Operations is Key R&D Focus for Alcatel-Lucent IP Platforms

“[R&D work] is in the operations,” Bhaskar Gorti, Alcatel-Lucent‘s president of IP platforms, told Light Reading without hesitation at a recent on-site visit. “Getting a network function to run in a virtualized network is fine, but the reality is that there will be a hybrid world of virtual and physical networks. How do you operate it?”

This is where Alcatel-Lucent is spending its time and money in the final months leading up to its acquisition by Nokia Corp.  In fact, its Naperville, Ill., offices are full of Lean Ops demos that show evidence of this R&D work. Here, the vendor demonstrates agile, New IP networks that can spin up — or down — services on the fly, taking network management down to a matter of minutes. 

Gorti says that amongst Alcatel-Lucent’s customer base of network operators of all sizes, he sees the larger ones seeking a horizontal virtual approach to building NFV infrastructure and orchestration that is independent of VNFs, and smaller players running out of physical capacity and looking to add virtual network elements rather than completely overhaul their networks. Either way, he said, every request for proposal (RFP) now has virtualization on it, whether they deploy it or not. (See Major Change Afoot in Managing Virtualization.)

“It is there today; there is a roadmap, and they want to see future versions and how they will live in a hybrid world,” Gorti says. “Operations is key.”

“There won’t be that big of a business case in moving from physical to virtual,” Gorti said. “There is not a dramatic capex change right away. It’s how do you scale it and run it? We come back to operations.”

Comment:  This author has previously stated that operations and OPEX are key for all the new age networking technologies, e.g. NFV,  Network Virtualization, OpenFlow based Software Defined Networking, and use of white boxes for any or all of the above!

For more information, see:  http://www.lightreading.com/nfv/nfv-strategies/alcalus-nfv-boss-operations-is-key-randd-focus-/d/d-id/719598?itc=lrnewsletter_lrweekly

Related Story:

Alcatel Lucent successfully deployed a monitoring, information, management and control system based on Internet Protocol/Multi-Protocol Label Switching (‘IP/MPLS’) technology. This technology would help Poland’s maritime authorities enhance operational efficacy as well as safety at ports located near the Baltic Sea. Alcatel-Lucent completed the project as a consortium leader, along with the famous technology and consulting multinational firm, Indra.  For more information, see:

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/200093/alcatellucents-ipmpls-technology-secures-polish-ports


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