Nokia Networks joins NFV party

Nokia has joined World+Dog, pitching a Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) platform and announcing that it will be going live with a “major operator” by the end of 2014.

In particular, the incredible shrinking Finn is touting its “telco cloud” solution's support for voice-over-LTE, which it reckons will help carriers automate the network functions needed to roll out VoLTE services.

The vendor says its offering is the first solution that complies with ETSI's NFV end-to-end VoLTE service architecture.

NFV is the carrier-grade white-boxing of the network build, its aim being to leverage the growing packet processing power of Intel silicon to wean carrier networks off their addiction to proprietary kit. Instead, something like (in the case of VoLTE) a voice network becomes a bunch of software modules spread across however many white-box servers the network needs.

The other key chunk of Nokia's current release is a preview of its Nokia Cloud Network Director, an orchestrator that also claims ETSI compliance. The orchestrator will “automatically deploy, configure, optimise and repair a set of virtualised network functions”, the company says.

The Nokia Cloud Network Director will, the company says, have open northbound interfaces so it can plug into the operations and business support systems (OSS/BSS) already in place in carriers.

Naturally, there's also a certification program that'll let third-party software vendors prove that their own functions can work with the Nokia Networks telco cloud solutions (with a focus on quality and security, the company says). ®