ADTRAN Introduces SD-Access Accelerator
ADTRAN Inc. has come out with new system integration services to help service providers more easily move to open disaggregated architectures based on SDN principles. The new offering, called SD-Access Accelerator, delivers a pre-integrated R-CORD delivery solution.
R-CORD stands for Residential-Central Office Re-Architected-as-a-Datacenter. It’s part of the ADTRAN Mosaic open source architecture. And it enables service providers to customize and incubate SDN in different operating environments with a minimal upfront investment, says ADTRAN.
“ADTRAN SD-Access Accelerator offers turn-key solutions, making it easy to develop and evaluate minimal viable product sets while quickly adapting business processes,” said Kevin Barnes, AVP of Services and Solutions Integration at ADTRAN. “This can all be done without providers having to overhaul their underlying technology foundation before making a significant investment in SD-Access.”
The more general concept of CORD combines the cloud, commodity infrastructure, NFV, open building blocks, and SDN to bring the agility of the cloud and the economies of scale found in the data center to service provider networks. That spans from the equipment at the home or office customer premises, to the access part of the network, to the telco’s central office.
Google hosted the first CORD Summit last summer at its Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters. Many of the world’s largest telcos are involved with CORD as well.
For example, Verizon has been working with AT&T, SK Telecom, Intel, and Radisys on a mobile version of CORD known as M-CORD. M-CORD aims to lay the foundation for 5G cellular networking and services through support for disaggregated and virtualized evolved packet core, end-to-end slicing from RAN to EPC, mobile edge computing, and programmable radio access network.
Slicing will come in handy for Internet of Things applications in which the IoT device needs just a small slice of the network. It also makes sense for broadcast events that require network resources only for a limited period of time, she added.
“The open source driven model is a fundamental element for the 5G roadmap as it enables extraordinary agility for identifying and responding to subscribers’ needs far more quickly than traditional mobility standards,” said Joseph Sulistyo, senior director of open networking solutions and strategy at Radisys Corp. “The integration of open source EPC enhances the M-CORD platform to provide boundless core service flexibility and brings us a step closer to unlocking the promise of 5G.”
Edited by Maurice Nagle
