Wind River Launches Titanium Cloud Ecosystem to Accelerate NFV Deployment

Wind River, a global provider of software for intelligent connected systems, has launched its Titanium Cloud ecosystem program for Wind River Carrier Grade Communications Server.

Through this program, Wind River and its partners will ensure the availability of optimized, interoperable hardware and software solutions that accelerate time-to-market for service providers and telecom equipment manufacturers (TEMs) deploying infrastructure based on network functions virtualization (NFV). Currently, five industry leaders in NFV announced their participation in the program: Brocade, GENBAND, Metaswitch Networks, Nakina Systems, and Overture; with additional partners to follow.

Like its Titanium namesake, the Wind River ecosystem will build rock-solid solutions based on the Carrier Grade Communications Server platform. Working closely with Wind River telecommunications experts, Titanium Cloud partners will optimize their standard products, available now, to fully utilize the features of the Wind River platform. Wind River is discussing the program and its NFV solutions during the Light Reading Big Telecom Event at booth C4.

Carrier Grade Communications Server is an integrated portfolio of software elements that enables NFV infrastructure to achieve the carrier grade reliability required for telecom networks. Legacy networks deliver six-nines (99.9999%) reliability, or no more than 30 seconds downtime per year. Platforms based on enterprise-class software designed for IT applications, however, typically achieve only three-nines (99.9%), or almost nine hours of downtime per year, which would result in excessive costs and revenue loss. Carrier Grade Communications Server is the only commercial NFV server solution that enables service providers to maintain six-nines reliability as they transition to virtualized infrastructure, allowing them to meet "always on" expectations.

In addition, by accelerating the performance of virtual network functions (VNFs) and providing features that simplify the instantiation, management, and maintenance of VNFs, Carrier Grade Communications Server enables customers to minimize both capital expenses (CAPEX) and operating expenses (OPEX) as they progressively deploy NFV in their networks.

Through its new Titanium Cloud ecosystem program, Wind River works with industry-leading hardware and software companies to develop an ecosystem of interoperable standard products optimized for deployment with Carrier Grade Communications Server. Service providers and TEMs can select these products with the confidence that they have been pre-integrated, validated with Carrier Grade Communications Server, and available for deployment in live networks, providing proven solutions that span multiple layers within the overall NFV architecture and reduce both time-to-market and schedule risk for companies deploying end-to-end infrastructure.

Beyond telecom networks, the program also brings the benefit of high-reliability infrastructure to mission-critical Internet of Things (IoT) applications across markets such as healthcare, industrial, and automotive.

"Realizing a successful NFV infrastructure requires collaboration across a broad ecosystem, ensuring the availability of end-to-end solutions that integrate seamlessly to deliver virtualized services at the necessary levels of carrier grade performance and reliability," said Mike Langlois, general manager of the communications business for Wind River. "Carrier Grade Communications Server delivers a critical element of this infrastructure. Our Titanium Cloud ecosystem program provides a framework for Wind River to work with industry leaders like Brocade, GENBAND, Metaswitch, Nakina, and Overture to deliver standard product solutions that help service providers achieve their critical business imperatives, such as reducing operating costs while accelerating the introduction of new, high-value services."

"Communication service providers are looking for validated end-to-end NFV solutions that comprise interoperable products from multiple suppliers, rather than point products that provide a single element in the architecture," said Sandra Rivera, director of market development Communications and Storage Infrastructure Group at Intel. "The Wind River launch of the Titanium Cloud ecosystem will help address this important challenge. We expect that Titanium Cloud will accelerate service providers' adoption of NFV with validated, interoperable hardware and software, based on the Carrier Grade Communications server running on Intel architecture platforms."