New, high-bandwidth use cases are putting operator networks under extreme pressure, from massively growing 4G backhaul requirements to near-ubiquitous cloud adoption and surging demand for business Ethernet services. If those challenges sound all too familiar, you’ll most likely be looking for new ways to evolve infrastructure to maximize agility, reduce time to market for new services, and shrink delivery costs.

The question is, how best to go about it?

Part of the answer lies in migrating to lower-cost, commodity server infrastructure with Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs), in the parts of the network where it makes sense, instead of deploying costly proprietary network devices. This transformative networking model potentially allows significant reductions of infrastructure footprint, as well as hardware, software, power, cooling and support costs.

Additionally, software-based network components are fully programmable, which means you can scale bandwidth on demand and use spare capacity wherever it resides in the network. This helps maximize infrastructure utilization, create and deploy new revenue-generating services faster, and provision connections and services to customers in hours rather than weeks or months.

So why isn’t everyone doing it?

While migrating to commodity hardware running VNFs should, in theory, be a no-brainer, perceived business technology risks are still holding many transformation projects back.

Some operators, for example, are concerned that introducing unknown VNFs may have a negative impact on Quality of Service and, as a result, on customer experience. Another overarching concern is the inability to integrate management of VNFs within the existing billing and operational support systems (B/OSS), as well as the associated business process transformation which is required. Also, there is a fear of being ‘locked in’ with Network Function Virtualization (NFV) vendors.

Atos and Ciena have built a unique partnership and technology ecosystem that allows organizations like yours to transform the network based on NFV principles quickly and cost-effectively in five simple steps

Atos systems integration, IT and consulting expertise and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) partnership, including  Ciena Blue Planet software, addresses these concerns by providing solutions that are pre-integrated and tested.  This provides a low risk, reduced time to market for customers and additionally the flexibility to tailor the solution to customer requirements with no vendor lock-in. Atos expertise with Ciena Blue Planet software addresses any perceived risks to allow our customers to unlock the huge benefits of introducing these new VNFs.

“To ensure any business, and its customers, can take full advantage of virtualization, it’s best to take all possible measures to minimize these kinds of risks before considering bringing new transformative technologies into the network. Atos and Ciena have built a unique partnership and technology ecosystem that allows organizations like yours to transform the network based on NFV principles quickly and cost-effectively in five simple steps, with no risk of downtime to your critical business, or customer-facing, services,” said Rafael Luis Lopez, Vice President of Global Solutions TMT at Atos.

The five transformative “steps”

The Atos and Ciena partnership can help to mitigate the perceived technology or business risks associated with deploying NFV infrastructure and VNFs. Specifically, we deliver network transformation in five simple steps:

1. First, we provide a technology ecosystem that includes best-of-breed infrastructure and virtualized network components from leading vendors, ensuring that functionality and reliability are second to none.
2. Second, we use physical and virtualized components that have been pre-integrated and tested and work together in perfect harmony, ensuring they deliver a great experience for business users and customers from day one.
3. Third, we harness the power of the Ciena Blue Planet orchestration engine – which is a critical component of the solution. This supports automated service configuration and deployment across multi-vendor network domains and multi-vendor VNFs, helping dramatically reduce management and speed up time to market for new services.
4. Fourth, we ensure that the network remains totally vendor independent at the orchestration layer. That means VNFs can be swapped out quickly and easily in the future as new technologies become available, ensuring full control of network innovation roadmap and eliminating the risk of vendor lock-in.
5. Fifth, we provide seamless integration into backend IT systems, including self-serve portals, service catalogues, inventory, billing and charging systems, and OSS. This ensures that business processes can quickly be adapted to support new VNF-enabled services, accelerating time to market.

Together, Atos and Ciena provide the ideal blend of IT and networking know-how needed to transform the network and achieve new levels of scalability and efficiency.

The right partnership to support your business

Together, Atos and Ciena provide the ideal blend of IT and networking know-how needed to transform the network and achieve new levels of scalability and efficiency. While Atos has the vendor relationships and systems integration capabilities to build best-of-breed virtualized environments, Ciena Blue Planet provides unique orchestration capabilities at the network layer, across multi-vendor domains, to automate critical provisioning processes, manage the service lifecycle, and inform long-term planning decisions.

What to learn more? Come visit us at Mobile World Congress or read more here.