VMware and Nokia are tightening their embrace to bolster interoperability between VMware’s Telco Cloud platform and Nokia’s software applications. The strengthened ties aim to make it easier for service providers to run Nokia virtualized and containerized network functions on VMware cloud infrastructure — moves that are becoming increasingly important for 5G deployment plans.

The increased interoperability testing will include Nokia’s virtual network functions (VNFs) and containerized network functions (CNFs) running on VMware’s Telco Cloud platform. This will enhance past and ongoing work that has included running Nokia applications on VMware’s Telco Cloud and HCX application mobility platform.

These moves support application migration, workload balancing, and disaster recovery across data centers and clouds. This is increasingly important for service providers that operate in a multi-cloud environment and want to tie their network and IT environments into private enterprise clouds, edge clouds, and public clouds.

One example of this was AT&T’s recent deal with Microsoft to provide the carrier with cloud services in support of non-network applications and the carrier’s deepening push into the cloud. That followed a deal between AT&T and IBM to help AT&T improve and migrate its business applications to IBM Cloud.

Nokia has also installed an on-site lab dedicated to technical certification of its VNFs and software applications on VMware’s vCloud NFV platform. The lab will allow for a more streamlined approach in testing the performance of carrier VNFs and applications running in VMware environments. Nokia’s CloudBand Application Manager, Smart Plan Suite, virtual IP multimedia subsystem (IMS), virtual packet core (VPC), and session border controller (SBC) have already been certified.

VMware earlier this year struck a similar five-year deal with Nokia’s Nordic rival Ericsson. That agreement included technical collaboration and interoperability testing across Ericsson’s VNF portfolio, billing and charging solutions, automation, and orchestration, with VMware’s vCloud NFV platform. They also announced a certification lab where Ericsson’s VNFs and VMware’s vCloud NFV platform interoperability is tested, certified, system verified, optimized, and documented.

Both deals highlight VMware’s increased participation in the burgeoning 5G ecosystem. VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger earlier this year said that telco cloud and 5G represent a “great opportunity to participate in an enormous market.”

Shekar Ayyar, EVP and GM of telco and edge cloud at VMware, earlier this year told SDxCentral that more than 70 service providers were using VMware on “the network side for some form of NFV” and that more than 90% of carriers were using VMware technology in their IT data centers.

“They have historically missed the boat on being a cloud provider or having any benefits from the transformation of enterprises in consuming the cloud,” Ayyar said. “To us, 5G represents both a technical inflection point as well to some extent a fortuitous coming together of things that leads to a new opportunity landscape for telecom operators globally.”

The benefits of connecting 5G networks to hyperscale public clouds and private clouds are just beginning to unfold. Coupling 5G network deployments with an underlying infrastructure transformation designed for cloud technologies will essentially move operators to a more agile, automated, and secure environment, according to Ayyar. “You now have the ability to connect the dots between private, public, telco, and edge,” he said.