Red Hat NFV event: Why operators need a foundation of trust

Excitement for network function virtualisation (NFV) abounds in the telco industry, and for good reason. Many operators recognise the promise of NFV technology for its ability to offer agile service innovation and faster time-to-market. However, big questions remain around the implementation, governance and security of this technology.

A late-April event in Boston sought to explore these difficulties. Comptel were in attendance for the Red Hat Executive Event, “Building the NFV Ecosystem with Red Hat,” which was presented in conjunction with Intel Network Builders (INB) and Dell. The three-day meeting brought together top executives and senior technologists from independent software vendors (ISV) with the goal of sharing ideas and discussing thoughts around the NFV marketplace.

Simon Osborne
Simon Osborne

It also offered an opportunity for attendees to align efforts, and I am pleased to share that Comptel is a Red Hat ISV partner. This collaboration means that, alongside Red Hat, Comptel will lead the way in seeking resolutions to some of the industry’s most pressing NFV challenges. And as we discovered at the event, operators and the market as a whole remain starved for answers.

Who will lead NFV into the future?

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the meetings was that there is a significant opportunity for someone to lead NFV governance. To this point, no clear leader has emerged, although several technology firms are certainly attempting to stir discussion – Red Hat and Intel as prime examples. There is interest to support and collaborate with ISVs on solving NFV challenges and to serve as the glue or technology that brings everything together.

comptel2At the same time, the industry is still waiting for someone to establish a foundation of trust. Operators need to know how to handle certain aspects of NFV implementation, including the management of CAPEX or the security risks of introducing new software into their infrastructure. There are even vendor-specific questions that need answering: can OpenStack or OPNFV, for example, become the carrier-grade solution that complies with standards and telco operator expectations or as it is becoming more apparent, does containerisation have an important role to play in this space too?

Ultimately, operators need confidence that the NFV technology they implement is going to work, and there remains a massive opportunity for someone in the industry to deliver that trust.

How Comptel lends its voice to the discussion

Many ISVs and technology firms in attendance at the Red Hat event have a vested interest in making NFV successful. Comptel, of course, is one of them. As my colleague, Daniel Tyrode, wrote recently, we feel Comptel has a unique value proposition with regard to both back-end and customer-facing NFV challenges. As a result, we are actively involved in a number of industry groups seeking solutions and standards including INB and ETSI, and our partnership with Red Hat is just the latest of these collaborations.

Comptel customers can trust that our collaborative efforts will better inform our own approach. We remain committed to being on the leading edge of forward-looking discussions on this emerging technology, so that we’re able to offer our customers a higher level of expertise with regard to NFV implementation.

The industry trend is still immature, and there is a lack of definitive answers around NFV. However, with continued collaboration through efforts such as the Red Hat event and future INB and ETSI discussions, we expect the development of a framework of best practices and certified solutions that will drive NFV forward.

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