VIAVI acquires Expandium for virtualised assurance portfolio

In order to manage operations and customer experience across generations of technology, between wireless and wireline networks, and into new domains such as IoT and V2X, carriers are moving away from proprietary hardware to software-defined services running on off-the-shelf servers. The network itself becomes disaggregated, no longer a topology of discrete nodes, but a more dynamic and shapeable environment which can adapt to rapidly changing demand.

The entire ecosystem supporting the network must evolve accordingly, replacing hardware-based solutions with containerised virtual machines which can respond dynamically as the network shifts.

As VIAVI continues to virtualise its NITRO Mobile portfolio of core and RAN assurance solutions, the company’s acquisition of Expandium adds cloud-native, microservices-based, and 5G-ready mobile core assurance technologies. Expandium uses advanced techniques such as machine learning, stream processing and pattern detection within a platform that is vendor-independent and can connect to heterogeneous data sources, offering analytics and insights for network monitoring, troubleshooting, fraud detection, and more.

“Our major service provider customers are reporting that up to 75 percent of their networks have already been virtualised, and they are expecting their vendors to deliver products that will fit into the new fully virtualised 5G SA architecture,” said Sameh Yamany, Chief Technology Officer, VIAVI. “Through our close collaboration with these customers, we have evolved our assurance technologies to seamlessly bridge the physical, virtual and disaggregated core and RAN. The combination of VIAVI and Expandium will enable us to deliver innovative 5G solutions that offer seamless, virtualised visibility for real intelligence and insight to support even the most aggressive virtualisation initiatives.”

In addition to its solutions for mobile network operators, Expandium is also a leader in monitoring platforms for railway mobile services, including GSM-R and migration to LTE-R and FRMCS. VIAVI will continue to support Expandium’s position in this market. Terms of the acquisition are not being disclosed.