eBooks

A FierceTelecom eBrief HOW SERVICES VIRTUALIZATION IS EATING THE WORLD June 2017 3 Javier Garcia-Norro, SDN strategic portfolio manager, NFV infrastructure at Ericsson, comments: "It's a fact that all carriers are today embracing SDN and NFV. Each of them is running at its own pace. Most of our customers have started with virtualized evolved packet core (vEPC), closely followed by virtual IP multimedia subsystems (vIMS)," continues Garcia-Norro. "is has been done to deploy additional capacity into the network and to gain experience; it allows service providers to shift their investments away from legacy investments earlier." Looking at Nokia's NFV clientele, Kindt says nearly half of its contracted projects are for voice over LTE (VoLTE) and voice over WiFi (VoWiFi) services, with functions ranging from IMS to EPC. e remainder is mostly split across the three areas of mobile packet core capacity growth, IP routing, and network applications (charging, messaging, subscriber data management, deep packet inspection, etc). Yet he adds that vertical services are also moving to NFV: "We've won a few initial contracts for public safety, large enterprise and government cloud deployments. In the SD-WAN cases, we also see virtual security devices as well as WAN optimization devices as virtual functions that are some of the early virtual functions to be deployed." Kindt comments that operators began by deploying single supplier systems, obtaining the hardware, VNFs and Management and Orchestration (MANO), plus a few third party VNFs from them. Now, "For Tier 1 operators, we're seeing a trend towards multi-supplier deployments (ie, fourth party), where operators split the VNFs and MANO between competitors, as was always the goal of NFV," he says. e top four operators in the Nokia Telco Cloud index study 2017 are all moving towards a vendor- agnostic approach when it comes to the cloud, Kindt notes. "Meanwhile, Tier 2 and Tier 3 operators typically purchase the MANO and VNFs from a supplier (and its partners), but purchase the hardware from the same supplier or purchase it themselves." Yet Kindt adds: "Even though there is an increase in the focus of MANO, the Nokia Telco Cloud Index study shows that even the leaders have only reached as far as orchestrating 10% to 15% of their virtualized services and there is a lot of room for improvement." ENTHUSIASM FOR CHANGE On how operators are deploying VNFs in their NFV architectures, Jacobfeuerborn comments, "Step by step, starting with simple VNFs not requiring complex orchestration, then moving towards more complex services". He adds: "As expected, this is not a simple transition happening overnight. I expect that it will take up to five years to complete this journey." Meanwhile, DeCapite comments that enthusiasm is there for fast change: "I don't know if operators will ever get to 100% virtualization, but the industry is virtualizing network functions at a very rapid rate. Virtualization makes service deployment much faster, "Even though there is an increase in the focus of MANO, the Nokia Telco Cloud Index study shows that even the leaders have only reached as far as orchestrating 10% to 15% of their virtualized services and there is a lot of room for improvement." Stefan Kindt, head of cloud market development at Nokia "As expected, this is not a simple transition happening overnight. I expect that it will take up to five years to complete this journey." Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, CTO at Deutsche Telekom Continued on page 5

• Cover