In
early November, at VMworld 2019 Europe, VMware announced its
Project Maestro telco cloud orchestrator and VNF
Self Certification program. Project Maestro is an automation engine made to
help providers launch their services faster in multi-cloud environments. Due to
the era of 5G fast approaching and cloud computing becoming a much more popular
option in recent years, Project Maestro aims to fill the gaps in many people's
time and expertise, streamlining the process of creation.
VMware
VP of products and services Gabriele
di Piazza said, "This will accelerate multi-cloud operational agility,
help carriers launch new services faster and fundamentally simplify deployments
of virtual network functions and network services." While the preview has
already come out publicly, Project Maestro won't launch in full until early
2020.
Project Maestro's Details
The
design engine is game-changing, mostly because of that automation aspect.
Services providers can define and apply policies automatically for
"day 0" to more complex "day 2" operations. Project Maestro
will also onboard and orchestrate workloads from the virtual world to distribute
from the core to the edge, from private to public clouds for "true"
unification. The orchestration of this whole process is how Project Maestro
gets its name.
According
to di Piazza, automation hasn't developed widely and has seen "a lot of
starts and stops." That's why VMWare created Project Maestro as a
model-driven answer. Generic VNF managers integrate any SOL-compliant
architecture, but VMware seeks to expand this idea. With the self-certification
process, they'll handle infrastructure and orchestration under one banner.
Self-Certification Program
VMware
announced more than just Project Maestro. They also launched an extension to
their virtual network function (VNF) certification program, called VMware Ready
for NFV. VMware's Ready for NFV allows the testing of third-party VNFs with the
VMware vCloud NFV platform. The updated has self-certification options,
allowing VNF vendors to automate the certification process and testing within
the cloud.
Di
Piazza added, "The whole program is something that we can actually provide
to a partner if they would like to certify. We provide them a tool kit and they
can run all the automated tests and basically, we are just checking and
evaluating their results. We are really trying to ease as much as possible the
ability to onboard additional services and additional applications."
Competition
VMware
considers its chief competitors to be equipment vendors selling the single
vertical stacks of hardware and software for NFV. They haven't named names, but
notable vendors of that sort include Nokia, Huawei and Ericsson, all of which
have NFV lines of their own. Other potential competitors are the system
integrators that seek to lock telecom companies into multi-year projects and
binding situations. VMware will also have to keep an eye on other multi-cloud
platforms and service providers.
VMware's
best foot forward is its cloud-native software with open, standardized APIs
that work with at least 120 different VNFs. That much wiggle room allows its
users to have as much flexibility and freedom as possible without contractual
obligations. Despite being open, flexibility provides security for users and
their cloud innovations.
Waiting for Launch
As
said, Project Maestro is looking to launch in full by early 2020. As of early
November, however, VMware has released a technology preview for users to check
out. While we wait for 2020, the rest of the world will watch on with bated
breath as the dawn of 5G draws ever closer and other companies release their
cloud-based, 5G-compatible innovations for use in our world of tomorrow.
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About the Author
Kayla Matthews is a tech-loving blogger who writes and edits ProductivityBytes.com. Follow her on Twitter @productibytes to read all of her latest posts!