Telecom service provider Telefonica today said it will work with Red Hat and Intel to create a virtual infrastructure management (VIM) platform based on open source software running on Intel-based servers.

This work will become part of Telefonica’s Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Reference Lab aimed at helping their ecosystem of partners and network equipment providers (NEPs) test and develop virtual network functions along with upper service orchestration layers.

Telefonica will work with Red Hat and Intel to create a solution based on open source standards to help prevent fragmentation and lock-in while maintaining the level of performance and resilience communications service providers (CSPs) have come to expect from their existing hardware-centric solutions.

Enrique Algaba, Network Innovation and Virtualisation Director – Telefonica I+D-Global CTO, said: “For NFV we need to avoid closed and non-interoperable environments, which would hamper its widespread adoption.”

The NFV Reference Lab will be based on technologies such as Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 V2, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor, Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform and OpenFlow-enabled switching equipment.

Telefonica, Red Hat, and Intel will each commit engineering and testing resources, in open collaboration with partners and the open source community, to enable these technologies to achieve the levels of performance and functionality NFV workloads require to make the vision of the Open Digital Telco a reality.

TelecomLead News Team