NEW YORK -- Light Reading (www.lightreading.com), the leading online publication for the global telecom industry, has completed the world’s first publicly available test of an end-to-end cloud services infrastructure for performance, security and management. The Light Reading cloud services testing project will consist of four reports and will be available online, for free. The first report of this four-part series is available now: http://www.lightreading.com/ciscoseries.

The test, conducted by the European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) for Light Reading, covered all aspects of Cisco’s CloudVerse solution, from the data center through the access and core network, including the ability to offer security and priority for different customers’ traffic and the ability to handle and scale both business and consumer applications. The test required more than six months of planning, eight weeks of on-site testing, $75 million in equipment and the support of more than 80 engineers.

“All elements were not only demonstrated, but passed our inspection,” said Carsten Rossenhövel, Managing Director of EANTC.

The first report, published on Monday, focused on the Cisco Unified Data Center. Future reports will concern Cloud Intelligent Networks, Cloud Applications and Services, and Long-Haul Optical Transport for the Cloud.

“Cloud services will be the key driver of service providers’ future business and consumer services revenue streams, and will form a core building block of future enterprise IT strategy,” said Joe Braue, EVP and Group Director of Light Reading. “Carriers around the world are now rolling out enterprise-grade services, but key details about test performance are confidential. That’s why we see these public tests giving the first indication to the world of how an end-to-end cloud solution works and performs, and will advise carriers and enterprises of some of the key issues involved in evaluating cloud solutions.”

United Business Media Ltd. (UBM) (London: UBM.L)

European Advanced Networking Test Center AG (EANTC)