Vodafone has upgraded its international transport community utilizing software-defined networking (SDN) to attach the multi-supplier components of the community. This community orchestrates all of the telco’s cell and glued information and voice site visitors and serves tons of of tens of millions of customers and third-party web and content material suppliers in 28 nations throughout 4 continents.
Vodafone’s international transport community is the engine of the corporate’s community operations. It contains optical-fibre cables able to carrying and directing as much as 250 terabytes of information site visitors at anybody time. It supplies the important hyperlinks connecting customers, companies and strategic companions by way of tens of 1000’s of cell base stations throughout Europe and Africa and greater than 270 third-party and Vodafone-owned datacentres.
The implementation and roll-out concerned Vodafone community engineers activating an SDN stack on each the web protocol (IP) and optical international web community by deploying the IP and optical space controllers and a hierarchical controller. In accordance with Vodafone, this allows end-to-end multilayer automation and programmability, eradicating the complexity for third-party companies interacting with the community.
The community has been constructed utilizing a multi-supplier and multi-layer hierarchical structure, based mostly on Juniper Networks’ Paragon Pathfinder IP and MPLS SDN Controller, Ciena’s Handle, Management and Plan (MCP) Optical SDN Controller and Cisco’s Crosswork Hierarchical Controller (previously Sedona Netfusion). The totally different elements of the structure talk with one another utilizing open and normal trade protocols and utility programming interfaces (APIs), making a single, end-to-end SDN administration layer.
The digital SDN purposes have been deployed inside Vodafone’s personal cloud and are accessible by way of its geographically dispersed datacentre infrastructure.
Vodafone mentioned the software program improve is the muse on which its wholesale and enterprise clients can progressively add capability quicker and meet future demand extra cost-effectively. It mentioned it has additionally launched new companies and boosted safety at scale.
In accordance with Vodafone, the brand new expertise will result in a community that’s totally automated and programmable and behaves extra like a super-computer. It claimed that adjustments to greater than 620 multi-supplier community platforms could be achieved utilizing software-driven instructions, saved just about in Vodafone’s safe personal cloud.
Johan Wibergh, chief expertise officer at Vodafone, mentioned: “This software program improve offers us a single view on the part of the transport community connecting folks and machines globally. It’ll permit us to offer even quicker and safer connectivity throughout Europe and to different areas. We will frequently and robotically adapt to dynamic peaks in site visitors worldwide, whether or not they’re on account of folks returning to the workplace or live-streaming main sports activities occasions.”
Vodafone mentioned it hopes the improve will allow it to help rising calls for for information on its community, which has seen progress of 15% a yr. Utilizing what it describes as “superior machine studying and synthetic intelligence”, the agency mentioned that sooner or later, it will likely be in a position to anticipate exactly the place community bandwidth is required.
A standard transport community API can also be being made accessible to Vodafone’s international clients and strategic companions, to allow them to enhance the standard and the efficiency of their very own streaming, web and information companies for end-users.