The giants of the personal computer world are a force to be reckoned with at this week’s MWC 2014 event, and their agendas are strikingly similar. Intel, Dell and Hewlett-Packard all announced new initiatives this week related to network function virtualization.
Intel is working with Alcatel-Lucent to accelerate the development of three Alcatel-Lucent platforms optimized on Intel architecture: virtualized radio access networks, cloud platforms and high-performance packet processing for advanced IP/MPLS platforms and functions.
“It seems that a year ago everyone was getting on the bandwagon of NFV … and here we are one year later and many, many operators are driving forward with what they believe is a compelling business need,” said Sandra Rivera, market development director at Intel. “There are almost 30 global service providers now participating in NFV in some way, shape, or form,” she said. “We are moving from concepts to trials and in some cases commercial deployments … and market leaders like Alcatel-Lucent are indeed deploying commercial products and solutions.”
Dell is extending its collaboration with RedHat to jointly engineer OpenStack-based NFV and SDN solutions for telecom customers. Dell’s telecom and wireless “evangelist” Franklin Flint says open standards will be key to scalable NFV deployments for carriers.
“The carriers are all trying to find ways to get more efficiency out of their networks and get more flexibility,” he said. “And also to take advantage of all this very advanced technology that has built the cloud data centers, so NFV is their way of doing that, and they are hoping to get as much of the advantage that came from the traditional cloud market as possible, which means adopting open standards and cost-based hardware and as much open architecture as possible.” Flint said that historically, open architectures have led to more innovation and more choice for customers. “You can pick from the best of breed for every solution that you build,” he said.
Dell has strong relationships with wireless carriers as a supplier of servers and other hardware, and the company says it will leverage these relationships to offer its software solutions. At the same time, Flint’s business unit is targeting original equipment manufacturers who are eager to integrate NFV into their infrastructure offerings.
HP also launched an NFV solution this week, focusing on software’s ability to help carriers bring new services to market faster. HP also sees NFV as one way for wireless carriers to reclaim some of the revenue currently lost to over-the-top competitors. According to Ovum, voice-over-IP players will have cost the telecom industry a total of $63 billion by 2018.
“NFV represents one of the most significant shifts the telecommunications industry has experienced in 20 years,” said Martin Fink, executive vice president and chief technology officer, HP. The company has assigned Bethany Mayer to spearhead its NFV strategy. Mayer is SVP and GM at HP Networking.
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