Orange has started working with Red Hat in a bid to boost its network virtualisation efforts.
The two companies said they wanted to build a new kind of agile infrastructure to support faster implementation and scaling of services to customers.
Orange will start using the vendor’s OpenStack Platform for its network function virtualisation infrastructure (NFVi) deployments and both companies will also work with open source projects to explore new solutions for customers.
The France-based operator said the platform would make it easier to integrate virtual network functions from a range of vendors.
Both companies also hope to build on work they have done recently with the OpenStack community on the integration of its BGP VPN project and its reference implementation, dubbed BaGPipe. This aimed to help operators interconnect infrastructure-as-a-service, NFV datacentres and businesses by using industry-standard routing hardware.
[Read more: MEF joins ONAP to accelerate open source virtualisation]
Christian Gacon, Vice President, Wireline Networks and Infrastructure, Orange, said: “We are keen to spearhead development for technology platforms that can power our future networks, like OpenStack, and are teaming closely with Red Hat to drive innovation in open communities to help shape them in line with real-world requirements.
“Red Hat, as an open source solutions leader, is then able to seek to bring that innovation to production-ready fruition in its Red Hat OpenStack Platform. Our joint work on the BGP VPN project is a great example of an important piece of networking technology that we are enhancing for modern communications, as the industry strives towards more dynamic, agile and self-adaptive networks.
“As we work on an industrial roll out of NFVi, we are confident that standardizing on open source can bring interoperability to the ecosystem for large, scalable cloud environments.”
Speaking at SDN NFV World Congress last month, Orange’s Emmanuel Bidet, VP, Convergent Networks Control, said virtualisation offered the operator an opportunity to transform its business and processes.