EMC Provider Cloud System

At Mobile World Congress, EMC Corporation announced the Provider Cloud System (PCS), a software-defined Network Functions Virtualization Infrastructure (NFVI) reference architecture designed to enable communications service providers’ (CSPs) to deliver distributed, multi-service, carrier-grade cloud solutions quickly and economically.

In today’s communications service provider market, advanced software and Internet and mobile connectivity are combining to lower barriers-to-entry, enabling new entrants to offer traditional telecom services without having to make the large capital investments that have historically been required. At the same time, many providers are finding ways to bundle telecom services with newer services like streaming media and public cloud hosting to generate incremental revenue and increase customer loyalty. To compete in this new world, communications service providers need a platform enabling them to rapidly build and deliver new services with a minimum of operating expense and maximum speed.

Click to enlarge

Provider Cloud System delivers carrier-grade availability and reliability, blending automation, programmability, and predictive analytics to support next-generation workloads. Firm’s PCS reference architecture is based on Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) industry standards and is designed to leverage technologies from Vmware, Inc.

Comprised of an NFVI layer, advanced data and security services, and a management and orchestration layer, the PCS makes it possible to deliver traditional and next-generation telecommunication services, and to use big data and analytics for communications service providers to optimize operations and create new revenue opportunities. Using virtualized platforms such as that prescribed in the PCS reference architecture, research shows that communication service providers can achieve more than 60% lower TCO over non-virtualized approaches.

Click to enlarge

Scalability and carrier grade availability
Underpinning PCS is a modular NFVI stack that can scale from a single node to large distributed environments. This scalability is enabled by software that can cluster server, storage and networking into a platform that hosts virtual network functions (VNFs). VNFs include traditional telecommunications services, such as the software that implements cellular networks, co-existing side-by-side with nontraditional services, such as cloud hosting and media and content delivery. Carrier-grade availability is provided by management and orchestration software that helps ensure resiliency and six nines availability across the entire environment and by company’s DR and data protection technology.

Provider Cloud System delivers:

• Choice: Providing flexibility with standard x86 hardware and integration with open standards and API instrumentation at all layers.

• Agility: Management and orchestration software enables the provisioning of different NFVI personalities to support a variety of VNF workloads.

• Intelligence: Big and fast data capabilities combine real-time intelligence with Data Lake technology to optimize network operations and unlock new use cases.

• Automation: Advanced software services provide the carrier-grade data protection and service assurance features that operators require.

Partner ecosystem
With the ability to choose software components that fit their needs, communications service providers can dramatically increase the flexibility and agility of their business. Service providers will be able to offer new value-added services on a unified, virtualized infrastructure while shortening the introduction of those services.

The company supports a thriving community of VNF and mobile network solutions providers, including Affirmed Networks, Inc., Cellwize Wireless Technologies Pte Ltd., and Versa Networks, each of whom has recently validated their offerings in connection with PCS reference architecture. The company is providing a platform on which partners can build services from common blueprints, and collaborate together using DevOps best practices to build services in completely new ways.

The Provider Cloud System reference architecture is available through firm’s professional services and company’s sales representatives.

Michael Sullivan-Trainor, executive analyst, telecom, Technology Business Research, Inc., said: “By embedding carrier grade platform composition within a dynamic cloud infrastructure, the EMC Provider Cloud reference architecture provides the proven reliability operators need to guarantee QoS for their end customers. While the telecom industry has struggled to shape the cloud to look and act like a telecom network, EMC’s new solution demonstrates the fulfillment of critical requirements that can be realized in the cloud with all the economics and speed to market value it provides.“

Michael Bushong, VP, product management, software networking, Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. , said: “NFV and SDN are transforming the communications service provider network from a tactical data transport to a platform for innovation that is open, programmable, software-enabled, and utilizes COTS hardware. We’re excited to reinforce our strong strategic partnership with EMC to deliver critical virtual and physical network functions enabling carriers to provide disruptive New IP-based services.“

David Wright, VP, operations, Telecom NFV group, Vmware, Inc., said: “The combination of EMC’s Provider Cloud System with VMware’s production-proven NFVI brings together technology from the leaders in virtualization and cloud into a carrier-grade offering for communication service providers of all sizes. Whether starting with small edge deployments or building out at data center scale, operators get the benefits of customized, pre-integrated hardware and automated management and orchestration software from EMC, with the industry’s most trusted and widely deployed network virtualization platform from VMware.“

David Hudson, GM, telecom transformation, EMC, said: “Massive changes in communications, collaboration, mobility and content present today’s communication service providers with unprecedented opportunity. To help customers thrive during this period of massive transformation, EMC is delivering scalability, carrier-grade reliability, and choice with the Provider Cloud System reference architecture.” (see video)

Research study