Tapas and testing: two weeks in Madrid

As from 23^rd January to 3^rd February, the ETSI Centre for Testing and Interoperability organised its first ‘NFV Plugtest’ event, which was hosted by 5TONIC Laboratory in Leganes, near Madrid.

The primary objective was to determine interoperability of vendors’ solutions as well as compatibility with published ETSI specifications.

As service providers start deploying NFV, they’re looking for proven demonstrations of multi-vendor interoperability so that they can avoid any risk of vendor lock-in while leveraging innovative hardware and software products being developed to address this market.

Since the Wind River Titanium Server network virtualisation platform provides features and capabilities for NFV, two members of the team were able to participate in the Plugtest and work with colleagues from many companies on wide-ranging interoperability testing.

ETSI will be publishing a detailed report at a later date, with an overall summary of the event. The results of the testing that were participated in were impressive and confirm industry-wide progress towards compatibility with open standards and interoperability between vendors.

For each testing session, a Management and Orchestration (MANO) solution was run on an NFVI Infrastructure (NFVI) platform like Titanium Server, with its associated Virtual Infrastructure Manager, hosting one of more Virtual Network Functions.

In testing, the company were able to collaborate with a large number of MANO and VNF providers. This workload was handled by deploying three Titanium Server clusters for use during the event.

One was at the office in Santa Clara, California, one at Intel’s facilities in Portland, Oregon and a third at a partner’s location in North Carolina.

Accessing all these clusters remotely, made them available to Plugtest users via ETSI’s ‘Hub for Interoperability and Validation at ETSI’ network, otherwise known as ‘HIVE.’

By leveraging all three of these clusters, a demonstration of full interoperability with nine MANO solutions and fifteen VNFs were made. Some were open-source projects and others were commercial offerings.

In many cases, it was the first time Wind River had done any testing with these products. Recognising the importance that customers place both on multi-vendor interoperability and on compatibility with open standards, these results illustrate how Titanium Server provides critical service uptime and performance as part of deployable, end-to-end solutions.

Plugtests like this one hosted by ETSI are vital as the telecom industry transitions from traditional, fixed-function equipment to dis-aggregated virtualised solutions that leverage best-in-class products from multiple vendors.

Events like this demonstrate that an industry-wide ecosystem can successfully form around open standards and deliver interoperable, compatible products.

Courtesy of Wind River.