Intel and Oracle have claimed to have successfully demonstrated carrier-grade NFV, suggesting that communications service providers (CSPs) can deploy virtualisation in commercial environments without sacrificing performance.
The project involved using Intel’s Open Network Platform using OpenStack infrastructure, and Oracle’s orchestration software. Oracle claimed that during the demonstration, researchers were able to orchestrate services and network functions by intelligently directing network activity to an Intel processor, without a degradation in network speed or reliability.
Oracle said the demo opened up the possibility of deploying carrier-grade virtualisation in commercial data centres. It added that such network orchestration could work on any network vendor’s equipment, meaning lower operational costs for CSP while also lending support to a multi-vendor environment for NFV.
Liam Maxwell, VP of Products at Oracle, said: “This initiative does more than just optimise Oracle Communications products for the Intel Open Network Platform. It takes the theory of delivering carrier-grade capabilities in a commercial data centre and turns it into reality.
“We’ve proven that we can orchestrate services and network functions from the top of the management and orchestration (MANO) stack all the way to individual network processors, and we can do it at scale.”
Oracle added the demonstration underlined the importance of orchestrating network functions “at the processor-attribute level”, in order to offer adaptability for virtualisation software while at the same time maintaining performance levels.
Dana Cooperson, Head of Telecoms Virtualisation Research at Analysys Mason, said: “NFV resource orchestrators need awareness of infrastructure inventory and capability as well as network function requirements in order to match the two for optimal cost and performance.
“Oracle and Intel have achieved noteworthy platform awareness with this project. Intel contributed broadly to the OpenStack Enhanced Platform Awareness Initiative, and now Oracle is the first to actually harness this capability as a function of its intelligent orchestration framework.”
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