We recently collaborated with Gabriel Brown from Heavy Reading on both a roadshow and white paper around SDN and NFV. In the white paper – Software Centric Networks: A Migration Path to NFV – Gabriel discusses the practical steps that allow operators to move towards implementing an NFV-capable cloud platform. He explains that in order for the shift to SDN and NFV to happen, these practical steps must occur to achieve a non-disruptive migration to the new architecture.
Radisys shares this approach and it was well-received by audiences during our recent seminar series: Deployment Strategies for an NFV Network. Gabriel joined us at these events and presented this useful guide during his presentation, which he calls the ‘5 Steps to Get Started with NFV’:
- Identify applications & use-cases
- E.g. control-plane vs. data-plane; Parallel EPC for M2M; New deployments vs. refresh, etc.
- Proof-of-concepts, techno-economic studies, & trial deployments
- Demonstrate that NFV works and will be cost effective; Generate proof that VNFs perform sufficiently well to be deployed into live network
- Impact assessment on legacy elements & processes
- Integration is critical, especially with OSS/BSS systems; understand how life-cycle management will change and evolve>
- Make interim platform decisions (identify integrators & vendors)
- Which hardware? Which management/orchestration platform? Decide how much the operator will do itself, and where to use integrators
- Create an organisation to operate and evangelize this new service
- To sell NFV internally and to accumulate experience from the “crawl phase” to direct network evolution through the “walk” and “run” phases
Number 4 above is where Radisys can provide sound advice. In discussions with our customers, it is clear that the motivators for virtualizing the network are to reduce CapEx and OpEx costs, combined with the ability to rapidly roll-out new revenue-generating services. This is where reliable, scalable COTS server hardware and Load Balancing can be leveraged. I encourage you to read Gabriel’s paper and contact me so that I can share some more insights on how to make the telecom cloud a reality for your organization.
