Goal is to allow operators embracing SDN and NFV to reduce costs and speed-up development of new businesses
HONG KONG–Huawei has released a new solution designed for SDN/NFV testing dubbed TestCraft at the company’s Operations Transformation Forum 2017, which takes place in Hong Kong this week. The vendor said that the new offering, which is based on Huawei’s testing-as-a-service (TaaS) platform, will help customers reduce test costs and accelerate new business development.
According to Huawei, operators are expecting more from SDN/NFV technology to achieve greater agility, potential revenue opportunities and higher resource efficiency for potential cost savings. However, these benefits can only be achievable after solving operational, performance and availability uncertainties caused by the multi-layer nature of an SDN/ NFV architecture.
The Testing as a Service (TaaS) solution provides alternatives to address the critical challenges by adopting a methodology model for multiple dimensional testing supporting the various purposes of SDN/NFV in different life cycle phases of the system development, testing, implementation and operations, the vendor said.
Huawei highlighted that TestCraft has four dimensions: full network functions and network services coverage, multiple test domains for carrier grade, service life cycle support and automation and agility.
TaaS can be supported in three models: TaaS on premises, TaaS on cloud, and TaaS at Open Labs. Operators can choose a different TaaS service depending on their own testing demands, the Chinese vendor said.
“Our TestCraft offering will take full advantage of the test technology experience and take full account of the complex characteristics of the telecommunication network. Furthermore, we make innovations on the test methodology, test architecture, test process and test delivery model, to provide leading professional testing services for our operator’s network”, said Jacky Hu, general manager of SDN/NFV consulting & integration services at Huawei.
Huawei has completed interoperability cross-verifications/certificates with 60 partners for its TaaS solution. The vendor has already issued 47 technical certificates to partners, and achieved 15 third-party certificates from three partners in the Cloud Open Labs, the executive added.
Huawei has started to focus on NFV testing approximately two years ago, the company’s marketing director of SDN/NFV integration services, Richard Wong said. The executive added that certain markets such as Europe, Middle East and Latin America are experiencing a high adoption of SDN/NFV.