Cloudify Makes NFV Award Shortlists

Cloudify Honored for Groundbreaking NFV Work

Last week, Cloudify and VMware announced our selection by Partner Communications and the privilege we’ve had to assist this leading Israel telco group with delivering an Open vCPE and SD-WAN solution in record time.
Already this work is being recognized for its innovation and excellence in advancing the industry. Cloudify’s work in Open vCPE is standing tall, with *three* award shortlist appearances this fall:

• The Global Telecoms Awards for 2017 has shortlisted Cloudify for its “Ground-breaking Virtualization Initiative” award.
• Likewise, the Network Transformation Awards,  to be presented at the SDN NFV World Congress, has shortlisted Cloudify for highest honors in the category of “Cloud & Carrier Service: Best vCPE/uCPE Enterprise Service.”  (Incidentally, Cloudify also played a role in the the Telstra SEN entry which has been shortlisted as well.)

Watch the video use case

If you would like to learn more, see our Open vCPE Solution page.

What’s all the fuss about? Here’s a brief synopsis:

On March 1, 2017, Cloudify launched a new Open vCPE solution which introduced an orchestration-first approach to NFV adoption. The orchestration-first approach addresses one of the biggest challenges for providers—integrating with existing networks. Since we launched this solution, Partner Communications, tapping Cloudify as its orchestrator, used the orchestration-first approach to virtualize its network functions in three months.

Partner Communications, which provides mobile and fixed-line telephony services and internet services to 2.7 million Israeli subscribers, selected Cloudify and VMware to launch its new vCPE and SD-WAN solution called V-NET. Based on the open-source TOSCA standard, V-NET was delivered through a unique, cloud-native approach to network service orchestration using an agile/incremental approach referred to as “orchestration first.” The approach focuses on designing and deploying the NFV orchestration and automation capabilities first atop the company’s existing network infrastructure (physical or virtual). New virtualized network services can then be deployed in days or weeks rather than months.

To date, most approaches to NFV adoption follow a process in which a new, virtual infrastructure is built from the ground up to replace the existing physical network functions. Then, virtualized network functions are deployed atop the new infrastructure. Finally, the critical components of orchestration and automation are added prior to launching the new NFV services. This process typically takes 12-18 months and involves multiple cycles of vendor selection, internal training and POCs.

Partner Communications, however, had a more aggressive timeline and asked Cloudify and VMware to devise an alternative. The team first deployed automation for the manual steps of setting up and configuring physical network functions and firewall services on Partner Communications’ existing VMware platform. This new, “orchestration first” approach takes advantage of a collaboration between Cloudify and VMware that accelerates NFV adoption. Users of Cloudify with VMware vCloud NFV can deploy new VNFs over their hybrid cloud deployments, automating lifecycle management. They also can correlate information gathered from both software platforms to deliver improved performance and utilization of the underlying hardware.

The approach enabled Partner Communications’ operational team to employ pluggable open VNFs. These were easily integrated with existing billing and activation services. As a result, Partner was able to move V-NET to production in only three months instead of the typical 12-18 months.

Using Cloudify’s Open vCPE solution and an orchestration-first approach, Partner Communications was able to launch V-NET, which provides a complete self-service experience for managing its network services, in less than one-third the normal time, which translates to significant cost-savings and additional revenue earnings.

The “orchestration first” approach developed by Cloudify in collaboration with VMware is compatible with the future direction of ONAP, a new Linux Foundation project that is defining future standards for NFV orchestration. The orchestration-first approach to NFV adoption will shape how NFV projects look going forward.
If you’d like more information about Open vCPE, check out these additional resources:

• Webinar: vCPE 2.O—The Why and How of Open vCPE Framework
• Blog post: vCPE 2.0 – The Business Case for An Open vCPE Framework
• White paper: How Open vCPE is Designed with TOSCA and Cloudify