This latest collaboration enables efficient operation of the Nokia virtualized core network functions and management systems on top of Red Hat’s OpenStack technology, with commercial joint solutions expected to be available in early 2015.
Nokia Networks’ approach is to ensure the independence of its Liquid Core application suite from underlying hardware, cloud stack and software-defined networking (SDN) software. The collaboration with Red Hat enhances its ecosystem of cloud infrastructure partners, giving operators a wide choice of solutions to best fit their telco cloud strategy. Red Hat is the largest contributor to OpenStack, and this extended collaboration is further proof of Nokia Networks’ commitment to its multi-stack cloud approach.
“Red Hat is an open source and OpenStack leader and its enterprise-class cloud solutions are widely used in the market,” said Michael Clever, senior vice president of Core at Nokia Networks. “We have cooperated with Red Hat since 2004, and are excited about the expanded relationship, as it strongly supports our strategy to smoothly transition proven carrier-grade core software applications to NFV OpenStack cloud environments.”
“OpenStack and NFV hold such significant promise for carriers that are looking to modernize their infrastructure and embrace the innovation that open source is enabling in the cloud,” said Radhesh Balakrishnan, general manager, Virtualization and OpenStack at Red Hat. “By bringing our carrier-grade OpenStack platform to Nokia Networks’ virtualized core applications and cloud application management products, we’re aiming to help carriers deliver the cloud-based services that will drive the future of this industry.”
The telco cloud has the potential to revolutionize the way operators run their networks and launch new services. By investing in such technologies, operators can gain the flexibility, agility, scalability and operational efficiency they need to be successful. In addition, their infrastructure will be able to bring new services to market rapidly, using the network datacenter locations of their choice.
