Telecom operator Ooredoo Kuwait has deployed both Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and IT applications on the VMware vCloud for NFV platform.
With the UNIFY initiative, Ooredoo aims to gain from software-defined data center architecture, and technologies such as network functions virtualization and software-defined networking (SDN). Ooredoo is deploying its first service based on virtualized network functions (VNFs) and commodity off the shelf (COTS) hardware as part of an internal multi-year transformation program.
Ooredoo Kuwait’s VNF vendor is Huawei.
VMware vCloud for NFV supported the transfer of the virtualized Core IMS from test environment to Ooredoo’s production IT environment, and enabled Ooredoo to conduct its Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) call.
Ooredoo Kuwait is planning to launch the VoLTE service, leveraging VMware vCloud Director and the VMware NSX network virtualization platform, later this year.
Mijbil Al-Ayoub, director, Corporate Comms, Ooredoo Kuwait, said: “The speed of the unified cloud trial and onboard the VoLTE service functions into our IT network have exceeded our expectations. Our joint R&D project took only two months to complete, and we finalized the development of our vIMS product that can be deployed in a production, commodity infrastructure, automatically in 3.5 hours.”
Ooredoo uses VMware’s policy-based resource allocation features to maintain application service level agreement enforcement, and software-defined networking capabilities of the VMware NSX network virtualization platform to address NFV network scalability needs, multi-tenancy with microsegmentation, capacity on demand and QoS.
