TelecomTV TelecomTV
  • News
  • Videos
  • Channels
  • Events
  • Network Partners
  • Industry Insights
  • Directory
  • Newsletters
  • Digital Platforms and Services
  • Open RAN
  • Cloud Native Telco
  • Telcos and Public Cloud
  • The Green Network
  • Private Networks
  • Open Telco Infra
  • 5G Evolution
  • Access Evolution
  • Edgenomics
  • Network Automation
  • 6G Research and Innovation
  • Security
  • More Topics
  • Network Partners
  • Industry Insights
  • Directory
  • Newsletters
  • |
  • About
  • Contact
  • |
  • Connect with us
  • Digital Platforms and Services
  • Open RAN
  • Cloud Native Telco
  • Telcos and Public Cloud
  • The Green Network
  • Private Networks
  • Open Telco Infra
  • 5G Evolution
  • Access Evolution
  • Edgenomics
  • Network Automation
  • 6G Research & Innovation
  • Security
  • Connect with TelecomTV
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Help
  • Contact
  • Sign In Register Subscribe
    • Subscribe
    • Sign In
    • Register
  • Search

Overture Networks

Overture Networks

Deploying NFV at the network edge for extra agility

Ian Scales
By Ian Scales

Jun 26, 2015

via Flickr © dullhunk (CC BY 2.0)

via Flickr © dullhunk (CC BY 2.0)

NFV specialist Overture is claiming bragging rights to enabling the first carrier-class, ‘pure play’ NFV solution at the edge of the network with US cloud carrier Masergy.  Those qualifications - pure-play, edge. carrier class - are the important elements here as up to now most early NFV deployments and NFV activity generally has been in or aimed at the data centre. Classic NFV as we first imagined it.

The Masergy deployment is - in this phase - aimed at virtualizing services right at the edge of the network in the customer’s premises in fact, using (warning - acronym soup up ahead)  Overture’s Ensemble Carrier Ethernet, Brocade’s Vyatta 5600 vRouter and Fortinet FortiGate-VM firewall virtualized network functions (VNFs), all running on the Overture 65vSE VNF compute node platform and all based on the Intel Atom processor.

The idea is to virtualise a rag-tag of separate boxes which would otherwise have to be shipped and installed on the customer premises - onto a single x86 platform, all neat and tidy and, most important, updateable by the carrier (without a truck-roll). By the same token the box is directly configurable by the customer - best way might be to think of a box split down the middle with the carrier network occupying one side and the customer network on the other. This is virtualized CPE, but not sitting in data centre.

So why not? Why not have the CPE virtualized at scale in the core network?

According to Overture co-founder, Prayson Pate, interviewed by TelecomTV at Network Virtualisation and SDN World in London recently, if the costs work out right then virtualizing functions in the core is a logical way to go, but sometimes there are real good reasons to distribute the CPE functions to the edge. “You can’t virtualise the last mile, you can’t virtualise fibres, and you can’t virtualise spectrum. At some point you need some sort of physical access to reach the end user.” he said. “And there are applications which call for functionality right at the edge of the network, for example WAN optimisation. If you have a centralised headquarters and you have to have a lot of data go over a sub-rate pipes you need to have optimisation there. Security is another one. Many customers are concerned about having unencrypted data leave their site.” This all argues for distributed virtualized CPE at the edge, says Prayson.

The other big advantage of the Masergy solution, of course, is that oft-mentioned agility. Masergy will be able to turn up or turn off services for its customers, on the box without having to send out either an engineer or a new box.

We’ll be hearing some more from Prayson on agility and NFV in a soon-to-be-published video feature on virtualisation come 2025.  Keep watching.

Related Topics
  • Analysis & Opinion,
  • Brocade,
  • Business Models,
  • Enterprise,
  • Intel,
  • News,
  • NFV,
  • Overture Networks,
  • Policy & Regulation,
  • SDN,
  • Transformation

More Like This

SDN NFV World Congress

Will NFV inevitably grow its own SDN capabilities?

Oct 27, 2015

NFV

Overture signs up new NFV players to Harmony. Now has 23 members

Sep 7, 2015

Cisco Systems

The Path to Service Provider Transformation, sponsored by Cisco. What will the industry look like in 2025?

Jul 30, 2015

Demo Zone

Proof of Concept: Real-World NFV Performance

Jul 1, 2015

NFV

Benchmarking the next test for virtual network functions

May 5, 2015

Email Newsletters

Stay up to date with the latest industry developments: sign up to receive TelecomTV's top news and videos plus exclusive subscriber-only content direct to your inbox – including our daily news briefing and weekly wrap.

Subscribe

Top Picks

Highlights of our content from across TelecomTV today

0:46

The Cloud Native Telco Summit returns this September!

8:32

Azita Arvani on Being a Female Leader at Rakuten Symphony

16:19

AT&T Amy Zwarico on securing telco applications in the public cloud

1:44

Join us for the greatest industry debate of the year!

TelecomTV
Company
  • About Us
  • Media Kit
  • Contact Us
Our Brands
  • DSP Leaders World Forum
  • Great Telco Debate
  • TelecomTV Events
Get In Touch
[email protected]
+44 (0) 207 448 1070
Connect With Us
  • Privacy
  • Cookies
  • Terms of Use
  • Legal Notices
  • Help

TelecomTV is produced by the team at Decisive Media.

© Decisive Media Limited 2023. All rights reserved. All brands and products are the trademarks of their respective holder(s).