-- Agreement builds on existing collaboration and successful
Virtualized Service Router trial to apply new technologies that
enable efficiencies and support evolution to meet new services
demands
PARIS, July 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Alcatel-Lucent
(Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) and Telefónica have signed a
memorandum of understanding under which the companies will test NFV
(network functions virtualization) technologies as part of the
operator's strategy to evolve its networking infrastructure. The
work will focus on enhancing network performance and efficiencies
to support ever-growing demand for flexible connectivity.
Telefónica has already tested Alcatel-Lucent's Virtualized
Service Router in its NFV Reference Lab using the OpenMANO NFV
orchestration stack. The results delivered were outstanding,
reaching 100% line-rate performance which allowed data to be
transported with zero losses. The companies will continue testing
other elements of Alcatel-Lucent's NFV portfolio in the coming
months.
The new MoU renews and expands the companies' February 2014
agreement which announced the application of Alcatel-Lucent's
CloudBand™ platform to advance NFV implementation. Under the new
agreement, Alcatel-Lucent and Telefónica will investigate how
mobile networks can be transformed to meet demands being placed on
them by the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications
and increased customer connectivity.
NFV offers new efficiencies and automation to simplify network
operations, allowing service providers to increase innovation and
offer new revenue-generating services with a consistent high
quality end-user experience, while lowering costs.
Key Facts:
- Alcatel-Lucent and Telefónica share the same vision for the
evolution of networks towards the 2020 horizon, where NFV plays a
major role.
- As part of their collaboration, at Mobile World Congress 2015,
Alcatel-Lucent and Telefónica jointly demonstrated Alcatel-Lucent's
mobile solution as part of a fully virtualized network, including
the vRAN, vCDN, vEPC and vIMS. Telefónica also took part in a
four-way video-conference using the Alcatel-Lucent virtualized
mobile network including VoLTE.
- More recently, the Alcatel-Lucent Virtualized Service Router
has delivered outstanding performance results during testing in
Telefónica's NFV Reference Lab with 100% line-rate performance
(zero losses). The VSR is designed to operate in any virtualized
environment. Because it is supported by the same Alcatel-Lucent
Service Router Operator System and managed by the 5620 Service
Aware Manager, service providers such as Telefónica can seamlessly
deploy it alongside hardware-based routers.
- Next steps in lab testing will be to test the VSR in a
production environment as well as testing other elements of
Alcatel-Lucent's NFV portfolio including the virtualized evolved
packet core, virtualized Session Border Controller and the
vCPE.
- Alcatel-Lucent and Telefónica announced plans in 2012 to
streamline the operator's OSS using Alcatel-Lucent's
Motive® Automated Operations & Recovery service
assurance. Under the scope of the collaboration agreement, the
companies will investigate use of the Motive Dynamic Operations
portfolio to extend the OSS capabilities to a virtualized network
environment.
- Alcatel-Lucent has proven leadership in both wireless networks
and virtualization, and has already introduced technologies to
virtualize a wide range of network functions, including the evolved
packet core (vEPC), IP Multimedia Subsystem (vIMS), Content
Delivery Network (vCDN) and service routing (VSR), and demonstrated
its vRAN solution at Mobile World Congress 2015.
- Alcatel-Lucent's NFV leadership is underpinned by its
application of the CloudBand NFV platform in over 30 customer
projects – and via its CloudBand Ecosystem Program, consisting of
over 60 members, including Telefónica. The company is also levering
its extensive Nuage Networks SDN capabilities including the
Virtualized Network Services (VNS) and Virtualization Services
Assurance platform. In May this year Alcatel-Lucent launched a
carrier SDN platform that unifies service automation with network
optimization – the Network Services Platform.
Quotes:
Enrique Blanco Global CTO, Telefónica, said: "We are pleased to
continue our work with Alcatel-Lucent on the use of NFV
technologies to transform future networks. We have already
seen an outstanding performance in the testing of Alcatel-Lucent's
VSR, showing that it delivers comparable performance to
hardware-based routers. Use of these technologies will open up new
opportunities as we continue innovating to exceed our customer's
expectations."
Michel Combes, CEO of
Alcatel-Lucent, said: "As innovation leaders, Alcatel-Lucent
and Telefónica are aligned on our goal to transform the future of
mobile networks. We have a comprehensive portfolio of NFV
technologies that can be used to optimize networks and meet the
ever-growing connectivity demands of the future."
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.