HP Launches Integrated NFV Kits to Help Get NFV Into Production

HP released a pre-integrated Network Functions Virtualization system designed to help communications service providers (CSPs) bring NFV into production to help design, deploy and manage networking services.

Its four new NFV kits, each designed for a specific set of NFV needs or a combination, act as building blocks to scale out NFV. HP backs up its integrated platform with optional consulting services for the infrastructure. The HP Trusted NFV Platform Transformation services offers strategy, assessment and overall solution support. The entire portfolio is meant to provide a simplified end-to-end experience from ordering, deployment, operations and lifecycle management and services.

NFV allows CSPs to package functions traditionally performed by specialized physical appliances into virtual machines. However, NFV is still largely in early stages, with many remaining in proof-of-concept stages. HP argues the new solution is what these CSPs need to bring it into production.

The focus on the part of many with NFV initiatives has been making NFV carrier grade. In order for NFV to enter production, it must provide stability and reliability so HP has integrated best of breed hardware, software and services into its platform. The pre-integrated bundles are optimized for NFV workloads, available in different “kits” based on needs. Each kit is a tuned building block.

“Many telcos and suppliers have done NFV proof-of-concepts and are now ready to move to production,” said Saar Gillai, senior vice president and general manager for NFV and Global Lead Telecommunications for HP. “To do that, they need solutions that are open, carrier grade, and easy to deploy. HP NFV System provides an integrated, pre-tested, deployment-ready NFV hardware and software platform to get customers up and running quickly and confidently.”

HP NFV Starter Kit is a turnkey solution designed to help CSPs quickly deploy NFV clouds. It comprises compute nodes with carrier-grade performance, and control nodes in high availability configuration running virtual infrastructure management (VIM) software.

HP NFV Compute Kit is focused on fast packet processing required in telecommunications applications. It can be added to the starter kit to augment workload processing capacity, or scale out the Starter Kit.

HP NFV Control Kit is designed for customer, limited trials reusing existing infrastructure elements for those that don’t want to spend more on infrastructure. It includes a variety of control and orchestration capabilities. The kit also includes software such as HP OneView, HP Intelligent Management Center and HP Central Management Console.

HP NFV Storage Kit can also be integrated with the Starter Kit to provide additional capacity for storage-intensive applications like Content Delivery Networks. It features simplified integration with existing HP NFV System environments to reduce time and operational expenditures associated with rolling out new services.

The HP NFV system is pre-integrated with HP Helion OpenStack Carrier Grade, an open source-based cloud platform. This is paired with Linux technology from Wind River, designed for virtualization and virtual switching performance, leading latency and failover characteristics. HP Helion OpenStack Carrier Grade is available either pre-loaded or separately.

HP also introduced NFV Director 3.0, which provides management and orchestration capabilities. Director 3.0 also includes analytics capabilities for use in real-time decision making. The analytics are powered by HP Vertica.