During the past months technology suppliers have been “marketizing” how their products will fit into industry directions such as NFV, SDN and the MEF Third network. However, several issues have surfaced requiring buyers do due diligence. For example, migrating NFV buyers must scrutinize technology dependencies, software architecture and economic pressures.
One concern highlighted recently is functions that are dependent upon proprietary technology, chip sets, etc. Many NFV functions will migrate smoothly, but some capabilities that are dependent upon the specialized technologies, such as appliances may have more challenges.
As Carol Wilson, editor at Light Reading, recently published “Is there a packet performance problem lurking behind NFV that could make the deployment of virtual functions in a typical IT-based cloud environment that much more complicated?” Users should insure that the network functions they invest in today are leveraging standard technologies that can be easily integrated.
Just as important as hardware independence is the software. Can the functions today operate in an easy to deploy, flexible architecture? Can you grow simply add more without having to make costly and challenging network changes? If you must change your current systems, technologies or architectures this may highlight issues that will be even more challenging when you migrate to NFV!
Lastly, the economic impact of NFV to the supplier’s company should be weighed. For many organizations, their investors, VCs and capital markets required and rewarded the manufacturer to develop proprietary technology – good for margins but as the industry has shown not good for end users.
They may have a marketing roadmap but as often the real story lies under the sheet metal.
OcularIP is architected leveraging today’s open based standards. Ask us how our solutions migrate to NFV and we can show you real solutions.
Look for our updates on SDN and MEF’s Third Network and Lifecycle Service Orchestration – LB Networks delivering the future today.