Operational Expenditure (OPEX) Reduction through Flexible Server Configuration and Maximized User Capacity

Wind River, a network virtualization software company, announced the launch of a new NFV software platform called 'Wind River Titanium Server™ CPE'. This product enables rapid implementation of NFV use cases such as 'virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE)'.

Wind River has strengthened its existing 'Titanium Server portfolio (Titanium Server, Titanium Server CPE)' to maximize performance advantages, significantly increase scalability, and simplify commissioning. Wind River's 'Titanium Server portfolio' consists of commercial NFV infrastructure software solutions that provide carrier-grade stability required by telecom networks.

Recently, CPE application adoption has emerged as an alternative means of reducing telecommunications operational costs. By virtualizing CPE functions that were previously implemented as separate physical appliances, it is possible to streamline computing resource utilization, enhance service development agility, and dramatically reduce truck-roll costs for equipment updates and maintenance at remote locations, thereby achieving revolutionary OPEX reductions.

Virtualized CPE functions provide operational cost reduction benefits regardless of the hosting server location—whether at customer premises, a service provider's PoP (point-of-presence), or a central data center. Due to the powerful advantages provided by this virtualized intelligent network, the telecommunications industry, centered on service providers, continues to drive network innovation through NFV use cases such as vCPE and various software-defined and cloud technologies.

The newly launched 'Titanium Server CPE' platform is optimized for NFV applications sensitive to operational costs, such as virtual business CPE (vBCPE) operated on just two servers. Each server executes carrier-grade computing, control, and storage functions, and through high-performance virtual network functions (VNF), it maximizes the number of users that can be supported by the server, thereby maximizing OPEX reduction. Additionally, Titanium Server CPE ensures carrier-grade uptime for vBCPE services by service providers, preventing cost burdens from SLA (Service Level Agreement) violations that could result from service downtime.

Woo-young Choi, Director overseeing Wind River's domestic network business, explained: "Recently, practical NFV implementation approaches are increasingly gaining prominence, among which NFV-based use cases such as virtual CPE that provide outstanding operational cost reduction and improved development agility are receiving particular attention. As the telecommunications industry continues to focus on the benefits and possibilities that NFV brings, Wind River is providing powerful and innovative solutions that enable telecom service providers to launch new services in the market, minimize costs, while ensuring carrier-grade reliability for services requiring high dependability."

Through the 'Titanium Server' portfolio, an NFV infrastructure platform,
enhanced virtual network function (VNF) performance, increased scalability, and simplified commissioning are supported

The new product features dynamic CPU scaling and improved system scalability. It supports the latest high-performance network interface card (NIC) and is equipped with a virtual switch packet tracing tool. Additionally, "QinQ" tunneling and IPv6 support for all interfaces are possible, with bulk provisioning and automatic deployment capabilities.

Titanium Server CPE was developed and unveiled as a follow-up project to the multi-functional vBCPE reference design recently announced through collaboration with NFV software partner companies Brocade, Check Point, InfoVista, and Riverbed. These four NFV software partners are participants in the 'Wind River Titanium Cloud™ ecosystem', which is a unique partnership program designed to provide optimized standard solutions with guaranteed interoperability based on the Titanium Server portfolio, enabling telecom operators and telecom equipment manufacturers seeking to build NFV infrastructure to accelerate time-to-market.

Michael Bushong, Vice President of Product Management, Software Networking at Brocade, explained: "Collaboration with Wind River in developing the vBCPE reference design is highly significant. By utilizing the Accelerated Virtual Switch on the Titanium Server CPE platform, Brocade's 5600 vRouter is now able to deliver industry-leading virtual routing performance. This is a key element for maximizing total subscriber capacity for vBCPE and significantly enhancing next-generation IP technology capabilities."

The Titanium Server portfolio, an NFV infrastructure platform optimized for the telecommunications industry, enables not only rapid service deployment comparable to levels possible in traditional enterprise networks, but also achieves carrier-grade uptime and reliability that meet the stringent standards of telecom networks. Wind River's Titanium Server, in particular, based on design optimized for carrier-grade Wind River Linux and real-time KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), OpenStack®, DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit) and other open standards and Intel architecture, can guarantee high performance and a high level of reliability that meet customer expectations.

Wind River plans to participate in 'Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016' held in Barcelona, Spain for four days starting from the 22nd, where it will demonstrate Titanium Server and Titanium Server CPE. More detailed information regarding the exhibition is available at the website http://pages.path.windriver.com/titanium-server-cpe.