NXP and China Mobile finish virtualization networking trial
NXP Semiconductors announced it finished a virtualization networking trial with China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC) with its virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE) solution. The solution completed laboratory and field testing in Beijing and Shanghai. NXP reports the test went smoothly, achieving initial success within the realm of network functions virtualization (NFV).
NFV is an initiative that has taken the telecom industry by storm, which involves virtualizing network services that conventionally ran on proprietary hardware. Among the key advantages of NFV include the ability to spin up services automatically, while reducing operating expenses (OPEX) and capital expenditure (CAPEX). According to a report by IHS Markit, the global NFV market is expect to be worth approximately $15.5 billion by 2020.
As part of the trial, NXP’s vCPE solution supplied virtualization and application software solutions for the China Mobile Virtualization network project. Equipped with NXP 64-bit Arm V8 processor, the LS1043A and four Arm V8 cores, the vCPE can be used for network packet analysis, data encryption/decryption, traffic management, ingress traffic classification and distribution, according to the company.
“High volume software-centric designs place more of a burden on general purpose compute resources on the processor. This increases CAPEX for vCPE solutions compared to dedicated hardware, and hinders broader adoption until OPEX savings can overcome marginal CAPEX growth. NXP sees growing interest from customers looking to take advantage of Arm’s solutions and vibrant ecosystem, which presents an opportunity to achieve more efficient NFV deployment,” Nikolay Guenov, senior director of product management at NXP Semiconductors, told RCR Wireless News.
“Additionally, we’re seeing demand throughout North America, Europe and Asia from customers looking to virtualize the network. NFV enables the capability of rapidly performing zero touch provisioning of new subscriber services in the cloud at the provider edge of the network, and in managing a diverse array of devices on premises.”
According to NXP, the vCPE solution was developed to work in harmony with China Mobile Access Networks through the China Mobile Cloud platform. It supports virtualization technology and isolation between services in order provide security and reliability of the edge computing gateway system. Using China Mobile’s business scheduling system and cloud platform, users can perform deployments, update configuration and lifecycle management on remote edge computing gateway equipment.
