CenturyLink has announced this week that it is aggressively working to transform its existing core network into an SDN and NFV-based environment and will virtualize 40 percent of its global IP core network locations by end of 2015 with plans to have full global virtualization coverage in its IP core network and data centers by 2018.

CenturyLink’s Programmable Services Backbone (PSB) will be mobilized by Ciena's Blue Planet NFV Orchestrator, and the PSB platform will bring SDN and NFV functions to CenturyLink's core and metro networks, and new next-generation CPE.

Below is a blog post highlighting the news from James Feger, Vice President of Network Strategy & Development at CenturyLink. The full post can be seen here.

Network Virtualization Will Give Business Customers More Control Over Their Services

Much has been written and discussed about how businesses can benefit from software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) capabilities. It is a technology trend that sounds complex, but in reality, it is a simple concept of convergence.

SDN and NFV technologies make it easier to bring network, cloud, data center and applications together, allowing customers to have more control over their services. Here’s an in-depth look at what this technology trend means for customers:

Read the full blog post on CenturyLink.com