Network Services Platform enables Carrier SDN,
allowing operators to provision services in seconds, cut
development time and costs by over 50%, and increase
revenue-generating traffic
PARIS, May 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Alcatel-Lucent
(Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is bringing the dynamism of the
cloud to service provider IP and optical networks with its new
SDN-based Network Services Platform (NSP). The industry's first
fully unified approach to service automation and network control
empowers service providers to deliver a simplified, on-demand,
end-user experience.
According to industry analyst firm ACG, the Alcatel-Lucent
Network Services Platform streamlines definition of new services,
allowing innovative offerings to be designed more than 58% faster
and with at least 56% fewer resources than has been possible
before. Once defined, the new services can be provisioned
instantaneously across multiple layers, domains, and networking
vendor platforms. In addition, Bell
Labs research shows that operators are also able to support
24% more revenue-generating traffic by using sophisticated
algorithms to intelligently distribute new connections across their
network.
To thrive and quickly deliver high-quality network services in
today's cloud-driven environment, operators are faced with many
challenges. Development and provisioning of services is a
laborious, time-consuming process, and long-cycle, offline network
engineering makes it difficult for service providers to prepare
their networks to meet their customers' dynamic needs. On-demand
services need to be delivered instantaneously with a real time
understanding of the network.
The Network Services Platform bridges the gap between service
design, provisioning and network engineering for the first time, to
allow operators to cost-efficiently define new services and
activate them in real-time. Using purpose built SDN-based software
that blends Alcatel-Lucent's expertise in service management as
well as in the creation and management of large scale IP/MPLS
routing and optical networks, it offers a unified approach to the
automation and control of a broad range of services in carriers'
IP/optical infrastructures. It also gives full visibility of the
state of the network across all layers at all times, allowing
automatic multi-layer service provisioning, to use the best
available network resources as well as real-time network
optimization.
The 24% increase in revenue-generating traffic is made possible
by innovative new technology from Bell
Labs and its consulting group that allows service providers
to manage their network more efficiently. Self-tuned adaptive
routing algorithms use information such as link traffic and use, in
addition to network topology and state, to establish the most
efficient transportation path. For example, service providers can
move paths to avoid network congestion or dynamically release
locked bandwidth to allow additional customer services to be
added.
About the Network Services Platform
The Alcatel-Lucent Network Services Platform is the industry's
first fully-unified software solution that:
- addresses market demands in the most holistic way. Today's
Carrier SDN platforms only address a portion of today's IP/optical
networks, and a fraction of the functionality required. They all
lack the necessary integration to unify service automation with
network automation.
- allows operators to define and deliver profitable, on-demand
network services across multiple network layers, quickly,
cost-effectively and at scale.
- combines network-aware service automation and service-aware
network optimization by leveraging a unified real-time network view
across IP and optical networks
- automates complex multi-vendor IP/optical provisioning so
operators can turn up services in seconds instead of days or
weeks
- reduces network complexity on IT so new network services can be
defined more than 58% faster and for 56% lower cost
- enables real-time network-wide path computation and
optimization across IP and optical layers. KPI/analytics-driven to
optimize the network to meet the changing traffic needs of deployed
services
- allows operators to support 24% more revenue-generating traffic
by using sophisticated path computation algorithms to intelligently
distribute new connections across their network
- can provision IP, Ethernet and Optical services across all
network layers over any vendor's equipment, and in hardware-based,
virtualized or hybrid networks
- will be commercially available in June
2015
- leverages Alcatel-Lucent's expertise in IP and optics,
including proven code from the 7750 Service Router family, 1830
Photonic Service Switch and 5620 Service Aware Manager as well as
extensive knowledge of SDN technologies.
Quotes
Rob Shakir, BT End-to-End Network
Architect said: "In order for SDN to mean we can really improve our
customer experience and impact our network economics, we need
approaches that consider the real-time state of the network and
relate it to the requirements of the service we provide. Doing so
allows us to assure performance, and optimise resource usage across
all our network layers. Tightly coupling service requirements and
performance with network control, as in ALU's NSP, promises to
deliver real-world benefits of centralised optimisation whilst
exploiting the strength of our existing distributed network."
Dana Cooperson, Research
Director, Network Software and Virtualisation, Analysys Mason said:
"End-users want the cloud experience for everything they do that
requires a network connection. However, delivering on-demand
services while efficiently managing network resources is a huge
challenge for service providers, particularly with their business
customers. Alcatel-Lucent's NSP solves this demand-supply dilemma
by combining service automation with network traffic engineering
across the IP, MPLS, Ethernet, and optical layers, a comprehensive
approach to carrier SDN. The company is leveraging its experience
in unifying the service and transport layers through its Service
Aware Manager and going to the next level with NSP: bridging the
services-resource gap and enabling efficient use of network
resources in the face of dynamically changing, on-demand network
service requests."
Paul Parker-Johnson, Practice
Lead, Cloud & Virtual System Infrastructures, ACG Research
said:
"The NSP is a uniquely complete service definition and
management platform supporting a blend of streamlined service
definition with a powerful mediation engine that automates
deployment of those services in a multi-layer, multi-vendor WAN.
Using a mix of optimization and management technologies hardened
over 1000s of operator deployments, as well as important protocol
and data modeling standards being widely adopted in large scale
cloud and operator infrastructures, the NSP advances the state of
the art in wide area service automation with the functionality it
supplies in a single unified solution. It will undoubtedly be a key
ingredient in turning many operators' WANs into agile service
delivery platforms."
Basil Alwan, president of
Alcatel-Lucent's IP Routing and Transport business said: "I am
proud of what the NSP team has created, working closely with our
customers and leveraging our in-house expertise in IP/MPLS, optics
and service-aware network management. We have created a simple
interface that can deal with the complexity of network control
across multiple technologies. We built it from the ground up to
enable a true carrier SDN that allows our customers to thrive in
today's cloud-driven world."
Key Links:
- Alcatel-Lucent Applications Note: "Alcatel-Lucent Network
Services Platform: A unified approach to automation and control of
IP/optical networks"
- ACG blog: "Carrier SDN: Creating networks as agile as the
cloud"
- ACG Whitepaper: "Building Networks as Agile as the Cloud:
Harnessing the Intelligence of Alcatel-Lucent's Network Services
Platform for Multi-Layer, Multi-Vendor SP Network Services"
- Youtube video (playlist): NSP demo
- Product website: Network Services Platform
ABOUT ALCATEL-LUCENT (EURONEXT PARIS AND NYSE: ALU)
Alcatel-Lucent is the leading IP networking, ultra-broadband
access and cloud technology specialist. We are dedicated to making
global communications more innovative, sustainable and accessible
for people, businesses and governments worldwide. Our mission is to
invent and deliver trusted networks to help our customers unleash
their value. Every success has its network.
For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on:
http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the
Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow
the Company on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.