HP today added ClearPath to its OpenNFV Application Partner program, and the companies are already pursuing unnamed joint opportunities, offering ClearPath’s virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE) technology with HP's NFV offerings for service providers.

HP’s OpenNFV platform is kind of a plug-and-play catalog for service providers to select virtual network functions (VNFs).

For vendors such as ClearPath, it means their software is pre-validated on HP’s network functions virtualization (NFV) platform. ClearPath also gains access to HP OpenNFV Labs, offering a shared pool of infrastructure resources, including hardware, software and engineers.

HP counts 10 technology partners and 44 application partners so far. In addition, it announced in July that NEC is a network equipment provider partner.

ClearPath has already qualified its Virtualized Services Platform (VSP) to run on HP’s Helion Carrier Grade OpenStack platform and is currently integrating its VSP with HP’s NFV orchestrator.

A ClearPath spokesman says, "ClearPath does not develop VNFs, in part to avoid competing with our partners (such as HP). Our VSP vCPE platform has been designed from the outset to support third party VNFs, which service providers may select to address their business objectives."

In September, ClearPath said it is gaining more efficiency from its vCPE by using a container-based approach.