Colt Technology Services announced its enhanced universal customer premises equipment (uCPE) solution, which brings the benefits of Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) to enterprises. The expanded functionality provides a network operating system and hosting environment for Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), such as SD-WAN and firewalls, all running on standard off-the-shelf servers, with both provider-managed and customer-managed NFV applications being run on this platform.
Colt’s Vice President Product Portfolio, Peter Coppens said: “By enhancing our uCPE offering we are aligning Colt with the future of networking. This approach allows us to deliver virtualised services from the broadest range of suppliers under end-user control. It will also enable Colt to achieve faster product development, cost savings and operational efficiency.
Colt’s uCPE utilises ADVA’s Ensemble Connector as the virtualisation platform and offers a host of VNFs, supporting multiple network functions, such as SD WAN and firewalls.
ADVA advances its Ensemble Suite for NFV with zero-touch capabilities
Ensemble, a division of ADVA, launched a major new release of its network functions virtualization (NFV) platform with a focus on reducing deployment and operations complexity for network operators. The suite includes the Ensemble Orchestrator, Ensemble Director, Ensemble Connector.New management and orchestration (MANO) capabilities enable service providers to roll out secure virtualized services at scale by using pre-packaged designs. Better design simplifies integration into higher level OSS, BSS or portal systems, which leads to faster deployment of services at scale with less-trained staff.
The company said the new capabilities were developed alongside Tier 1 customers in direct response to their requirements and the need to address security and complexity challenges. The new MANO features include multi-layer security, simplified management of NFV infrastructure (NFVI) and service chain creation, visibility, monitoring and troubleshooting. The latest release is based on three years of real-world experience enabling companies to deploy and manage software-based, cloud-native solutions.
Some highlighted capabilities in Ensemble
- The ability to deploy NFV and virtualized services across multiple locations with flexibility and scale
- The ability to provide Day 0 configuration of VNFs.
- The ability to resolve problems related to operating uCPE deployments at scale, such as a single IP address for management and in-service software upgrades with reversion.
- Multi-layered approach to security helps operators tackle vulnerabilities, and it provides software-based encryption that can be combined with VNFs.
- User-friendly information on service chain operations as well as virtualization tools for analysis and troubleshooting.
- Zero touch provisioning capabilities remove the need for user intervention and replace truck rolls and on-site technicians with automation. This empowers an operator to ship an unconfigured COTS server to a customer site and commission it automatically.
- Embedded cloud: Solves the problems of deploying OpenStack in the distributed telco network
- LTE wireless support: Enables turn-up of sites that don’t yet have wireline connectivity, as well as providing an economical means of resilient access.
- Scalable software -- from small Intel Atom servers, up to large Xeon-based blade servers. Upcoming support for ARM servers.
- Multiplatform hardware support -- including Dell, Lanner, Advantech, Lenovo, HPE, Supermicro
