It's not only communications service providers that are transforming – vendors need a new set of capabilities, skills, support services and engagements to stay relevant in today's telco landscape.

June 16, 2015

26 Min Read
Vendor Selection Survey: New Criteria for the New IP Era

Much is made of the transformation underway at communications service providers (CSPs) around the world -- a transformation that incorporates changes to corporate culture, staffing requirements, business case strategies and commercial services, as well as network and supporting technologies.

As the CSPs change, so do their requirements, particularly when it comes to sourcing technology. Where once they could build their network and service creation strategies around a small number of traditional suppliers, the inevitable introduction of SDN and NFV capabilities into their networks is affecting their sourcing, purchasing and partnership requirements and changing their relationships with the supplier community.

That means the traditional lead suppliers to CSPs -- the likes of Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC), Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. , Nokia Networks and others -- also need to transform if they want to remain relevant to the needs of their existing customer base.

That's because remaining relevant means much more than just staying in business (something that some players in the vendor community have been struggling to do). To source the expertise and know-how they need for the New IP world, CSPs are turning to a new breed of vendor partner, forging new relationships and testing new methodologies.

As Light Reading's CEO and Founder Steve Saunders noted recently:

So are the vendors evolving to meet the modern-day needs of the CSPs? We conducted a snapshot survey of a selection of leading communications networking technology vendors to find out if they have evolved and if they match up to what Light Reading believes is a telling set of vendor selection criteria, mostly related to the ability to support the network virtualization and systems integration needs of today's CSPs.

We approached 13 vendors -- the following 11 responded:

  • Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU)

  • Brocade Communications Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: BRCD)

  • Ciena Corp. (NYSE: CIEN)

  • Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO)

  • Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC)

  • Fujitsu Network Communications Inc. on behalf of Fujitsu Ltd. (Tokyo: 6702; London: FUJ; OTC: FJTSY)

  • HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) (HP)

  • Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.

  • Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR)

  • Netcracker Technology Corp. , a subsidiary of NEC Corp. (Tokyo: 6701)

  • Nokia Networks

The two that weren't able to respond in time for this particular survey were Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) and ZTE Corp. (Shenzhen: 000063; Hong Kong: 0763): They will be invited to participate in our next survey, which will include a number of additional vendors.

The survey responses are available on the following page, along with some key findings, followed by a brief snapshot of each of the 11 vendors based on their answers and any supporting information provided.

The responses are in many cases not surprising but still illuminating. There is no doubt that the companies that have dominated supplier relationships with the CSPs over the years have been adapting, in terms not only of their portfolios but also of their operations, market coverage and involvement in industry groups and organizations.

It's also clear, though, that there is a great deal of work to be done before the vendor community is able to meet the demands of CSPs that need to compete in a digital, cloud-driven, software-defined industry.

Next page: Key findings and vendor responses

— Ray Le Maistre, Circle me on Google+ Follow me on TwitterVisit my LinkedIn profile, Editor-in-Chief, Dan O'Shea, Managing Editor, and Mitch Wagner, West Coast Bureau Chief, Light Reading

Key findings and vendor responses
The responses from our surveyed vendors and some key takeaways from the results can be found below, but it's worth noting a few points about the survey and its findings.

Respondents were given a tight deadline to reply, making it a little difficult for some to get verifiable responses. As a result there are a number of "No answer" responses that, in some instances, mean the information could not be sourced or a product expert or team leader was not available. In some cases, a "No" answer now may well become a "Yes" in the very near future: What we have here is a simplified snapshot of a selection of key vendors and their offerings at the end of May 2015.

To make the table as useful and comparative as possible, we have adjusted/amended some responses in as many instances as possible to be able to offer "Yes" or "No" responses (for example, "Not yet" or "On our roadmap" is a "No" response for the purposes of this survey).

In some instances, a "No" response does not tell the full story: For example, Ciena, as (primarily) a transport equipment vendor, would not be expected to be developing many of the virtual network functions (VNFs) as listed in our survey, so there are many "No" answers in that section for that company. Fujitsu, meanwhile, is working with partners to deliver VNFs but is not developing its own, so it has a stream of "No" responses despite having a partner-led offering for its customers. In fact, a number of companies noted that various functions or capabilities were made available via partnerships, and that's an important part of the New IP sector, which is why we also asked questions about ecosystem development. However, our study was designed to find out primarily what the vendors are developing in-house.

NetCracker provided us with another challenge: The company is offering a number of VNFs but does not want to reveal currently, for competitive reasons, if it is developing them in-house, which is why we used the response "Available" where necessary.

Survey takeaways
Here are some key takeaways and findings we have extracted from the collective replies.

  • All respondents claim to offer SDN systems integration services, while only one respondent, Brocade, stated that it does not currently offer NFV systems integration services.

  • All of the vendors claim to offer systems integration support for technology from third-party vendors as well as their own, so all respondents are citing some level of multivendor systems integration support. Indeed, the majority of the 11 vendors claim to support technology from any other supplier as well as their own: Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei and Juniper were the exceptions in this instance.

  • The responses to the question "Is your company developing its own virtual network functions (VNFs)? If so, please select specific network functions?" were varied, as expected from a range of companies with different portfolios and expertise and at this stage of the market. We listed 21 VNFs for which the vendors could provide specific responses -- only Cisco and Huawei said they are developing all the VNFs we listed.

  • Among the vendors we surveyed, the CPE enterprise router/switch is the most common VNF being developed (8 of the 11 vendors answered "Yes"), followed closely by a number of packet core functions (HLR/HSS, MME, SGSN, GGSN, PCRF), firewalls and network routing.

  • Nine of the 11 vendors say their VNFs are involved in publicly announced trials/deployments: That's essentially a clean sweep as Fujitsu is not developing its own VNFs and Ciena is developing only one (a virtual media resource function/IP media processing server).

  • Most of the vendors say they are able to demonstrate the inter-working of their VNFs with NFV infrastructure (NFVi) from other vendors: The only exceptions were Fujitsu (not applicable) and HP.

  • A much less developed area, though, is the white box ecosystem. When asked whether they had developed specific capabilities/relationships for the development of a "white box" solution strategy, only HP said it has established a supply relationship with white box switch/server suppliers (such as Inventec and Penguin Computing), while only Cisco claims to offer white box solution systems integration services. However, there are signs of white box support strategies, as six of the vendors said they have "portable, multi-vendor VNFs and/or operating systems" that could be integrated into a white box solution.

  • All of the vendors say they are developing their own NFVi, the infrastructure (comprising compute, storage, network and virtualization layer capabilities) that underpins VNFs.

  • Most of the respondents say they can demonstrate inter-working between their NFVi and other vendors' VNFs: Only HP and Nokia Networks did not make such a claim.

  • On the same lines, all of the vendors (except for Fujitsu) say they have been involved in publicly announced SDN/NFV multivendor interoperability tests/trials that highlight interworking with third-party platforms.

  • Nearly all of the respondents have established an NFV ecosystem with external partners: Brocade is the exception in this instance.

  • All of the vendor respondents say they have developed a MANO (management and orchestration) solution for the management of virtualized and/or hybrid legacy/virtualized networks, highlighting it as an essential vendor component in the New IP toolbox.

  • Most of the vendors claims to have their MANO solutions involved in publicly announced trials/deployments, with Ciena and Fujitsu the current exceptions.

  • The only vendor in our survey not to have developed its own SDN controller is Nokia Networks.

  • Of the programming languages the vendors claim to support in terms of applications development, the most popular from the list we offered were Javascript, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby, which each garnered nine positive responses.

  • The percentage of staff focused on R&D varies quite widely, even among a sample of 11, from 11% to 46%.

  • Many vendors are either reluctant to share what percentage of those R&D staff are involved in software development, or find that statistic hard to evaluate.

  • All 11 vendor respondents are members or associates of key industry organizations or groups, including ETSI NFV Industry Specification Group (NFV ISG), OpenDaylight, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) and the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), while the majority are members of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), OpenStack and the TM Forum.

  • Most respondents say they can provide managed services to enterprise users as well as to CSPs: Of the traditional network equipment providers, only Nokia Networks does not extend its managed services to enterprises.

    The full results by vendor are below. While scrolling in the window below will provide you with all of the responses, you can also download the table to view the results on your device (see the link below the table). The table can be downloaded by anyone registered on Light Reading: Registration is free and also provides you the opportunity to sign up for our email newsletters and attend webinars for free -- click on this link to register.

    Click here to download the data.

    Next page: Vendor snapshots

    Vendor snapshots
    Over the next several pages we have highlighted a few points about the capabilities and claims of each vendor we surveyed to show how they have been working towards offering a New IP portfolio to their current and prospective customers.

    Alcatel-Lucent
    Mergers, rounds of layoffs and strategic shifts have changed the look, size and mission of Alcatel-Lucent in recent years, but the R&D group still numbers about 19,000 employees, roughly 36% of the company's total workforce of more than 52,000. Software development also appears to be a priority within the group, as about 80% of R&D employees are focused on software.

    The company supports both telco and enterprise cloud deployments, as well as managed services for both segments. It also supports SDN, NFV and OSS/BSS systems integration for its own products, and for some third-party products where considered strategically important.

    Alcatel-Lucent has developed more than 20 virtual network functions, including, for example, its virtualized mobility manager, lightRadio 9771 Wireless Cloud Element Radio Network Controller, and many others. (See Alcatel-Lucent Joins Virtual Router Race.)

    The company's VNFs have been involved in several trials and have also been included in commercial deployments, such as AT&T's user-defined network (or Network On Demand) and by Saudi Arabia's Mobily. (See SDN Powers AT&T's Rapid On-Demand Expansion, AlcaLu, Fujitsu Help Build AT&T's Cloud Network and Eurobites: Mobily Shows Faith in NFV.)

    Alcatel-Lucent has also demonstrated its VNFs in multivendor trials and has its own NFV infrastructure on which it can demonstrate inter-working with VNFs from other vendors. That infrastructure, CloudBand, also has an ecosystem of external partners. Alcatel-Lucent has also developed its own management and orchestration function.

    Regarding SDN, Alcatel-Lucent has an SDN controller and virtual services platform through its Nuage Networks group, and also participates in at least ten different groups working on SDN standards and other open networking developments.

    Brocade Communications Systems
    Brocade provides technology that supports both telco and enterprise cloud deployments. (See AT&T Adds Brocade, Ciena, Cisco to Its SDN, NFV Program.)

    The company provides SDN and OSS/BSS systems integration, as well as enterprise cloud system integration with partners, supporting both its own and third-party technology.

    It's developing VNFs for the CPE enterprise router/switch, firewall, load balancer, network router, deep packet inspection (DPI), and content delivery network (CDN), with plans to develop virtual Border Network Gateway (BNG) and carrier-grade Network Address Translation (NAT) functions.

    Its VNFs are involved in a publicly announced trial and deployment at Marist College, as well as proof-of-concept (PoC) networking trials with 50 service provider partners. (See Brocade Claims 50 NFV Trials Worldwide.)

    Brocade can demonstrate interoperability between its NFVi and other vendors' VNFs and is working with the Open Platform for NFV Project Inc. (OPNFV) on verification.

    The company has developed a MANO, as well as an SDN controller, both involved in publicly announced trials and deployments. (See Brocade Ships Its Open SDN Controller.)

    It is growing capabilities to work in popular application development languages, including .Net, Erlang, Javascript, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby.

    Brocade has been involved in publicly announced SDN/NFV multivendor interoperability tests and trials that highlight interworking with third-party platforms, including those from Telefónica, Intel, HP, Overture and Cyan. (See Telefónica collaborates with Brocade, Cyan, Intel and Red Hat to showcase an orchestrated End-to-End Network Function Virtualization Architecture.)

    The company is involved in an array of industry organizations and groups, including the ETSI NFV Industry Specification Group (NFV ISG), OpenDaylight, OPNFV, Open Networking Foundation (ONF), the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) Third Network initiative, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

    Next page: Ciena and Cisco

    Ciena
    Ciena may be known as a big iron vendor but it has its soft side too. Of its full company payroll of more than 5,000 employees, Ciena reports that 46%, or about 2,300, work in R&D. Of that group, about 67%, or more than 1,500, work on software development, including verification and tools.

    Going deeper, around 60% of the software R&D group is devoted to "on-box" hardware-related programming and software, while around 40% work on SDN-related and other "off-box" software.

    In terms of virtualization, Ciena has made substantial forays into SDN and NFV during the past year or so. The company has its own SDN controller that has been involved in a multivendor proof-of-concept trial with Telefónica. (See Ciena Introduces Management Tools to Make Networks Flexible and Who Does What: SDN Controllers.)

    On the NFV front, Ciena is developing its own NFV infrastructure and is early in the process of developing its own VNFs. The company late last year announced its Virtual Services Software platform, which includes an NFV ecosystem of external partners. (See Ciena Amps Up Software Play, Attacks VNF 'Agility Gap' and Ciena Launches Virtual Software Platform.)

    Ciena doesn't have any established relationships with white box switch/server suppliers, but its NFV infrastructure does support a wide range of x86 platforms and the company has ability to support applications development in a range of programming languages, including Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby.

    Ciena also belongs to a number of industry groups working on open standards and related developments, including the ETSI NFV ISG, OpenDaylight, OPNFV, the ONF, the MEF, ON.Lab, the IETF and IEEE.

    Cisco Systems
    As you'd expect, Cisco has a lot of R&D staff -- more than 24,000, equivalent to more than 30% of its overall headcount.

    It provides technology for both telco and enterprise cloud deployments. (See Validating Cisco's Service Provider Virtualization & Cloud Portfolio and Cisco: Software, Cloud to Be 'Main Focus'.)

    It provides an array of systems integration services, for SDN, NFV, enterprise cloud and OSS/BSS, supporting its own and third-party technology, as well as providing managed services to enterprise and telcos.

    The company is developing a panoply of NFVs, including set-top box/home gateway, CPE enterprise router/switch, firewall, load balancer, network router, session border controller, deep packet inspection, content delivery network and more. (See Cisco Lands NFV Deals With DT, Telstra, Telecom Italia .)

    Cisco has made more than a dozen public announcements of trials and deployments for its VNFs that involve network operators such as Telefónica, Equinix, Vodafone, Comcast, Kabel Deutschland, Etisalat, Ooredoo, XL Axiata, Saudi Telecom, Telstra, Telecom Italia and Deutsche Telecom.

    The vendor has developed its own NFVi and can demonstrate interoperability between its own NFV infrastructure and other vendors' VNFs, with established relationships with certification agencies and external labs to verify multivendor interoperability. It has its own NFV ecosystem with external partners.

    The company has developed a MANO solution for the management of virtualized and hybrid legacy and virtualized networks, which has been involved in publicly announced trials and deployments. It has also developed an SDN controller, but that particular element has not been involved in any publicly announced trials or deployments.

    Cisco is growing its capability to create applications in a variety of programming languages, including .NET, Erlang, Javascript, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby.

    The company has been involved in publicly announced SDN/NFV multivendor interoperability tests and trials that highlight interworking with third-party platforms, including the in-depth verification process undertaken with European Advanced Networking Test Center AG (EANTC) earlier this year. (See Cisco Ready for More SDN & Cloud Tests.)

    Cisco provides white box systems integration services, as well as portable, multi-vendor VNFs and/or operating systems.The company is involved in an array of industry organizations and groups, including the ETSI NFV Industry Specification Group (NFV ISG), OpenDaylight, OPNFV, the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), ON.Lab, OpenStack and others. (See SK Telecom, Cisco, Join ONOS Partnership.)

    Next page: Ericsson, Fujitsu and HP

    Ericsson
    Ericsson has been aiming to position itself as a supplier of traditional networking systems and next-generation software and services for a few years and has been investing in M&A to support that strategy.

    The Swedish firm has long had a large global services division, so it's no surprise to see that it claims to offer a full range of telco and enterprise management services and systems integration (SI) services that encompass SDN and NFV as well as OSS/BSS and telco/enterprise cloud.

    As part of those systems integration capabilities, the company claims to be able to help integrate technology from any third-party vendor.

    Ericsson says it is developing its own extensive range of VNFs, including its Ericsson Virtual Home Gateway, a Virtual Enterprise Gateway and a full range of virtualized packet core and applications server capabilities. Its only sticking point in our list of VNFs was with the virtual RNC (radio network controller). Ericsson says it supports "RNC in pool functionality, which allows resource sharing between different RNCs," and that it doesn't see any business case currently to support a fully virtualized architecture.

    The company noted that it hoped that any other vendor claiming to be developing a virtual RNC was not "defining virtual RNC loosely as RNC in pool." (There's one for the message boards!)

    In terms of NFVi, Ericsson has been making a big push in this area with its HDS 8000 to add to its BSP 8000 blade server platform and claims it can show interworking between its NFVi and third-party VNFs.

    It also has its own MANO and SDN controller solutions and has announced trials and engagements with a number of operators, including the likes of AT&T, Telstra, Portugal Telecom, Telefónica, Orange, Vodafone, Telecom Italia, Mobily and SK Telecom. (See SDN at Heart of Telstra-Ericsson Deal, Ericsson selected as solution partner for Network Virtualization platform and Cloud Manager by NTT DOCOMO, Ericsson and Telefonica extend successful co-operation for Network Virtualization and Ericsson Launches Cloud OSS.)

    The vendor cites its involvement at OPNFV as evidence of its commitment to multivendor support and says it's happy to include any white box systems in customer solutions if the white box technology is compliant with OPNFV specifications. Ericsson also points out that while its VNFs will primarily be running in OPNFV environments, the company is not restricting itself to those specs alone. (See Open NFV Group Uncloaks Its Platform Plan.)

    The company is a member or associate of most of the main industry standards and specifications bodies, with the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) the exception from the list offered up by Light Reading.

    Fujitsu
    Fujitsu is an enormous company active in many technology verticals and has about 11% of its staff in R&D, but it doesn't disclose how many of those are working on software development. Fujitsu also has a broad range of systems integration services, including SDN, NFV, Enterprise Cloud Systems and OSS/BSS.

    The company has decided not to develop its own virtual network functions. Instead, it is partnering with other VNF vendors to provide all of the capabilities it wants to offer to its customers. Fujitsu is, however, developing its own NFVi. While it has demonstrated inter-working between its NFVi and other vendors' VNFs, it has not, however, established relationships with particular certification agencies or external labs to verify multivendor interoperability of its NFVi.

    With its reliance on partner VNFs, Fujitsu has been building an ecosystem around its Intelligent Networking and Computing Architecture, which also incorporates its NFVi and its SDN controller, the OpenFlow-enabled Virtuora SN-V. That controller has been involved in publicly announced trials with NTT. (See Fujitsu Intelligent Networking and Computing Architecture.)

    The vendor has also been part of a publicly announced SDN multivendor interoperability test that highlights interworking with third-party platforms. (See Fujitsu Successfully Demonstrates Transport SDN Interoperability Using Real-World Scenarios.)

    HP
    HP doesn't release data about the number of employees it has or the number that are in R&D. But it's happy to talk about its support for enterprise and telco cloud deployments and its full range of systems integration services, which cover SDN, NFV, enterprise cloud and OSS/BSS.

    HP is one of a number of companies that says it can support any third-party vendor technology as well as its own with its systems integration services, which is why it was selected as the prime technology provider and systems integrator for Telefónica's Virtualization Infrastructure (UNICA project). (See Telefónica Selects HP OpenNFV Platform for UNICA Infrastructure.)

    In terms of VNF development, HP is partnering for the provision of some virtual functions (such as MME, SGSN and GGSN) as well as developing many of its own, including CPE enterprise routers and switches, firewalls, load balancers, network routers, HLR/HSS functionality, Policy Servicer/PCRF and more.

    While HP says it has VNFs involved in publicly announced trials/deployments, it is candid about not yet being able to demonstrate interworking of those VNFs on other vendors' NFV infrastructure (NFVi). It is equally up front in admitting that, currently, its NFVi cannot demonstrate interworking with the VNFs of other vendors.

    It is further developing its NFV and SDN capabilities with the acquisition of ConteXtream and is positioning itself as a key player in helping network operators manage legacy and virtual systems using a single platform. (See HP Acquiring ConteXtream for Carrier SDN and HP's NFV Director Merges Physical, Virtual.)

    Its announced trials and engagements extend beyond Telefónica -- its OpenNFV reference architecture and supporting services have also been cited by the likes of BT as being an important part of their virtualization plans.

    Attracting network operators requires a certain degree of openness and ecosystem development, so HP has been working with partners such as Brocade, Genband, Intel, Spirent, Allot Communications, PaloAlto Networks and RAD to offer a broad range of capabilities. (See HP OpenNFV Partner Program.)

    Like its peers it is also involved in many key industry standards and specifications groups, including ETSI NFV Industry Specification Group (NFV ISG), OpenDaylight, OPNFV and the ONF, along with others.

    Next page: Huawei and Juniper

    Huawei
    As you'd expect from a company with about 170,000 staff and about 70,000 (more than 40% of the total) of those in R&D, Huawei boasts a lot of capabilities and tech offerings.

    It has a growing enterprise business and a thriving communications network operator business so it offers the full range of systems integration services and cloud deployment capabilities. Huawei does not, however, claim to be able to support any third-party vendor with its systems integration services.

    It boasts a full range of VNFs and has been involved in a public multivendor trial with NTT Docomo. (See NTT Docomo Completes NFV Trial With Multiple Vendors.)

    Huawei is confident that its VNFs can ride other vendors' NFVi and that its own NFV infrastructure can interwork with VNFs from third-party developers. Its MANO is involved in public trials, as is its SDN controller, part of its SoftCom offering. (See this Telefónica announcement and Huawei Unfolds SDN Roadmap.)

    Huawei has not yet established any supply relationships with white box switch/server suppliers (such as Inventec, Penguin Computing etc.) but says its VNFs and cloud OS software can run on white box systems.

    As with many of its peers, Huawei is heavily involved with many of the major industry standards and specification groups and bodies, and is particularly active at ON.Lab, though one of the few groups it is not engaged with is the MEF's Third Network initiative. (See ON.Lab Intros Open Source SDN OS.)

    Juniper Networks
    With its DNA in IP networking and with about 43% of its overall employee base -- more than 3,700 staff -- in R&D, it's not surprising that Juniper boasts a lot of in-house capabilities, including support for enterprise and telco cloud deployments. (See The Next Evolution of IT and Network Functions Virtualization Enables You to Deliver New Services On Demand.)

    The vendor is developing its own NFVi, which it says can interwork with third-party VNFs, and has established its own NFV ecosystem with a number of external partners, including Citrix, IBM, Nokia and RedHat. (See this Juniper partner resource).

    Its number of in-house VNFs is limited to a handful but that makes sense, given it does not have a heritage in mobile network infrastructure. Where it does have history, it has virtual functions, in addition to partnerships and relationships with other companies that can extend its offerings. (See Juniper Launches Virtual Routers, DevOps Capabilities and Nokia, Juniper Team To Target Telco Cloud.)

    Juniper has also developed its own SDN controller that is involved in publicly announced trials. (See tcp cloud Selects Juniper Networks to Automate and Orchestrate Its Physical and Virtual Cloud Infrastructures and Juniper Opens SDN, Clouds OpenDaylight.)

    The vendor has also has been involved in publicly announced SDN/NFV multivendor interoperability tests and trials. (See this ONF resource.)

    Although Juniper isn't programming in .NET, it is programming in every other language queried in this report, as well as JAVA, C, C++, C# and Apache Thrift.

    Next page: Netcracker/NEC and Nokia Networks

    NetCracker/NEC
    NetCracker, a subsidiary of NEC, does not disclose its number of employees or how many of those are involved with research and development. NetCracker is involved with technology that supports enterprise and telco cloud deployments, as well as systems integration for SDN, NFV, enterprise cloud and OSS/BSS. It also supports both its own products and says it can support any third-party technology in terms of systems integration capabilities.

    NetCracker provides managed services to both telcos and enterprises. Currently, the company is offering a number of VNFs, including virtual set-top box/home gateways, CPE enterprise router/switches, carrier-grade NATs and a range of packet core functions and has been named in several trial announcements. (See Portugal Telecom Trials vCPE With NEC & NetCracker, Telekom Austria Builds Multi-Vendor NFV 4G Core and DOCOMO Partners with Ericsson, Fujitsu and NEC for NFV Deployment.)

    NetCracker is developing its own NFVi and has established an extensive ecosystem to support its NFV and SDN strategy, teaming up with the likes of Dell, HP, Ixia, Microsoft and Trend Micro. The company claims to offer full interworking between its NFVi and other vendors' VNFs and says its VNFs can demonstrate interworking with third-party NFVi.

    Additionally, NetCracker/NEC has developed its own SDN controller that is involved in publicly announced deployments with more than 200 service provider and enterprise customers. (See NetCracker Pitches NFV Migration Story, NetCracker Virtual Functions, Management & Infrastructure, NEC Slashes OpenFlow SDN Controller Pricing and NEC & Portugal Telecom Go Virtual.)

    Nokia Networks
    Nokia Networks has a substantial number of its staff in R&D -- 20,000, or about 40% of its total workforce -- with "the majority" working on software development.

    It is also one of the leading players in the professional services sector, having worked for years on managed services and network build projects with operators, and so has a broad range of systems integration and support services skills, including, according to the vendor, the ability to offer SDN and NFV systems integration services.

    Its newly announced AirFrame Data Center Solution is relevant for both the telco and enterprise cloud markets. (See Nokia Unveils Telco Cloud Hardware Platform and Nokia Advances MEC for 5G, IoT.)

    Nokia has been virtualizing certain functions and developing technology solutions to support telco cloud deployments for a number of years and, as a result, offers an extensive range of virtual network functions for mobile operators and where it doesn't have its own VNFs, it has a range of partners to offer virtual DPI, policy control, load balancer and other functions. (See Nokia Offers Virtual OSS, VNF Service.)

    Those capabilities have been involved in a number of publicly announced trials and deployments. (See Orange Trials NFV With Nokia , Nokia Networks, Algar Telecom deploy LTE network and Telco Cloud in Brazil, MTS, Nokia make Russia's first live VoLTE voice and video call on telco cloud and LG Uplus introduces Nokia virtualization based network equipment.)

    The Nokia R&D team is developing capabilities using a number of languages, including Python and Ruby, and also cited the use a programming language called R, which is popular in analytics tools development.

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