RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. Overture today announced that Masergy is the first service provider to deploy carrier-class, pure-play network functions virtualization (NFV) at the edge of the network. Masergy leverages NFV solutions from Overture, Brocade, Fortinet,and Intel in a distributed model as part of its ongoing network evolution to gain greater service agility and provide customers with the services they want in real-time. Improved agility leads toward significant revenue upside, as Masergy is now able to deliver new and advanced premium services quickly and easily.

"Our primary focus is on service agility and our pure-play NFV deployment sets the stage for immediate response to customer requests," said Tim Naramore, Masergy's chief technology officer. "Masergy has long been an innovator, providing our customers with solutions that give them real-time control and the ability to get the services they need, when they want them. With this launch, we're adding incredibly agile and flexible solutions to our Managed Network f(n) family of distributed, fully managed network functions."

Masergy's NFV deployment, Virtual f(n), comprises virtualized network services at the edge of the network and is based on the Overture Ensemble Carrier Ethernet (ECE), Brocade Vyatta 5600 vRouter and Fortinet FortiGate-VM firewall virtualized network functions (VNFs) running on the Overture 65vSE VNF compute node platform, based on the Intel Atom processor, at the customer premise. These open software solutions are optimized for performance with the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK), resulting in Gigabit throughput on par with appliance-based Carrier Ethernet 2.0 performance. Masergy's award-winning Intelligent Service Control (ISC) portal allows customers to directly add, remove and configure network functions themselves, transforming their enterprises with open, dynamic and flexible service delivery.

"Communication service providers are increasingly investing in NFV to unlock potential new revenue," noted Tom Nolle, president of consulting firm CIMI Corporation. "NFV is not just about reducing front-end capital expenses. It's not even primarily about opex reduction, though that's important. It's about trillions of dollars in revenue upside gained when providers create new services by exploiting service agility and network flexibility. The focus on agility as the key driver is exactly what I recommend to every provider considering NFV."

"The promise of pure software-based NFV has become a reality. Other operators have been taking a hybrid approach, using software functionality in existing Layer 2 devices or leveraging proprietary features in backbone switching equipment to deliver NFV-like services," said Prayson Pate, Overture's chief technology officer. "Masergy's deployment, with our Ensemble Carrier Ethernet platform as the foundation, shows how a completely software-defined NFV environment can deliver performance comparable to today's hardware-based solutions."

Overture Networks Inc.