VMware launches vCloud NFV 2.0

VMware has announced VMware vCloud NFV 2.0, designed to modernize and transform network architectures and operations for global communications service providers (CSPs). Built from production-proven software-defined infrastructure and management solutions, the vCloud NFV platform can improve economics through accelerated service delivery, operational excellence and lower infrastructure costs. With vCloud NFV 2.0, CSPs will be able to deliver new and differentiated services on an agile, open and secure software-defined architecture today as they evolve their networks to support 5G and the Internet of Things.

VMware vCloud NFV is an ETSI-compliant fully integrated, modular and multi-tenancy NFV platform. The vCloud NFV platform combines a highly available, carrier-grade network functions virtualization infrastructure (NFVI) with Day 2 operations management and service assurance capabilities to drive successful NFV deployments and operations. With vCloud NFV, VMware is delivering openness and choice across the NFV technology stack—NFV infrastructure (NFVI), Virtual Infrastructure Managers (VIM), Virtual Network Functions (VNF) and NFV Orchestration (NFVO) — and continues to advance vCloud NFV interoperability across mobile, wireline, Internet of Things, Software-Defined WAN, and security use cases. As virtualization is a prerequisite to 5G network buildout, VMware vCloud NFV delivers a platform for new service development today, with an architecture that will support CSP implementation of 5G implementation in the future.

“In today’s highly competitive environment, CSPs must deliver innovative services faster, with the best end-to-end customer experience and at the lowest cost. Current network architectures, including some virtualized deployments, remain rigid and expensive to build and manage,” said Gabriele Di Piazza, vice president of solutions, Telco NFV Group, VMware. “With more than 80 NFV deployments by more than 45 CSPs serving 300 million subscribers worldwide, VMware vCloud NFV enables the transformation of network architectures, services delivery, operations and economics through a more dynamic, agile network built on software.”

VMware vCloud NFV 2.0 Simplifies Deployment and Ongoing Operations

VMware vCloud will take advantage of new innovations across VMware’s entire virtualized compute, networking, storage and management portfolio. These will include the newest versions of VMware vSphere with Operations Management, VMware NSX for vSphere, VMware VSAN, VMware vCloud Director for Service Provider, VMware Integrated OpenStack, VMware vRealize Network Insight, VMware vRealize Log Insight, VMware vRealize Operations Advanced, and VMware Site Recovery Manager. VMware vCloud NFV 2.0 will advance three critical areas for CSPs: Service Automation, Secure Multi-Tenancy, and Operations Management while dramatically improving Carrier-Grade Availability.

· Service Automation: vCloud NFV accelerates service creation, onboarding and deployment, and enables policy-based resource and workload allocation across the NFVI. The newest release includes the ability to embed advanced service-centric policies and resource requirements during VNF packaging and automated importing of existing VNF workloads into VMware Integrated OpenStack. The platform will also provide automated recommendations to simplify micro-segmentation deployment through VMware vRealize Network Insight; and enhanced REST API’s to automate management of the NFV infrastructure deployment lifecycle.

· Secure Multi-Tenancy: vCloud NFV helps CSPs achieve complete service isolation in a secure multi-tenant environment across NFVI functions. Now with native integration between vCloud Director and VMware NSX network virtualization, service providers will be able to use micro-segmentation to deploy a programmable network with fine-grained security and role-based, delegated access control for both providers and tenants. As a result, multi-VNFs with multi-services will be able to seamlessly share the same infrastructure, yet have complete isolation from each other.

· Operations Management: VMware vCloud NFV delivers NFVI operational automation with 360-degree visibility along with proactive and predictive analytics to deliver performance feedback and fast remediation capabilities. With the newest release, CSPs will be able to get full visibility of all components within a deployed service across overlay, underlay, virtual and physical environments through vRealize Network Insight. The vCloud NFV platform provides continuous, near real-time data on the health, performance, capacity of network resources, along with prioritized alert notifications for closed-loop integration into resource and service orchestration workflows. Open APIs provide northbound integration with leading service assurance solutions.

· Carrier-Grade Availability: VMware vCloud NFV is a highly available platform providing service continuity in production networks at scale. With simplified infrastructure lifecycle management, service providers will be able to seamlessly upgrade and apply patches with minimal impact to operations and network stability. Advanced high availability (HA) features will enable intelligent and proactive HA based on VNF requirements and platform capabilities. Predictive and network-aware distributed resource scheduler (DRS) will enable proactive and predictive VNF resource monitoring and closed-loop remediation. Performance enhancements will include accelerated packet performance, and improved security hardening will be delivered through VM level encryption and secure boot.

Driving Interoperability through VMware Ready for NFV Program

The VMware Ready for NFV certification provides CSPs with the confidence that VMware partner VNF solutions will seamlessly and effectively deploy, run, and interoperate with VMware vCloud NFV. VMware has now certified 30 Virtual Network Functions from 23 vendors worldwide. VMware’s broad ecosystem of certified VNF partners creates a true marketplace that helps customers remove barriers to successful NFV implementation. The complete list of VMware Ready for NFV certified solutions is available on the VMware Solution Exchange (VSX).

VMware, Intel and Cloudify Sponsor VNF On-Boarding Hackathon at #MWC17

VMware, Intel and Cloudify are hosting an open VNF on-boarding hackathon at Mobile World Congress. The event will start with a 30 minute theater presentation on Wednesday March 1st at 2:30pm CET at the VMware booth (Hall 3, Stand K10). The goals of the hackathon are to raise industry awareness and initiate an industry review of a proposed TOSCA (Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications) based VNF Data Models agreement, provide easy to use tools to assist in the adoption of TOSCA as an NFV blueprinting standard and to begin a web based archive of downloadable TOSCA blueprints for the participant VNFs. The hackathon aims to accelerate cloud-based telecom service deployments by addressing one of the key challenges of NFV; the ease of onboarding Virtual Network Functions (VNFs). Read more about the hack-a-thon in this blog.

Analyst, Customer and Partner Commentary

“We believe that the journey towards virtualization which combines NFV, SDN, and cloud native applications will be more disruptive than the move from circuit switched to packet networking. CSPs will rely on suppliers that have proven deployments to manage risk and achieve the benefits that virtualization promise. VMware is a pioneer in virtualization software and services. It is bringing telco grade solutions to market and complementing such solutions with full lifecycle management with VMware vCloud NFV 2.0. Deployment risk are reduced with VMware’s certification program which brings together a diverse set of VNF ecosystem partners.” – Patrick Kelly, Founder and Principal Analyst at Appledore Research Group.

“Virtualization and SDN are critical enabling technologies that operators need to be successful in the future. One example is the journey towards 5G that requires the richness, flexibility and agility that only software-based network solutions offer. Working with VMware, we have developed a top- of–the-rank virtualisation platform that initially supports live services to real customers. Longer term we are building out an agile and secure infrastructure across multiple countries that enables us to allocate resources dynamically and introduce new services rapidly. VMware vCloud NFV provides us with a mature and proven NFV platform option and new releases like 2.0, demonstrate a commitment to continued NFV innovation.” – Mauro Costa, Director, Network Architecture & Strategy, Telia Company.

“Our goal is to help service providers digitally transform their operations and delivery models with modern infrastructure using common, scalable and flexible building blocks. The combination of Dell EMC with VMware vCloud NFV 2.0 software demonstrates exactly the type of ‘better together’ solutions we’re developing for services providers, helping increase agility and speed while improving their economics.” – Tom Burns, senior vice president, networking, service provider & enterprise infrastructure, Dell EMC.

“We are seeing a broad focus by CSP’s to deploy a virtualized infrastructure to support current network build-outs and prepare for 5G network deployments. Our continued alliance with VMware is designed to accelerate this effort by providing solutions that leverage our expertise and have been proven in real-world commercial deployments. With the introduction of vCloud NFV 2.0, VMware is continuing to demonstrate its support for mobile operators by delivering an open platform they need to efficiently deploy 5G-ready networks.” – Amit Tiwari, vice president, strategic alliances and systems engineering, Affirmed Networks.