The Journey to NFV

Today’s cloud services need greater performance, flexibility, and adaptability from the networks that support them. The exponential growth of data and devices—including the expected explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT)— along with business needs for cloud-driven agile solutions, demand that networks respond faster, be more flexible, and cost less.

“Enterprises want to benefit from the efficiency and agility of cloud architecture and on their own terms – using the public cloud offerings, deploying their own private cloud, or both. The result is pent-up demand for software-defined infrastructure. Intel is investing to mature SDI solutions and provide a faster path for businesses of all sizes to reap the benefits of the cloud.”

Diane Bryant, SVP & GM, Intel’s Data Center Group.

The Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) initiatives redefine how network equipment delivers control and forwarding services within the data center. SDN disintegrates traditional network equipment architecture by separating the networking control layer, where decisions are made, from the data plane that provides forwarding services. Doing so, SDN provides a framework for Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and enterprises to design softwaredriven, innovative networking applications and run them on cost-effective standard high-volume servers (SHVS).

Control commands are passed from servers to data plane devices, where forwarding is carried out. NFV allows networking functions to be run on virtual machines, creating highly flexible and adaptable network resources that can be quickly deployed as needed to fulfill changing demands within the cloud data center. By disintegrating control and data planes and introducing virtualization into the network, SDN and NFV enable development of more responsive networks that can meet the needs of today’s cloud computing at lower cost.

The challenges of deploying Open Source into large scale carrier networks

Since the inception of NFV ‘openness’ has been the mantra for the global industry, in the first instance for the carriers and then later the vendor ecosystem. More recently there has been increasing emphasis on Opens Source in carrier networks. The big question here has to be, “Isn’t the concept of deploying Opens Source in carrier networks completely counter-cultural and technologically counter-intuitive to the service provider community and thus a negation of everything they have done and been doing in the development of their networks over many years. Why is Opens Source suddenly so all-fired, important to service providers and couldn’t it actually be a case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?

Featuring:

  • Francisco Javier Ramon Salguero,, Head of Virtualization, Telefonica, GCTO
  • Sorabh Saxena, Senior Vice President, Sotfware Development & Engineering, AT&T
  • Chris Wright, Chief Technologist, Red Hat
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The challenges of deploying Open Source into large scale carrier networks

Since the inception of NFV ‘openness’ has been the mantra for the global industry, in the first instance for the carriers and then later the vendor ecosystem. More recently there has been increasing emphasis on Opens Source in carrier networks. The big question here has to be, “Isn’t the concept of deploying Opens Source in carrier networks completely counter-cultural and technologically counter-intuitive to the service provider community and thus a negation of everything they have done and been doing in the development of their networks over many years. Why is Opens Source suddenly so all-fired, important to service providers and couldn’t it actually be a case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?

Featuring:

  • Francisco Javier Ramon Salguero,, Head of Virtualization, Telefonica, GCTO
  • Sorabh Saxena, Senior Vice President, Sotfware Development & Engineering, AT&T
  • Chris Wright, Chief Technologist, Red Hat
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