Ensemble Orchestrator and Connector Excel in NIA’s NFV interoperability tests

MANO Solution and Virtualization Platform Play Key Role in Multi-Vendor Showcase

May 16, 2017

Ensemble, a division of ADVA Optical Networking, today announced its successful participation in the NIA MANO campaign interoperability event and showcase. During the testing, Ensemble demonstrated its award-winning management and network orchestration (MANO) solution, Ensemble Orchestrator, and its high-performance NFV operating system, Ensemble Connector. Both solutions interoperated with technology from multiple product vendors. Ensemble’s NFV platform has been specifically designed to break up vendor lock-in and deliver the highest interoperability in the industry. The latest test results highlight how Ensemble’s open software platform offers complete freedom to deploy best-in-breed virtualized solutions. Organized by the European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC), Ensemble’s interoperability testing involved products from seven different vendors delivering fully virtualized services in a multi-vendor environment. The initial hot staging took place at EANTC’s Berlin laboratories from mid-April to mid-May, with the whole set-up being transported and demonstrated live at the Big Communications Event (BCE) 2017 in Austin, Texas on May 16 and 17.

“We’re all about interoperability. It’s one of the founding principles of our team. From day one, we’ve focused on creating an open and modular framework that frees our customers from vendor lock-in. Our products empower communication service providers (CSPs) to harness innovation, to mix and match the latest and greatest virtual solutions on the market and provide the ideal NFV offering for their customers,” said Irvin Stetter, senior engineer, R&D solutions architecture, Ensemble Division, ADVA Optical Networking. “These events are invaluable for showcasing our work and learning about the key NFV developments in our ecosystem. It’s been great to work closely with so many innovative vendors, all with a firm belief in the importance of interoperability. By participating in this event, we’re all demonstrating our dedication to advancing NFV and enabling customer choice. There’s no better way to prove how easily our technology runs on standard COTS servers and integrates with third-party products than by subjecting it to these rigorous independent trials.”

Engineered to help CSPs achieve major cost savings while quickly responding to new revenue opportunities, Ensemble Orchestrator is a key component of the live BCE demonstration. Its MANO capabilities enable complete lifecycle control of virtualized network services, from VNF onboarding, through service creation to tear-down and resource reclamation. Interoperating seamlessly with third-party software, Ensemble Orchestrator enables operators to easily design and instantiate their own applications to fit their environment. Ensemble Connector also plays a central role in the interoperability tests and BCE showcase. With its carrier-grade capabilities, it succeeded in interoperating with third-party VNFs as a virtualized infrastructure manager. In total, the testing assessed 53 combinations from the seven participating vendors and was able to confirm the remarkable recent progress that has been made with the implementation of NFV.

“This event is about different engineering teams coming together to face the challenge of managing and orchestrating resources in a multi-vendor network environment. Demonstrating that our high-performance FortiGate network security VNFs integrate with virtualization MANO technology like Ensemble Orchestrator highlights the openness and interoperability of the Fortinet Security Fabric,” commented Chris Lopez, group VP, strategic accounts and cloud service providers, Fortinet. “NFV-based services delivered through an open, multi-vendor approach are critical to the future of telecommunications, enabling CSPs to mix and match network components to create the ideal solution for their individual and customer requirements. We are proud to partner with Ensemble as part of its Ensemble Harmony Ecosystem.”