The Network Gets New Gains With CenturyLink

With businesses increasingly looking at open source networking tools for extra help in development, as well as to major virtualization operations like network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN), getting the network itself up and running to its fullest has become only more important. CenturyLink recently stepped up its own offerings on this front by announcing a new deployment built around the Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter (CORD) system.

The CORD system is an open source development that offers a combination of new technologies like SDN and NFV, placed in a fairly familiar environment of off-the-shelf hardware like servers and switches. Throw in cloud tools for extra agility and a little open source software to help tie it all together and the end result is CORD, a powerful system that can deliver data center power on a comparatively thin budget.

By turning to CORD, CenturyLink could ultimately offer up another major advancement in the ability to offer broadband services via a virtualized

broadband network gateway (vBNG). This was regarded by some as a major “industry milestone,” as CenturyLink notes it's the first carrier to use a proprietary vBNG to support broadband services via CORD. It also, reports noted, represented the latest step in an overall pathway that would produce complete worldwide virtualization by 2019's end. Services were set to include a virtual firewall, software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) systems, and more.

CenturyLink CTO Aamir Hussain commented, “Our CORD deployment is a significant milestone on our path to achieve full network virtualization. This is a key component in our strategy to bring virtual network services to our customers while driving virtualization into our last-mile network, allowing us to quickly and efficiently deliver new technologies that meet our customers' rapidly changing needs.”

It's great news for CenturyLink as well as for its current customer base. Adding new technologies to a current portfolio commonly increases the usefulness of such tools to current customers, and may well go the extra mile in terms of offering features that draw in new customers as well. With a market increasingly turning to NFV, SDN, and similar virtualization measures, CenturyLink being able to offer more—and more that the competition may not be able to quickly follow up on—represents a sound value and a way to keep ahead of the pack.

CenturyLink has a great new slate of offers coming in, and a slate that should keep it toward the tip of the spear in terms of new network-enhancing deployments. 

If you’d like to learn more about NFV, be sure to check out TMC and Crossfire Media’s newest conference and expo, Communications 20/20, happening July 18-20 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The event will focus on the next wave of technology and innovations that will transcend the importance of person to person contact, disrupting the future of the entire communications industry. Find out more HERE.

Edited by Alicia Young