OSS developer Dimetis has come out with the OpsNGN orchestration platform. It supports both traditional and new network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) environments.
This orchestration platform can address multivendor environments and work with other orchestrators. It delivers dynamic inventory capabilities, lifecycle service automation, scalability, service assurance, and service and network agility. And it employs the ETSI MANO model to support EMS/NMS, integration to exposed VNFs, NFV orchestration, and VNF managers.
“Inventory integrity is at the very core of a successful migration to virtualized networks,” Stephan Kafer, management executive at DT’s T-Systems commented. “As CSPs manage their physical and logical networks, the complexity of virtualization can be very high. Having a real-time accurate inventory can drastically reduce this complexity while streamlining service activation and enhancing the customer experience.”
The Dimetis orchestrator is just one of many in a crowded marketplace. Management and orchestration, or MANO, solutions are needed to allow for simple provisioning and management of increasingly complex networking environments.
Networking is becoming more complex because networks will consist of both traditional network technologies and new architectures and technologies like the cloud, NFV, and SDN. And as software-centric approaches and virtualization move into the network, managing the network’s fluid and portable assets becomes a challenge. Yet the purpose of implementing these technologies is making it simpler for communication service providers to deliver network resources, applications and services on demand. MANO helps enable that.
In fact, some have argued that network orchestrators are more than simply a solution – they are the new business model that is superseding the previous business models of building and selling assets, providing services, and selling intellectual property such as software. Network orchestrators are “companies that deliver value through connectivity, creating a platform that participants use to interact with the many other members of the network,” notes a July Globe and Mail article, citing as its source Barry Libert, a senior fellow at the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
He is, of course, looking at network orchestrators from a different angle, and cites eBay and Etsy as two examples of network orchestrators. But the point is, whether you’re talking about orchestrators within networks or orchestrators to enable networks of stakeholders to work together, the trend is to create open environments to enable ecosystems of different players to work together to deliver the best outcomes.
If you’d like to learn more about NFV, be sure to check out TMC and Crossfire Media’s newest conference and expo, Communications 20/20, happening July 18-20 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The event will focus on the next wave of technology and innovations that will transcend the importance of person to person contact, disrupting the future of the entire communications industry. Find out more HERE.
Edited by
Alicia Young
