With so much noise about NFV-enabling systems circulating in the industry, it becomes ever more important to highlight those occasions when useful, honest and relevant information becomes available that can help network operators better understand their New IP networking options.

That's why I'm drawing your attention to an extensive PDF document, available to download right now from this link, that tells the story, and provides the details, of the recent independent evaluation of Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO)'s NFV infrastructure (NFVi) by test specialists European Advanced Networking Test Center AG (EANTC) .

We have already published the report on Light Reading in the form of two multi-page Prime Reading features:

Now the whole report is available, still for free, in a single document: Download "Validating Cisco's NFV Infrastructure" here.

The evaluation, which followed on from the extensive assessment of Cisco's service provider virtualization and cloud portfolio earlier this year, includes an overview of Cisco's NFVi and an in-depth, multi-page performance evaluation of: Cisco's virtual switch technology; its carrier-grade high availability and reliability capabilities; the integration, features and performance of two key applications -- Virtualized Video Processing (V2P) and virtual EPC (evolved packet core); and an evaluation of Cisco's "single pane of glass" management capabilities.

This type of assessment is important: It will help shape the decision-making processes of network operators as they consider how to transform their technology assets.

And it's just the beginning. Light Reading is funding further independent tests (and it's very important that they are truly independent) of emerging New IP systems and we'll publish the full results, with detailed explanations from the experts that conducted the evaluations, on this website.

As my friends in North America are wont to say -- "You're welcome."

For more information, see Video Infographic: Validating Cisco's NFV Infrastructure.

— Ray Le Maistre, , Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading