Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 20 | Page 32

FEATURE: SDN Virtualising the telecom business Rapid advances in the virtualisation of networks is driving agility in telecom service providers, paving the way for new use cases. By Arun Shankar. S oftware defined networking, network function virtualisation and virtual network functions, represent a revolutionary way of configuring, deploying, and maintaining networks. It also greatly reduces the complexity and time-to-market associated with introducing new services. Planet, that provides a software suite helping network operators with integrated network intelligence within an open and programmable architecture to help simplify operations of virtualised networks. Collectively they present service providers with an opportunity to implement a more programmable and customer- centric infrastructure, where the network easily adapts to dynamic customer needs and requirements. "Our solutions effectively break down the silos once and for all enabling an open, software- defined, multi-vendor network. This effectively reduces vendor lock-in and simplifies the end-to- end creation, automation, and orchestration of services across an organisation’s networks," explains Ravi Mali, Regional Director Middle East at Ciena. One example is global networking vendor Ciena’s Blue In the Middle East region, most telecom service providers that 32 32 INTELLIGENTCIO are planning to virtualise and automate their networks have built specific verticals to launch new services such as, enterprise and SME services, residential services and wholesale services. Each of these verticals may use the same physical network resources, however the virtual services use a different mix of virtual network functions to target specific functionality and price points. Mali stresses that one of the concerns that often arises is that such virtualised network service delivery models are more complex than traditional hardware-based networks. While part of the overall complexity is tied to the number of new www.intelligentcio.com