The New IP Agency (NIA) is today
announcing the NIA NFV Certification Program that addresses the biggest
issue currently delaying the implementation of advanced virtualized
networks: a lack of interoperability between network functions
virtualization (NFV) software from different vendors.
The
NIA's program is supported by the world's leading service providers and
vendors, and will play an essential role in enabling NFV to fulfill its
promise of delivering an open, innovative environment that allows
service providers to deploy next-generation services and applications
quickly, reliably and easily. The certification will strengthen customer
confidence in multi-vendor solutions, reduce service provider testing
costs and massively accelerate platform/service deployment.
"The
NIA certification program is essential to the success of the telecom
industry," said NIA Founder and Secretary Steve Saunders. "By providing
clear, independent, not-for-profit pass/fail interoperability testing we
will help get service providers back on track to deliver on the promise
of virtualization."
The absence of standards for
NFV means that, today, the de facto way to get NFV products from
different vendors to work together is by hard coding each instance of
interoperability. This limits service providers' options when choosing
NFV products, and is not a scalable approach on heterogeneous real-world
networks. Worse, the only way for service providers to establish
whether products from different vendors will interoperate is either to
take their word for it, or perform extensive, time-consuming and
expensive lab work.
The NIA's NFV Certification
Program eliminates these issues. providing reassurance to telecom
customers that NFV is indeed ready for prime time, and that their
investments will have the multivendor flexibility necessary to make good
business sense.
The New IP Agency is a 501(c)(6)
not-for-profit organization that provides information, education,
analysis and testing to support the development of a global economy
based on open, advanced, virtualized IP networks. Key members of
the NIA include ADVA Optical Networking, Boingo Wireless, Colt, Cox
Communications, Deutsche Telekom, Fortinet, Huawei, Juniper Networks,
Korea Telecom and Verizon.
"Our expectation is
that the Certification Program will increase the speed-to-market of
interoperable service chain solutions so that customers can more quickly
reap the benefits of NFV," said Victoria Lonker, vice president of
Integrated Network and Security Solutions at Verizon.
"The
launch of the NIA NFV Certification Program is a critical step forward
for the wireless industry that will help accelerate the adoption of NFV
technology and unlock new business opportunities for service providers,"
said Dr. Derek Peterson, chief technology officer of Boingo Wireless,
and member of the NIA board of directors. "Interoperability is the
necessary ingredient to realize NFV's potential and it's exciting to see
the industry come together to deploy standardized NFV solutions that
work seamlessly across the entire wireless ecosystem."
Testing
for the certification program will be led by the European Advanced
Networking Test Center, (EANTC), an internationally recognized test
center, based in Berlin, Germany, and a long-standing partner of the
NIA.
Emphasis will be placed on VNF onboarding to
VIM/NFVi, as well as NFVO network service management interoperability.
Based on accepted industry taxonomy, ("VNF" corresponds to "virtual
network function"; "VIM" to "virtualized infrastructure manager"; "NFVi"
to "NFV infrastructure"; and "NFVO" to "NFV orchestrator.")
Testing
will be patterned after the TST007 specification under ETSI rules. Each
successful test will be publicly announced via a certificate PDF/logo
identifying the test suite, date of issuance/expiration,
implementation(s) under test and reference ID to an online registry
describing configuration parameters, test cases executed, validated
interoperability partners and other details needed to reproduce the
tests independently.
Under current plans,
certifications will remain in force for a period of 18 months, pending
automated re-testing in the wake of any product changes.
The
initial round of tests is scheduled for publication in May 2018, with
successful test combinations published on the NIA website (www.newipagency.com), as well as a variety of other news media and social media outlets.
For more information, please visit www.newipagency.com