CHICAGO -- Light Reading's Big Telecom Event -- Wind River is looking to create a kind of app store for virtual network functions, only instead of Flappy Birds the Titanium Cloud partnership program will stock software and equipment, such as load balancers and virtual firewalls.

Wind River Systems Inc. announced this week it is certifying partner products that are compatible with its Carrier Grade Communications Server NFV platform. (See Wind River Demonstrates Carrier-Grade Software for NFV.)

Partner products are tested to be sure they really work with the Wind River NFV platform, rather than taking it for granted that the products work together because they conform to the same APIs, says Charlie Ashton, Wind River director of business development. "We're trying to make this more than a branding program. We're trying to do the engineering to make sure this works," he says.

Initial members include Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD), Genband Inc. , Metaswitch Networks , Nakina Systems Inc. , and Overture Networks Inc. , Wind River says.

Wind River is looking to lower the risks for service providers adopting its NFV platform and accelerate deployment, providing assurance of six nines of carrier-grade reliability.

— Mitch Wagner, , West Coast Bureau Chief, Light Reading. Got a tip about SDN or NFV? Send it to [email protected].