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Huawei Develops Strategic SoftCOM Partnership with
Leading Carriers
Jointly Participates in the World's Largest SDN Forum
[Frankfurt, Germany, October 15, 2013]: Huawei, a leading global information and
communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, showcased a number of SoftCOM
solutions at the world's largest SDN forum, the SDN & OpenFlow World Congress 2013.
Jointly developed with the world’s leading carriers, these solutions mark the beginning
of a new phase in the commercial exploration of software-defined networking (SDN)
and network functions virtualization (NFV).
SoftCOM is a future-oriented end-to-end ICT network architecture based on
technologies and concepts including cloud computing, SDN, NFV, and network
openness. It continues to create new value for telecom carriers by helping them tackle
challenges and seize market opportunities during ICT integration. As a substantial step
toward realizing SoftCOM, Huawei launched the SoftCOM Business Initiatives Zoom-in
(BIZ) program which aims to develop strategic partnerships with major carriers. The
BIZ program studies each network field to find application scenarios for SoftCOM and
develops SDN/NFV solutions that can be quickly deployed on existing networks. It also
aims to help carriers benefit from the commercial value of SoftCOM by providing
solutions such as SDN-based mobile backhaul, SDN-based Gi service LAN, SDN-based
Data Center Interconnection (DCI), Cloud IMS/EPC, virtualized STB, Business
Enablement Suite (BES), and Communication as a Service (CaaS). Successfully
employed by many carriers, these solutions help them improve network utilization and
operation efficiency, reduce structural costs, realize quick customized service
provisioning and improve network monetization efficiency.
Huawei's SDN-based Gi service LAN and NFV-based Cloud IMS solutions were among
the highlights of the congress. With the rapid development of mobile Internet, the
demand for Gi-port bandwidth connecting the mobile network and the Internet has
been growing at a fast rate. Adopting a serial structure and static configuration,
traditional Gi service LAN only allows for user and business-type traffic data to go
through a single service path in a pre-determined order. This will cause two major
problems: firstly, expanding the capacity of Gi service units will be costly and will result
in huge pressure on capital expenditure (CAPEX); secondly, the service paths cannot be
chosen or customized flexibly according to the actual demand. In particular, changing
the configuration of the service paths will be extremely complex, and will result in high
pressure on operating expense (OPEX) and a negative effect on the efficiency of service
delivery.
Based on the SDN concept and technology, Huawei developed a brand new Gi service
LAN solution that can support a unified control platform to enable flexible configuration
of service paths based on service type, user type and access network type, among
other on-demand service paths in different dimensions. In addition to saving
approximately 40% of Gi service unit expansion cost as compared with the original
serial structure, the solution will also greatly reduce maintenance cost and the cost of
new service configuration, cutting the OPEX of Gi service LAN by 25%. Huawei's
SDN-based Gi service LAN solution can be deployed quickly through a smooth upgrade
on existing systems, creating commercial value in a short period of time. Huawei has
cooperated with many major carriers and has achieved excellent performance during
tests.
The Cloud IMS solution showcased by Huawei and Deutsche Telekom at the congress
is a successful demonstration of the NVF-based concept and technology, which has
captured the attention of the industry players. Traditional telecom network equipment
has different form factors, and is difficult to maintain with low efficiency. Huawei's NFV
solution supports different hardware platforms (including the universal hardware
platform) and builds the Huawei FusionSphere Cloud OS platform, realizing different
network functionalities with different software functions. It enables the decoupling of
hardware and software, resources sharing, dynamic resource scheduling, reduction in
operator costs, shortened time to market for new services, in addition to satisfying the
special requirements of telecom networks for real-time, high reliability, high
performance, and high security. With this platform Huawei provides the Cloud IMS
solution for Deutsche Telekom and other carriers to realize the dynamic allocation and
scheduling of network resources, and improve resource utilization, network scalability,
and the agility of service deployment.
Running on the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) standard hardware platform, Huawei
and a number of global leading carriers have jointly carried out demonstrations on the
next-generation core network and proof of concept (PoC) testing. In addition to the
features of IMS-based VoLTE services based on the FusionSphere platform, the tests
also verified its reliability, scalability and manageability. The platform is fully recognized
by these global leading carriers and is widely used by them, for example, in cloud data
centers and in telecommunications.
"As a leader and a key contributor to the SDN standards body, Huawei will continue to
work with major carriers around the world to explore commercial values of SoftCOM
and drive technological innovations, promoting the development of IT-based networks
and standardization of the IT system in order to build an open ecosystem," said Jeffery
Gao, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer of Huawei Western Europe Region. "SoftCOM
solutions will help carriers explore new business fields and business models, securing a
place for them at top of the value chain in the era of ICT."
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