Facing unprecedented traffic and rapidly evolving customer expectations, global telecom providers are accelerating their adoption of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) to increase network agility and mitigate costs. OpenStack has emerged as the NFV infrastructure platform of choice.

The OpenStack Foundation today released a comprehensive report on the adoption and business cases driving NFV deployment among the world’s leading telecom providers. Titled “OpenStack Foundation Report: Accelerating NFV Delivery with OpenStack,” the report was developed by an OpenStack community team comprising telecommunications company representatives and other telecom-focused members. The report is available to download free of charge from the OpenStack website. 

NFV is changing the networking landscape by offering telecom providers a way to significantly diminish reliance on expensive, proprietary hardware while at the same time dramatically increasing the speed and agility with which new network services are provisioned for clients when compared with traditional networks that rely on proprietary, purpose-specific networking hardware. Telecom providers are the driving force behind the development of NFV technology, which leverages cloud computing, software and automation for networking infrastructure. NFV promises to expand the portfolio of revenue-producing services and reduce CapEx and OpEx burdens.

The adoption of NFV is considered to be in its early stages, but the NFV market is projected to grow dramatically. Infonetics Research forecasts a fivefold increase in the NFV market, reaching $11.6 billion by 2019¹. SNS Research estimates a compound annual growth rate of 54 percent between 2015 and 2020². A 2015 Heavy Reading global survey found that nearly 60 percent of telecommunication professionals are actively exploring NFV³.

Already, numerous global telecom leaders have chosen to implement NFV with OpenStack. AT&T, Bloomberg LP, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, NTT Group, SK Telekom and Verizon are among the organizations documented using OpenStack and NFV in the new report.

Brief case studies on several of these deployments are provided in the report, which describes:

• The technological and businesses advantages that NFV provides to the telecom industry
• The integral role that OpenStack software and the OpenStack community are playing in NFV development efforts, particularly in conjunction with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the Linux Foundation Collaborative Project, OPNFV
• Why OpenStack is the perfectly suited architecture for (and thus considered “synonymous” with) NFV
• Specifically how OpenStack-powered NFV is being deployed by numerous carriers and enterprises in the telecom industry, including AT&T, Bloomberg, Deutsche Telekom, NTT Group, SK Telecom and Verizon.

NFV in the Spotlight at OpenStack Summit in Austin, April 25-29

The OpenStack Summit taking place this April in Austin will include a two-day track devoted to telecom/NFV user presentations, workshops, panels and collaborative sessions. This track is co-sponsored by OPNFV. Discounted Early Bird Registration is available through March 11. Members of the media can contact jennifer@cathey.co for information about event registration.