Next Generation Communications Blog

Cloud

Here Comes the Cloud: How to Cut Service Creation Time & Grow Revenue

By: Tony Kourlas, Director of Carrier SDN and NMS Product Marketing in the IP Routing & Transport Group, Alcatel-Lucent

The cloud era is here -- do you think your network is ready? As a network operator, you will need to deliver on-demand network services that are just as dynamic as the cloud services that now dominate network traffic. You face many challenges in making this happen.

But a new study from ACG Research shows you can achieve this quickly and profitably with advancements that are available now. Their analysis of the new Alcatel-Lucent Network Services Platform in a national network scenario showed you can cut service creation time, generate more revenue, and achieve significant ROI very quickly.

Answering the Question, 'What's up with the data center network?'

By: Peter Bernstein, TMCnet Senior Editor

In the search for more knowledge about the incredible pace of innovation and change that is driving major network transformation by enterprises and service providers; it is always a good idea to review the postings of those on the front lines.  This is why the recent blog by Marten Hauville, Principal Solutions Architect (ANZ) for cloud networking specialist Alcatel-Lucent’s Nuage Networks  business unit and Co-Organizer of the Australian OpenStack User Group, caught my attention.

Hauville in his blog raises and answers a timely question, “What’s up with the data center network?” 

New network service platform adds agility to cloud computing

Guest blog: Paul Parker-Johnson, leader of cloud and virtual system infrastructures practice at ACG Research

Alcatel-Lucent has developed its Network Services Platform (NSP) as a unified solution for creating agility in delivering network services. NSP brings efficiency and flexibility to the front-end problems of new service creation and the immediately downstream problems of operating those services efficiently and intelligently in a multilayer, multidomain, multivendor network. It does so in a unified and holistically designed solution.

Remarkable gains have been made in the cloud computing community to create and deploy new services efficiently and at scale. It’s also true that a significant impediment to service delivery is the rigidity of networks we deploy and processes used to define and instantiate services being offered.

A great deal of energy has been expended in recent years to enhance the flexibility of networks. Solutions have begun to appear that address parts of the problem, but to date they have been constrained to a particular function or domain and haven’t actually solved the whole agile service delivery problem for networks.

Until the Alcatel-Lucent NSP.

Video Shows How Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Actually Works

By: Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor

Rarely does a video about network functions virtualization (NFV) captivate your attention like the one that Alcatel-Lucent recently uploaded about service innovation and lean operations in the context of NFV. Sometimes NFV can be a challenging concept to get your head around, but the video breaks it down with clear visuals and none of the PowerPoint that usually puts you to sleep.

If you haven’t seen the video you can watch the embedded version below. But also let me explain what the video is talking about.

Metro Networks Must be Optimized in Multiple Dimensions

By: Dave Brown, Product Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent

From original TechZine Article

Metro network transport platforms must be compact, scalable, and agile to conquer the specific challenges of this key portion of the transport network. Growing and shifting traffic in the metro has triggered these challenges.

Today’s cloud-optimized metro network transport platforms “must” be:

  • Compact – with optimal power and performance in a form factor that meets metro operational cost targets
  • Scalable – to have the capacity you need when you need it to aggregate and transport multiple, high-performance services
  • Agile and intelligent – to dynamically reconfigure network resources to get services to your customers faster

5 areas OpenStack needs help to support NFV

By: Andreas Lemke, Marketing Lead, CloudBand NFV platform, Alcatel-Lucent
From original Alcatel-Lucent TechZine posting

OpenStack isn’t an as-is solution for telco network functions virtualization (NFV) infrastructures. OpenStack is an open-source cloud management technology that provides many of the capabilities needed in any NFV environment. And this has prompted interest among many telco service providers.

But to realize the full benefits of NFV, service providers need NFV platforms that provide additional capabilities to support distributed clouds, enhanced network control, lifecycle management, and high performance data planes.

Cloud DVR Network Impact Deeper than You Think

By: Roland Mestric, Director, Video Solutions Marketing, Alcatel-Lucent

From original Alcatel-Lucent TechZine posting

This article provides guidance on network architecture choices for operators considering introducing the time-shifted TV services provided by cloud digital video recording (DVR) solutions. Time-shifted TV services include catch up, restart, pause live TV, and personal recordings. The same guidance applies to those wanting to deliver subscription-based VoD services—either their own or those of partners[1].

Forward thinking providers are already concerned that the coming wave of unicast traffic generated by popular on-demand video services will affect the delivery network from end to end. Clarifying the potential impact of these services on the network is vital as the ramifications could be significant.

Why Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Calls for a Distributed Network Architecture

By: Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC

There’s no question that the network functions virtualization (NFV) technology around which many telecommunications carriers and vendors are rallying takes a page from the virtualization that already has taken hold in IT data centers. But you can’t judge a book by its cover. NFV and IT virtualization also have their differences.

One key difference is that while data center virtualization tends to rely on a centralized architecture, NFV calls for a distributed one, Andreas Lemke, marketing lead for the CloudBand NFV platform at Alcatel-Lucent, points out in a recent TechZine posting by Andreas Lemke, Marketing Lead, CloudBand NFV platform, Alcatel-Lucent titled, Why distribution is important in NFV.

Why Carriers Are Embracing NFV, and What They Should Demand of These New, More Agile Environments

By: Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, TMC

Service providers are undergoing a sea change.

Their networks, which traditionally have been based on turnkey network elements running software on purpose-built hardware, are moving to a software-centric model. In this model the true value lies in the software, while the hardware is typically of the commercial-off-the-shelf variety.

Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is the name of this new architecture, which not only embraces the model of instituting network functionality in software and running it on industry-servers, but also allows applications and services to leverage those resources whenever and wherever they are.

NFV INSIGHTS: The right SDN is right for NFV

By: Roland Mestric, Director, Video Solutions Marketing

It feels like it was just a few months ago when you could read articles in the trade press lumping together SDN and NFV with NFV being a form of SDN or vice versa.  Yes, both somehow are about virtualization and about converting hardware into software. Today – after numerous proofs-of-concept run by service provides around the globe – we know the role of SDN as virtually indispensable for NFV solutions that aspire to deliver the kind of agility and operational simplification we all expect from NFV. Only SDN can deliver quickly enough the (virtual) networks needed for newly deployed network functions. Alcatel-Lucent has recently demonstrated a complete virtual evolved packet core (vEPC) including a virtual IMS/VoLTE deployed in less than 30 minutes.

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