Enterprise IT vendor Brocade today announced new IP offerings for telecom network operators to support 5G services.
Brocade will be demonstrating its new IP offerings for telecoms at the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2016) in Barcelona this month.
The US-based technology major said its IP offerings address the challenges of emerging services such as IoT, M2M, high definition video, inflight connectivity and virtual mobile networking by improving flexibility, cost-efficiency and scalability over legacy networks.
Gabriel Brown, senior analyst for Heavy Reading, said: “There is a desire among mobile operators to introduce virtual mobile core technology to support new services and business models at a low cost-of-production.”
Brocade Virtual Core for Mobile (VCM) is a virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC) product that supports network slicing with independent localization and scaling of the control and user planes.
The Brocade VCM transforms mobile networks by eliminating expensive and proprietary hardware devices, long upgrade cycles and over-provisioning. Telecoms can deploy the Brocade solution in days instead of months.
The same software package can serve as a complete vEPC or a combination of mobility management entity (MME), home subscriber server (HSS), serving gateway (S-GW) and packet data network gateway (P-GW).
The deployment model of the Brocade VCM can be used to create network slices that are optimized for IoT traffic profiles to enable a mobile packet core-as-a-service offering for hosting MVNO services or to support innovative services from mobile operators. The solution interoperates with all major radio and 3G/LTE core network equipment through standard interfaces and bridges 5G capabilities to older networks.
SmartSky Networks, a provider of in-flight data communications, has selected the Brocade vEPC to connect its new SmartSky 4G air-to-ground broadband network to more than 250 cell sites that will be strategically placed across the U.S.
David Claassen, vice president of Network and Service Architecture at SmartSky, said: “With support for separation and independent scaling of control and user planes, the Brocade vEPC solution is enabling us to provide data service across the continent while eliminating redundant functionalities and internode dependencies.”
Based on the Brocade vRouter, Brocade offers mobile edge virtual infrastructure capabilities that integrate routing, IPsec termination and network firewall functions with the virtualization infrastructure in the host operating system. This approach enables MNOs to capture new revenue by extending the cloud to the edge of the mobile network.
Brocade said these capabilities also allow for introduction of virtual network functions in closer proximity to end users as well as a platform for hosting third-party applications, especially vertical industry applications associated with IoT.
Brocade also provides network visibility solution for pervasive monitoring of physical and virtual mobile networks.
Kevin Shatzkamer, chief technology officer of mobile networking, Brocade, said: “The combined offerings for vEPC, mobile edge computing and network visibility provide a future-proof technology foundation well in advance of 5G availability which will help MNOs accelerate new revenue streams today.”
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
