aggressive rollout plans ahead of some standardization work are somewhat reliant on the industry adopting common platforms for critical functions, “which is why AT&T is promoting open source solutions and may, in turn, share parts of its internal solutions with the open source community.” This method is expected to allow AT&T to “achieve substantial benefits from NFV deployments within the next two years, including lower spend and increased revenue.”
As for Verizon, TBR found the telecom operator has been highlighting its work on managed software-defined WAN, virtual network security solutions and cloud interconnect through its Secure Cloud Interconnect platform. The carrier is expected to further boost those options this year with SDN WAN multitenant, NFV orchestration and NFV hosting.
Verizon was also cited for being tough on the vendor community, with TBR noting criticism from Verizon on “incomplete orchestrators, not delivering on multitenant solutions capabilities, providing ‘gray’ boxes (ones that still contain proprietary designs) rather than true commodity white boxes and not fully addressing service assurance.” The carrier has also been critical of suppliers charging for “every increment of new software functionality added to” a solution rather than business value from end-customer benefits; and “to understand that delivery options for the solution must be aligned to the service provider’s needs, not the vendor’s.”
Verizon’s efforts also look to be targeting support for “5G” technology plans, with indications the carrier is “looking at aligning NFV/SDN to fulfill 5G requirements and planning to move its wireless network services closer to the edge of the network using NFV.”
Bored? Why not follow me on Twitter
