Big Vendors Are Set to Steal the NFV MANO Show, Heavy Reading Finds

NEW YORK -- Network functions virtualization (NFV) management and orchestration (MANO) is still early in development and will come to market slowly, but big vendors are ahead of the game in this market, according to the latest report from Heavy Reading Service Provider IT Insider, a subscription research service from Heavy Reading.

Orchestration for NFV: The Big Players' View examines the new vocabulary of orchestration in the context of NFV, and the battle for mind-share among industry bodies and the largest players in the network equipment provider, OSS and IT space. It considers how services built of virtualized network functions are managed through their lifecycle, and the ways that the biggest vendors are responding to the challenge of delivering NFV MANO platforms to support their customers. Finally it profiles 11 established vendors, describing their NFV orchestration strategies and relevant products, solutions and services.

To see a list of companies covered in this report, please see http://twimgs.com/audiencedevelopment/LRHR/PDFS/spiti1214_companies_2.pdf.

"NFV has been one of the biggest topics in telecom since the publication by ETSI of the first NFV white paper in October 2012," says Danny Dicks, research analyst with Heavy Reading Service Provider IT Insider and author of the report. "The need and potential for opex and capex reduction, and faster and more innovative service creation and delivery, have been accepted throughout the industry, but those benefits cannot be realized without greater levels of automation in the IT systems and processes that support end-user services: NFV MANO."

NFV orchestration is still at an early stage of development, with many vendors testing out their ideas with their customers, and developing concepts based on their existing network management, cloud management and operations support system (OSS) assets, Dicks says. "There are too many examples that exist that illustrate the loss of revenue that occurs when proper testing is not done early in the development cycle," he continues. "So the orchestration solutions market is one that will take some time to develop – and the picture of who is succeeding may not become clear for another 12 months, but the biggest vendors are in a strong position right now."

Key findings of Orchestration for NFV: The Big Players' View include the following:

Orchestration for NFV: The Big Players' View is available as part of an annual subscription (six issues) to Heavy Reading Service Provider IT Insider, priced at $1,499. Individual reports are available for $595.

To subscribe, or for more information, please visit: www.heavyreading.com/servsoftware. For more information about other Heavy Reading Insider research services, please visit: www.heavyreading.com/research.

Heavy Reading