Network function virtualization - Future is near

Those who have been working in core telecom would know that for years we have known core telecom nodes to be running on embedded solutions. Traditional network gear requires large spaces, highly controlled environment, multiple types and and specialized spares and consumes lot of power. That also means that it can be supplied only by large network equipment providers and had to be manufactured in dedicated telecom equipment factories. All this to ensure high reliability through layers and layers of fault tolerance which the telecom services demand.

In last few years the computing space, enterprises have seen a huge shift from specialized computing devices (large mainframe type computers) towards use general purpose computers for even high end computing using distributed architectures. It would not be unfair to say that no technology has disrupted the enterprise computing space as much as virtualization.

What started as a small experiment is now powering both small and large corporations to run more and more applications in individual commodity class servers. This has not only reduced the total cost of ownership of computing infrastructure but also made the planet greener by consuming far less power. It made pubic and private cloud possible.

In last couple of here efforts have increased manifold to marry the telecom and virtualization (also known as network function virtualization). It has the potential to disrupt the industry the same way as it did for enterprise computing earlier. Telecom players are working closely with industry suppliers to make this possible soon. Network needs five nines availability and is very sensitive to lags and latency which need to be secured. However we never have been so close to achieve this.

I foresee that in next 2-5 years quite a few transformation projects would be running to move network from current to to hardware agnostic virtualized setup. It would have the potential to drastically reduce the cost of ownership and cost of serving customers but would also enable bringing more innovation. There would be many players (challengers) who would offer more efficient core network applications increasing the competition as well as quality. And most importantly it would also help Telcos reduce there carbon footprint.

The future is around the corner !