Ericsson and VMware signed a five-year deal that aims to make it easier for communication service providers to deploy Ericsson applications on VMware’s telco NFV platform.

The agreement includes technical collaboration and interoperability testing across Ericsson’s portfolio of virtual network functions (VNFs), billing and charging solutions, automation, and orchestration, with VMware’s vCloud NFV platform.

The two companies, which have been working together since 2012, also announced a Certification Lab where Ericsson’s VNFs and VMware’s vCloud NFV platform interoperability is tested, certified, system verified, optimized, and documented.

They will showcase these solutions at MWC Barcelona next week.

VMware debuted its telco NFV platform at the MWC event in 2017. Last year it added SD-WAN to the platform.

Expanding its commercial relationship with Ericsson “means a more concentrated collaboration to integrate, optimize, and provide interoperability at scale for our combined solutions, enabling speedy onboarding and deployment of VNFs,” said Honore LaBourdette, vice president of global market development for VMware’s Telco NFV Group, in a statement. The partnership will help carriers “accelerate time to revenue,” LaBourdette added.

Ericsson and VMware say they have more than 50 service providers running live production mobile networks with Ericsson VNFs on a VMware platform. Vodafone is one of these customers.

“We have worked jointly with Ericsson and VMware for many years, and have implemented Ericsson’s EPC, PCRF, UDC, IMS, and MSC Virtual Network Functions on VMware vCloud NFV,” said Matt Beal, head of technology, strategy, and architecture at Vodafone, in a statement. “The combination of software from both companies accelerates time to market for new services and enables our customers to fully embrace the opportunities of services like VoLTE and 4G/5G.”