• Verizon rolls out OpenStack cloud deployment across five US data centres
• Collaboration with Big Switch Networks, Dell and Red Hat
• Expansion to edge network sites planned by end of year

US telco Verizon has completed what it claims is the industry’s largest known Network Function Virtualization (NFV) OpenStack cloud deployment across five of its US data centers. It began the project in 2015, and says further deployments are currently in progress in additional domestic data centre and aggregation sites, with international locations to be deployed over the next several months. It says the design also will be adopted in edge network sites by the end of the year.

Verizon worked with Big Switch Networks, Dell and Red Hat to develop the OpenStack pod-based design, and to validate the resiliency of the NFV design at scale, the partners constructed and tested large scale test beds mirroring the production design, leveraging the open source community.

“Building on our history of innovation, this NFV project is another step in building Verizon’s next-generation network, with implications for the industry,” said Adam Koeppe, VP of network technology planning at Verizon. “New and emerging applications are highlighting the need for collaborative research and development in technologies like NFV. We consider this achievement to be foundational for building the Verizon cloud that serves our customers’ needs anywhere, anytime, any app.” 

The project is based on OpenStack with Red Hat Ceph Storage. The multi-vendor deployment uses Big Switch’s Big Cloud Fabric for SDN controller software managing Dell switches, which are orchestrated by Red Hat OpenStack Platform.

“With the open source leadership of Red Hat, the SDN expertise of Big Switch and the infrastructure, service and support at scale from Dell, this deployment demonstrates a level of collaboration that sets the tone for the Open Networking ecosystem,” said Tom Burns, VP & GM, Dell Networking. “This is just the beginning.”