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FierceWireless.com 6 5 M AY 2 0 14 M AY 2 0 14 FierceWireless applications to thousands of users, telecom infrastructure must support millions of real-time audio and video packet streams across a wide geographic area. And that is why the underlying platform for telecom SDN and NFV must deliver the performance expected by telecom solution developers and their network operator customers. Stringing together a bunch of enterprise servers may provide scalability but that is not a guarantee of performance. In fact, discussions are now happening in the marketplace about different types of virtualized platforms. The discussion originally started just with a hypervisor and now, the conversation has extended to on how to optimize other key requirements in real-time media stream processing. The use of DPDK on Intel x86 infrastructure is no secret, but NFV platforms must also embrace other technologies such as SR-IOV and OVS-DPDK to ensure a platform can deliver on telecom performance – especially for high throughput NFV and SDN data plane requirements. The dynamic nature of a wireless network, with its large number of subscribers and applications, coupled together with end users that are always on the move is complex in and of itself. However, overlaying this on a virtual network further increases this complexity. Therein lays the importance of load balancing in NFV architecture. In order to keep track of subscribers and what they are doing to ensure the appropriate services are delivered is important. But when that same dynamic must then deal with infrastructure that is dynamically scaling in an elastic mode (i.e. Virtual machines being rapidly created and deleted), load balancing becomes all the more vital. Load balancing has historically been used to distribute traffic across physical network elements and those same principles are even more critical in a virtualized telecom platform environment. The underpinnings of SDN and NFV are found in the positive benefits of Enterprise IT virtualizing their core applications running on COTS hardware. But to fulfill the promise of SDN and NFV requires a class of COTS platform with telco-grade reliability and performance, including improved data plane throughput and virtualized function management. Telecom solution developers, by partnering with platform suppliers that specialize in addressing these unique challenges, can accelerate their virtualized network function solutions and programs, thereby delivering the benefits of SDN and NFV to their mobile and network operator customer — faster. l SDN and NFV are exciting topics in today's conversation about transforming networks. The transformation will deliver a number of benefits including accelerated service deployment, flexibility, lower CAPEX and most importantly, lower OPEX. The origins of NFV are rooted in the telecom industry observing their enterprise IT brethren and seeing the improved equipment utilizations afforded by virtualization. However, moving telecom infrastructure to enterprise data center equipment will not necessarily get operators where they want to go, as they have telecom specific requirements that must be met. A couple of the key telecom requirements that stand out include reliability requirements, regulatory requirements associated with NEBS and of course, performance. Performance is of utmost importance to the operator and its subscribers. Unlike enterprise infrastructure that might support website and CRM/ERP data Telco-grade Platforms for SDN/NFV BY E RIC GR EGOR Y - DIR EC T OR , P L AT F OR M M A N AGE ME N T A ND SOF T WA R E Sponsored Content Performance is of utmost importance to the operator and its subscribers. and those will most likely be on a limited basis as operators put one or two use cases to the test under real-world conditions in live networks, the firm said. BILLIONS & BILLIONS OF DOLLARS Strategy Analytics says SDN will exceed $25 billion per annum by 2018 and could grow as high as $35 billion annually. The research firm also says SDN is a key element in closing the "backhaul gap," or the gap between today's level of spending on backhaul and the level required to deliver ongoing premium Quality of Experience (QoE) as traffic demands continue to escalate. Over at ACG Research, analysts project purchases of SDN products by service providers for use in live deployments will reach $15.6 billion by 2018. Uptake will occur in essentially equal amounts in four principal domains: the data center, edge, metro and core. SDN software will comprise about 20 percent of the total service control applications comprising a larger portion of the overall software spend by 2018 than SDN controllers. A number of seminal factors likely crossed the threshold to propel SDN into the spotlight now, said ACG analyst Paul Parker-Johnson. For one, it's become technically and economically possible to create the abstracted control protocols and adapt them to multiple types of underlying types of physical equipment. In short: "A lot of barriers were overcome," he said. While vendors are at different levels of openness, Parker-Johnson said he has been surprised at vendors' overall willingness to let go of their hard-core proprietary ways. "I think people get it that customers aren't really backing down in this case. There's a genuine drive to leverage the capacity because customers aren't slow in the head, they get it that it's feasible now and they're saying, 'If you're not going to do it, I will find someone else who will.' Nothing gets a vendor's attention faster than a customer who says no." l "NFV and SDN don't care what the transport is if it's all virtualized." SUE RUDD, DIRECTOR OF SERVICE PROVIDER ANALYSIS AT STRATEGY ANALYTICS Click to enlarge

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