VMware Helping CSPs Innovate with Software-Driven Digital Transformation

At Mobile World Congress 2017, VMware Inc. demonstrated how the company is driving the digital transformation of telecom, cable and mobile operators into agile service providers.

Through VMware’s unified software-defined architecture spanning Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), Mobility and the Internet of Things (IoT), global communications service providers (CSPs) can benefit from potential new revenue streams with sustainable cost reductions, increased flexibility and security and a modernized network that is 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) ready. VMware’s complete portfolio of solutions for CSPs is on display this week in Hall 3 Stand 3K10.

Today, CSPs must balance high customer expectations with business challenges such as increased competition and cost, lack of service differentiation, and new business models. They must simultaneously look internally at how they build their networks for both today and tomorrow, while looking externally for new service opportunities.

Over-the-Top (OTT) providers have the benefit of speed and agility to deliver new high margin services without having the constraints of network build-out costs, eroding revenue and creating customer churn. On the horizon, 5G networks represent the next major wave of mobile infrastructure upgrades.

Accelerating capacity demands from high-bandwidth services such as video and virtual reality, coupled with the distributed nature of infrastructure components in IoT, could significantly impact the reliability, performance and quality of experience delivered to subscribers if networks are not architected correctly. For CSPs’ business customers, mobile computing presents new management and security challenges, creating an opportunity for new managed services offerings.

VMware is a proven, strategic software innovator that is helping CSPs successfully deliver new services faster and improve overall customer satisfaction, while driving down costs. With VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture™ combined with virtual network functions (VNFs) and applications from a rich ecosystem of partners, global CSPs are delivering services such as VoLTE, IMS, enterprise SD-WAN, mobility and workspace management, as well as IoT services for connected cars, smart stadiums and cities. VMware’s ETSI-compliant NFV platform enables network modernization so CSPs can deliver differentiated services today, with 5G readiness for the future.

CSPs partner with VMware to deliver Enterprise Mobility Management and Digital Workspace services to customers across multiple mobile and desktop platforms. On the IoT front, VMware helps CSPs maximize the opportunity by streamlining how they deploy, manage, monitor, and secure IoT infrastructure.

“In the fast-evolving technology landscape, continued success and growth for Telcos and CSPs depends on transforming from connectivity providers to innovators in delivering rich services, content and personalized experiences,” said Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and General Manager, Telco Group at VMware. “Software-defined, virtualized architectures are the catalysts helping service providers modernize their networks, making them 5G ready, and opening their businesses to new possibilities. With VMware’s software-defined architecture for NFV, Mobility, and IoT, CSPs can accelerate service innovation, improve operations and management, and deliver a range of scalable and secure mobile applications and services.”

Foundation for Network Transformation and Modernization –VMware vCloud NFV

With more than 80 NFV deployments by more than 45 CSPs serving more than 300 million subscribers worldwide, VMware vCloud® NFV™ accelerates service innovation and delivery, reduces costs, and simplifies network operations.

The vCloud NFV platform enables organizations to deploy a multi-vendor and multi-function NFV platform today that delivers service automation, secure multi-tenancy, operations management and carrier grade reliability with 5G readiness.

To date,34 VNFs have been certified as VMware Ready for NFV, with many being deployed in production customer environments today. By deploying vCloud NFV platform, CSPs can build, provision and sell new services in days instead of months, positively influence customer quality of experience, and significantly improve OPEX and CAPEX.

Open standards and open source will play a major role in defining the future architectures upon which CSPs deliver services. With VMware Integrated OpenStack, the vCloud NFV platform supports an open architecture for integration and interoperability.

Additionally, VMware is a leader of many leading open source initiatives. VMware recently joined AT&T, China Mobile and the world’s leading operators as a founding member of the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) Project. ONAP comes from the merger of open source ECOMP and Open Orchestrator Project (OPEN-O), two of the largest open source networking initiatives, to create a harmonized and comprehensive framework for real-time, policy-driven software automation of virtual network functions that will enable software, network, IT and cloud providers and developers to rapidly create new services. VMware is also a major participant in OpenStack, Open vSwitch and Open Source MANO (OSM).

Driving Revenue through Enterprise Mobility Management and Digital Workspace Services

VMware enables CSPs to offer a range of enterprise mobility services for customers at all stages of the mobility lifecycle. Carriers resell VMware AirWatch®, the leader in Enterprise Mobility Management, and offer AirWatch as a managed services solution through the VMware vCloud Air™ Network Program. AirWatch enables management and security of a broad array of customer devices, including BYO devices and those sold by the CSP, and enables enterprise collaboration services such as email and file sharing that drive data plan usage.

CSPs are increasingly adding Digital Workspace services through VMware Workspace™ ONE™, which optimizes mobile user productivity and convenience by enabling an “any app, any device” experience. By offering all applications – mobile, web, Windows (including Windows 10), virtual, or cloud – through a single app portal with identity integration for single sign-on, carriers can further maximize revenue from enterprise data usage, software resale and services opportunities. VMware helps CSPs develop a portfolio of professional services that include consultative/strategic, deployment, support, and managed services offerings.

Read this news about the launch of new AirWatch Managed Services

Cost-Effective, Scalable IoT from the Edge to the Cloud

VMware helps CSPs maximize the opportunity for IoT internally, and with customers, by streamlining how they deploy, manage, monitor, and secure IoT infrastructure. VMware supports customers across the entire IoT value chain – things, edge, data, network, applications, and users – with secure, enterprise-grade, end-to-end operations management and infrastructure solutions for IoT. With VMware, customers can manage across millions of things easily, operate smarter with an accurate health of all things and innovate faster by speeding up delivery of IoT use cases.

“IIJ has deployed VMware virtualized infrastructure and management in production across our network services, cloud service and IT environments. Collaborating with VMware, we delivered the IIJ Omnibus Service to transform the economics our CPE-based services. VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture enables us to implement a unified, multi-service platform that simplifies ongoing operations management and delivers the agility to adapt quickly to new service opportunities.” – Shinri Kimura, General Manager, Service Infrastructure Division, Internet Initiative Japan Inc.

“The corporate market is a growth segment for M1, and we have continually enhanced our offerings to better serve these customers through our connectivity solutions and cloud-based data center. Our next-generation platform powered by VMware NSX®, enables us to create a complete network and security virtualization platform, with advanced security capabilities that enable enterprises seeking scalability and better performance.” – Mr. Willis Sim, Chief Corporate Sales and Solutions Officer, M1 Limited.

“As Singapore's first fully integrated info-communications company, StarHub is focused on empowering its customers with world-class information, communication and entertainment services. Virtualizing our critical applications with VMware has enabled StarHub to deliver a more agile and flexible infrastructure that responds faster to dynamic business demands. Hardware resources are better optimized, achieving significant savings without compromising application performance. Applications can be easily moved across servers, providing higher availability and scalability resulting in a seamless and better customer experience.” – John Tan, Chief Information Officer, StarHub.

“As communications service providers undertake massive digital transformation initiatives, they are increasingly investing in modern network architectures, applications and connectivity. We see this as a huge opportunity to offer CSPs a unique combination of scalable solutions to meet their needs. As the de facto industry standard in virtualization, VMware will continue to be strategic in helping to grow our partners’ capabilities and portfolio of offerings.” – Jay Snyder, Senior Vice President, Global Alliances, Service Providers and Industries, Dell EMC.

“Atos and VMware are collaborating to drive network modernization through NFV adoption, which will result in reduced costs and improved agility for CSPs. Together with other industry leaders, we are building a global multi-vendor NFV Laboratory in Grenoble, France focused on testing, validating and demonstrating mission critical NFV services and simulate real-world NFV scenarios. The NFV Laboratory will work with multiple VNF providers to understand and optimize network and business performance based on known and measured performance.” – Paul Davey, CTO, Atos