At Mobile World Congress Shanghai, HP and NEC announced the two companies will collaborate to accelerate communications service provider (CSP) adoption of network functions virtualization (NFV) technology.
NFV offers a new way for CSPs to design, deploy, and manage networking services. By decoupling the network functions from proprietary hardware appliances, CSPs can accelerate the introduction of new, compelling services quickly and cost-effectively.
When fully integrated, NEC will be able to offer its virtual network functions on the HP OpenNFV Platform, including HP Helion OpenStackR Carrier Grade, providing a pre-validated solution that will deliver the reliability, scalability and performance CSPs require.
Pre-validation will include proof-of-concept testing to verify NEC’s virtual network functions integrate properly with HP industry standard infrastructure products. The resulting offering will feature an open architecture aligned with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute NFV Industry Specification Group (ETSI NFV ISG) Standard, allowing telecom operators the flexibility to scale or add new services.
“NFV technologies enable flexible, scalable, and operationally efficient service deployment that will transform conventional network operations,” said Atsuo Kawamura, senior vice president, NEC Corporation.
“NEC has a track record of expertise in commercially delivering SDN/NFV solutions for mobile and fixed networks. This collaboration with HP will help us further strengthen our NFV solutions portfolio to help CSPs bring new innovative services to market more quickly and efficiently.”
The integrated offering will encompass HP hardware, including HP servers, networking and storage products. Availability is targeted for later this year. Additionally, the companies plan to develop a joint NFV reference platform to demonstrate NEC virtual network functions and management software on HP OpenNFV infrastructure in OpenStack and Linux KVM environments.
“CSPs are looking for ways to easily implement NFV technology,” said Werner Schaefer, vice president, Network Functions Virtualization, HP. “Our collaboration with NEC is intended to create more open environments for customers, meeting their desire for faster deployment at a lower cost, continuing our commitment to enabling increased adoption of NFV technology.”
