Editorial Note: With 5G making the headlines all over the world, it is interesint to note that VMware has joined the bandwagon as well with its network operations transparency and transiton into 5G. 

VMware, Inc. expands its telco NFV portfolio that provides communications service providers (CSPs) with unprecedented network operations transparency and seamless transition to multi-cloud and 5G. Through assurance and automation capabilities that span physical and virtual networks, VMware will give carriers what they need to make the most of today’s networks while moving toward 5G.

CSPs continue the rollout of network functions virtualization (NFV) to improve network and operational efficiency, support new and more tailored services, prepare for 5G and implement cloud strategies. VMware’s latest advancements in service assurance give CSPs a strong foundational NFV platform with advanced networking features, accelerated data plane performance, intent-based assurance and support for a broad set of certified VNF applications to deliver multiple services and applications today and bridge the gap to tomorrow’s 5G networks.

“With the current demands placed on carrier networks reaching new levels, and 5G on the horizon, there’s no room for error when it comes to network infrastructure. Near real-time solutions are the key to identifying and fixing issues in order to keep networks operating. Networks need unified monitoring, automation and assurance across physical and virtualized networks to deliver the highest levels of performance, scalability and resiliency,” said Gabriele Di Piazza, vice president products and solutions, Telco NFV Group, VMware. “Integration of VMware Smart Assurance with carrier-proven solutions such as VMware vCloud NFV and VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud will give our customers the firepower needed to make the most of network resources.”
 
Unified Service Assurance Across Physical & Virtual Environments with VMware Smart Assurance 10
Critical to 5G rollout and telco transformation is the ability to treat hybrid physical and virtual networks as a single network entity and assure services across both environments. VMware Smart Assurance 10 will provide assurance capabilities to deliver service impact and root-cause analysis with visibility across physical and virtual networks, as well as multi-cloud environments. This will help identify how resources are being consumed and whether service level agreements are being met. VMware Smart Assurance will automate discovery of more than 4,000 physical and virtual devices across telco networks, accelerating time to visibility across the network. With VMware Smart Assurance, CSPs will gain an automated approach to operational intelligence to reduce service impact and operational expenses. The solution’s automation capabilities maintain a stable configuration to prevent network incidents while proactively detecting abnormal patterns, providing a high-quality subscriber quality of experience.
 
This new release of VMware Smart Assurance will also deliver support for: NSX SD-WAN by VeloCloud, a new Mobile Core model able to manage and monitor virtual IMS (vIMS) applications, and tight integration with NSX-T Data Center. It will also integrate with VMware Integrated OpenStack and VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), leveraging vROps Machine Learning technology for performance management and dynamic thresholding analysis.

VMware Smart Experience with Real-Time Network Insights
VMware Smart Experience will provide CSPs real-time network insights and enables new revenue streams. A real-time streaming analytics solution providing CSPs the ability to generate actionable insights from their access and core network data, VMware Smart Experience will improve customer experience, optimizing resources and creating new revenue streams. VMware Smart Experience ingests, manages and enriches high-speed streaming data from various mobile network elements and correlates it with configuration, network, subscriber and other details for comprehensive insights– a key value proposition for future 5G networks and edge computing.
 
“As we re-architect MetTel’s network services into a cloud native model, we will use the VMware Telco NFV reference architecture with vCloud NFV at the core and VMware SD-WAN at the edge. This will allow MetTel to provide global services more efficiently and effectively at a scale that meets the current customer volumes, allowing us to be more profitable as we grow,” said Edward J. Fox III, chief technology officer, MetTel. “The VMware solution permits MetTel to provide our enterprise customers a truly unique solution that brings unmatched performance, operability and security to the art of end-to-end networking.”