VNFs Draw Attention to Testing Needs

As the infrastructure to support the onboarding of virtual network functions (VNFs) emerges, so the need for supporting test tools becomes increasingly apparent.

Denise Culver, Online Research Director

March 16, 2017

2 Min Read
Light Reading logo in a gray background | Light Reading

The potential to onboard virtual network functions (VNFs), the basic components of network virtualization, is being supported by an increasing number of networking specialists, as shown by a spate of recent announcements.

Huawei rolled out its Cloud Native VNF solution, while VMware released VMware vCloud NFV 2.0, the newest generation of its NFV platform that combines NFVi, virtual infrastructure managers, VNFs and NFV orchestration. (See Huawei's NFV Solution Awarded Best Technology Enabler at MWC 2017 and VMware Makes Major MWC Splash.)

Likewise, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) are collaborating so that Red Hat can use HPE's OpenNFV Labs for VNF validation, and Red hat OpenStack Platform customers can access HPE's VNF Onboarding services. (See HPE, Red Hat Team on Storage, OpenStack for NFV.)

As these NFV trends continue, the need for testing and monitoring NFVi platforms and VNFs will be paramount. There are a number of such solutions listed in Testapedia, including:

  • Spirent's TestCenter Virtual, which validates NFV infrastructure, VNFs and network services by creating elastic test topologies to run on both the control plane and data plane to stress simulated, virtualized network functions.

  • SDCloud Dev/Test from Criterion Networks, which runs an OpenStack-based virtual environment with a choice of SDN controllers and VNFs in the public cloud to automatically provision and deploy fully isolated multi-node SDN/NFV solution environments. From there, the Dev/Test platform can be used to deploy multi-vendor SDN/NFV sandboxes with a number of options.

  • TrueSpeed VNF from Viavi, which provides throughput testing as a virtual network function based on RFC 6349 TCP Throughput Testing.

More than 700 companies and products are now listed in Testapedia, making it the telecom industry's most comprehensive resource for all things related to testing and measurement. Some 2,400 test and measurement professionals also are now registered with Testapedia, giving them access not only to vendor and product information but also to the latest industry news and research from Heavy Reading.

To get your company listed in Testapedia, go to the Get Listed tab on the site. To join the growing ranks of the virtualization community and get access to executive summaries of Heavy Reading's research, go to the Register Now tab.

— Denise Culver, Director of Online Research, Heavy Reading

CALLING ALL TEST, ASSURANCE AND MONITORING COMPANIES:
Make sure your company and services are listed free of charge at Testapedia, the comprehensive set of searchable databases covering the companies, products, industry organizations and people that are directly involved in defining and shaping the telecom test and measurement industry.

About the Author

Denise Culver

Online Research Director

Denise manages Heavy Reading's Thought Leadership Council, which uses a focus group approach to glean insights from CSPs on topics ranging from automation, IoT, 5G, B/OSS transformation, SD-WAN and emerging technologies. Additionally, Denise covers the test and measurement industry as an analyst, focusing on how T&M vendors are addressing telco transformation, as well as the impact that technologies such as IoT are having on service provider networks. Denise also continues to oversee development of Light Reading's Pedia projects, including Virtuapedia and Testapedia. Previously, she was a Contributing Analyst with Heavy Reading for seven years, covering a wide range of areas, including mobile, IP transformation and T&M. Her career in technology journalism began in 1996, and she is a past winner of the American Business Media Association's Jesse Neal Award for editorial achievement. She is a graduate of Texas A&M University.

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like