Patton Electronics, a US-based manufacturer of unified communications (UC), cloud, and Internet of Things (IoT) enabling solutions for carrier, enterprise and industrial networks, has entered the software defined networks (SDN) arena.
It has done so with a network function virtualisation (NFV) project in the engineering lab of Inalp Networks AG (Patton’s European headquarters), located in Niederwangen, Switzerland.
Patton’s SDN project demonstrates the SIP-to-SIP call-control and media-gateway capabilities of the SmartNode SN5300 session border controller (eSBC) implemented as discrete virtualised network functions (VNFs).
Patton invites interested telecom service providers and large enterprises to participate in demonstrations and alpha-testing of the virtual SmartNode (vSN) for integration into their NFV and SDN environments.
NFV vendors require cooperative input from network operators in defining their approach to integrate NFV solutions into a service-provider-managed NFV environment because the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has not yet clearly specified the NFV interfaces to the SDN management and orchestration layer.
Widely respected in the market for reliability, stability, and flexibility, thousands of Patton’s SmartNode VoIP CPE are currently deployed and operating in business-class VoIP services offered by telecom carrier-providers around the world.
Since service providers are still early in the long-term, 10- to-15-year transformation to virtualised networks, Patton’s entry into the NFV market is strategic.
According to a recent IHS Infonetics forecast:
- Service providers cite simplifying and automating service provisioning as their top reason for investing in SDN, which they expect to deliver greater service agility and faster time to revenue for new offerings.
- Revenue from outsourced services for NFV projects will grow at a 71 percent compound annual growth rate year-over-year into 2019.
- Carriers will spend $5.7 billion on SDN solutions by 2019, with NFV software comprising over 80 percent of the $11.6 billion total NFV revenue in 2019.
- Operators want SDN in most parts of their networks, with access for businesses among the top domains for deployment.
Implemented as a virtual machine (VM) within cloud infrastructure, Patton has tested its VNFs with VirtualBox, vmWare ESX, KVM, and OpenStack hypervisors to date.
The Patton virtual eSBC is designed to operate on generic commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) servers based on the Intel x86 processor series.
Next month, Patton will join President Obama and the US delegation at Hannover Messe to showcase enabling technology solutions for machine-to-machine communications (M2M) & IIoT.
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