VMware today released the 3.0 version of its vCloud NFV for OpenStack edition. It’s a full OpenStack suite, including compute, storage, networking, and the virtual infrastructure manager (VIM) layer, comprising an end-to-end NFVi platform.
Just recently, VMware released the fifth version of its VMware Integrated OpenStack (VIO). Gabriele Di Piazza, vice president of solutions for VMware’s Telco NFV Group, said VIO 5 is a component of today’s vCloud NFV for OpenStack release. “In VIO 5 we added specific telco capabilities,” said Di Piazza. “In this case, VIO 5 is the VIM layer.”
A big part of today’s release includes VMware’s NSX-T Data Center. VMware NSX is the company’s network virtualization and security platform. NSX-T Data Center refers to the iteration of the NSX platform that works across multiple clouds.
“NSX-T Data Center is the cornerstone for our VNF strategy,” said Di Piazza. “With NSX, we can create a single virtual overlay across public and private clouds. We are starting to provide a multi-cloud environment in all of our products.”
For today’s vCloud NFV-OpenStack, the company has boosted NSX with specific carrier grade features for resiliency, failover, and container networking support. It’s also added intent-based assurance with a suite of root cause analysis and proactive monitoring.
“It’s a major release that delivers a complete NFVi platform, which is really tuned for telcos,” said Di Piazza. “The underlying theme here is openness, open standards, support for Kubernetes. We’re involved in OSM and ONAP. These are the core topics here.”
VMware says its NFV solution is deployed with more than 50 service providers, supporting more than 300 million mobile subscribers around the world. “With the imminent arrival of 5G, a new approach to the telco network and cloud is required to solve for the hyper distribution of virtual network functions, applications, and data,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager of VMware’s Telco NFV Group.
Key advancements in the newest release of vCloud NFV-OpenStack include:
- Accelerated NFV Performance: NSX-T Data Center adds DPDK-based techniques that deliver accelerated data plane network performance. Beta tests by customers such as NTT Com, Telia Company, and Telefonica of the new NSX managed virtual distributed switch in enhanced data path mode have shown three- to five-fold network performance improvements depending on packet size.
- Carrier-Grade Networking: The platform will deliver increased network resiliency through fast link failure detection and bare-metal edge networking support with extended security, performance, and policy management. And the release offers native support for the Container Networking Interface (CNI).
- Intent-Based Service Assurance: New capabilities include service onboarding and operations; capacity planning, forecasting and reclamation; advanced issue isolation and remediation; and dynamic performance optimization.
