HP NFV System accelerates deployment of Network Functions Virtualization

HP has introduced HP NFV System, a pre-integrated network functions virtualization (NFV) platform designed to enable communications service providers (CSPs) to accelerate production NFV deployments. HP NFV System is pre-integrated with HP Helion OpenStack® Carrier Grade, providing an open source based cloud platform to support CSPs reliability, scalability and performance requirements.

HP also introduced NFV Director 3.0, providing management and orchestration capabilities that enhance the flexibility and scalability of CSPs current operations support systems (OSS), as well as new analytics capabilities to help harness NFV data to enhance real-time decision making. In addition, HP unveiled new services to help CSPs transform their infrastructure for NFV.

NFV offers a new way for CSPs to design, deploy, and manage networking services. By decoupling the network functions from proprietary hardware appliances, CSPs can accelerate the introduction of new, compelling services quickly and cost-effectively.

As the telecommunications industry shifts from successful NFV proof-of-concepts towards production deployments, CSPs, network equipment providers (NEPs) and their software and services partners require stability, high performance and carrier grade reliability at every layer of the NFV architecture. This requires platform infrastructure vendors to provide end-to-end systems design, validation and support to ensure continuous availability of critical network functions.

Production ready NFV solutions
HP NFV System brings together HP hardware and software to create a pre-integrated solution bundle optimized for NFV workloads. HP NFV System kits are built based on HP’s extensive NFV proof-of-concept experience and are designed to handle a variety of NFV use cases. The kits are designed with an optimal mix of hardware and software to simplify and accelerate NFV deployments, providing customers a simplified end-to-end experience from ordering, deployment, operations, lifecycle management and services. Kits are designed as building blocks that will allow customers the flexibility to start small and scale out as requirements increase. HP NFV System consists of:
· HP NFV Starter Kit – An all-in-one kit comprised of compute nodes with carrier grade performance, control nodes in high availability configuration running virtual infrastructure management (VIM) software – HP Helion OpenStack Carrier Grade, as well as physical infrastructure management (PIM) software and storage nodes. HP NFV Starter Kit is a complete turnkey solution designed to help CSPs quickly and effectively deploy NFV clouds.
· HP NFV Compute Kit – Comprised of server nodes that run virtual network functions (VNF) workloads, combined with carrier grade capabilities that enable fast packet processing required in telecommunications applications. HP NFV Compute kit can be added to the HP NFV Starter kit to augment its workload processing capacity, providing customers a flexible scale out path.
· HP NFV Control Kit – Consists of HP Helion OpenStack Carrier Grade VIM software and PIM software, including HP OneView, HP Intelligent Management Center and HP Central Management Console. HP NFV Control Kit is designed for customers running custom, limited trials reusing existing infrastructure elements with minimal CAPEX spend.
· HP NFV Storage Kit – A pre-configured solution that can be integrated with HP NFV Starter Kit to provide additional capacity for storage intensive applications like content delivery networks (CDN). HP NFV Storage Kit simplifies integration with existing HP NFV System environments, reducing time to roll-out new services, minimizing OPEX spend.

“Many telcos and suppliers have done NFV proof-of-concepts and are now ready to move to production. To do that, they need solutions that are open, carrier grade, and easy to deploy,” said Saar Gillai, senior vice president and general manager, Network Functions Virtualization and global lead, Telecommunications, HP. “HP NFV System provides an integrated, pre-tested, deployment-ready NFV hardware and software platform to get customers up-and-running quickly and confidently.”

OpenStack technology to meet carrier grade requirements
HP Helion OpenStack Carrier Grade builds on HP Helion OpenStack to provide CSPs and NEPs with a highly available, high performance open source cloud platform capable of running the most demanding VNFs.

Pairing HP’s OpenStack technology expertise with proven carrier grade technologies from Wind River, HP Helion OpenStack Carrier Grade enables CSPs to accelerate the deployment of VNFs by providing unmatched performance in virtualization and virtual switching, and market leading latency and failover characteristics. It concurrently provides the benefits of a cloud deployment, provisioning and lifecycle management model for applications using standard OpenStack software APIs and interfaces.

HP Helion OpenStack Carrier Grade is available pre-loaded in HP NFV System or separately.

Enhanced NFV orchestration and real time analytics
HP NFV Director 3.0 provides enhanced management and orchestration (MANO) capabilities that streamline bridging of NFV and telecommunications resources, as well as enable faster VNF on-boarding. It combines operations support systems (OSS) and IT management capabilities in a comprehensive, multi-vendor NFV orchestration solution that automate service and infrastructure management to enhance the flexibility and scalability of CSPs current OSS systems.

New HP NFV analytics capabilities in HP NFV Director 3.0 are powered by HP Vertica, providing CSPs the ability to make decisions in real time using NFV data to improve uptime, traffic steering, resource, application and network usage. Predictive analytics gives CSPs critical insights on trending as well as historical capacity usage and threshold crossing warnings (alarms).

HP NFV Director 3.0 with optional HP NFV Analytics is available fully integrated with NFV System and HP OpenStack Carrier Grade or separately.

Technology Services that help guide a CSPs transition to NFV
HP Technology Services now offers consulting services for CSPs to help ensure that the underlying infrastructure is ready and optimized for NFV. HP Trusted NFV Platform Transformation services span strategy, proof-of-concept, assessment, validated active design, integration, solution support and comprehensive program management.

In addition HP Technology Services provides environment-wide support coverage that CSPs require for their NFV journey. HP has decades of experience providing an enhanced and proactive support experience to CSP’s through dedicated call handling and access to highly experienced technical specialists who understand Telco applications and infrastructure.