Telco - MEC/NFV/UCPE
NodeWeaver News, Monday, June 3rd, 2024
As network functions virtualization (NFV) has gained credence over the past few years, network operators are embracing the idea of separating application logic from the underlying proprietary hardware platforms used to run telecom applications in favor of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware deployed as a cloud infrastructure, on which these functions can run as virtual machines or containers.
The flexibility and cost savings from this approach are significant. The next generation services that will be delivered require data (and infrastructure) to reside at the edge of the network, as opposed to being delivered from a centralized cloud. Consequently, the ability to deliver cloud infrastructure on top of COTS hardware in smaller edge environments is key to achieving these benefits.
The industry has directed much of its attention on OpenStack and its offshoots, Akraino and StarlingX, to try and address these edge use cases. The challenge is that OpenStack was designed for building massive hyperscale clouds, and the problem is that they are now trying to fit it into a use case for which it was not designed.