Telefónica announced Thursday that it worked with NetCracker to complete an end-to-end virtualized VPN as a proof-of-concept (PoC), part of the carrier's effort to provide more dynamic enterprise services on wide-area networks (WANs).

While the partners previously tested isolated elements of NetCracker’s software, this test — combining software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) — applied to business services that can be delivered across the Telefónica footprint, says Mark Bieberich, senior director of strategy with NetCracker.

The VPN PoC, driven from virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE), included a full orchestration and self-care stack from NetCracker. The idea was to allow a customer to do things such as activating security features, specific to the customer's preferences, on a per-user basis and on a per-location basis. These services could be activated through a self-care portal.

Self-care creation of services is one way SDN and NFV could help speed up service-provider operations.

“The rising complexity of the WAN network is a significant drain on our time-to-market KPIs,” said Eduardo Guardincerri, service development and planning director at Telefónica Business Solutions, in a statement.

Bieberich says NetCracker, a wholly owned subsidiary of NEC, is working with Telefónica to deliver new SDN and NFV systems across a number of organizations. “We are an incumbent supplier in their existing network, but we are engaged in a wide variety of new applications," including a new metro network being built across Spain, he says.