Mirantis launches NFV initiative

Mirantis, the pure-play OpenStack company, has unveiled a network function virtualization (NFV) initiative with partners Citrix, Metaswitch Networks and Overture Networks that will unlock communications companies from expensive proprietary hardware, enabling them to launch new services with greater velocity and lower cost.

NFV enables carriers to virtualize network functions by running them as software instances on any hardware platform anywhere within their networks. Mirantis has been implementing NFV projects with telecommunications customers since the technology’s inception and will offer an NFV reference architecture and OpenStack validation program for partner virtual network functions (VNFs).

“Telecommunications companies are increasingly drawn to NFV because it frees them from expensive proprietary hardware platforms, reduces operational expenses, and facilitates the launch of new applications and services quickly,” said Heather Kirksey, director, OPNFV. “Developers can spend less time on administrative tasks and more time delivering innovative applications and services to consumers.”

Mirantis is the largest OpenStack provider for companies in the $1.6 trillion* telecommunications industry. Engagements include the largest OpenStack deal on record with Ericsson, and some of the largest** companies in the U.S., Germany, France, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and the U.K.

“The telecommunications industry is in the midst of a massive transformation. It faces a ballooning customer base consuming massive amounts of data, and competition from a new wave of startups born out of the Web,” said Mirantis VP of Product and Partner Marketing, Kamesh Pammaraju. “These companies must innovate, and to do so, their networking needs to be agile, scalable and cost effective. The best way to do this is through NFV, which is why NFV investments will reach nearly $21 billion by 2020.***”

Mirantis’ NFV initiative will offer a whitepaper and a deployment guide for customers looking to deploy NFV solutions on OpenStack, and Mirantis OpenStack validation for partner VNF solutions under the Unlocked Technology Partner Program. New partner validations have been completed for:

Citrix NetScaler
Metaswitch's Perimeta Session Border Controller (SBC)
Overture Networks’ Ensemble Service Orchestrator (ESO), which provides NFVO & VNFM capabilities and will be validated with Mirantis OpenStack and a broad ecosystem of VNFs

Mirantis’ NFV initiative will also add critical NFV features to Mirantis OpenStack, making it a carrier-grade OpenStack distribution that offers a small physical footprint, high availability (HA), single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) and other NFV features that support high performance VNF deployments.