Verizon today named the three vendors it worked with to create its OpenStack-based telco cloud: Big Switch Networks, Dell, and Red Hat.

But Dell was the only one SDxCentral hadn't already reported. In March, we said that Verizon had gone live with a five-data-center telco cloud, and we later reported that Verizon is planning to add 16 more data centers to its telco cloud in 2016.

Verizon’s announcement today focuses on the core and pod architecture of its new data centers.

To validate the resilience of the network functions virtualization (NFV) core and pod design at scale, Verizon and its partners constructed large test beds.

The modular architecture meets five key needs:

• The 12-rack pod design can be replicated at data centers across the United States.
• A leaf-spine Clos design, using centralized SDN control, can take the network from spine to leaf to vSwitch and avoid bandwidth bottlenecks.
• The pod design accommodates unique NFV workloads with logical network requirements that share the same physical leaf/spine fabric and vSwitches.
• Operational complexity is reduced through a simplified lifecycle management of the network control systems relative to the OpenStack control systems.
• Security is provided through monitoring of intra-pod and inline traffic.

The core and pod design also will be adopted in Verizon edge network sites by the end of 2016.

Verizon likes the core and pod design because it expects its data centers to evolve. “We’ve seen it just in the first few months of our deployments,” said Chris Emmons, director of network infrastructure planning with Verizon.

In other Verizon news, the carrier announced last week that it has created an SDN/NFV reference architecture.