Network Function Virtualization: Telecom Infrastructure Transformation

Testing the virtualization of core network functions for a telecom operator, reducing infrastructure costs by 45% while improving service agility.

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June 30, 2020 Telecom

Client

A European telecom operator serving 40M subscribers

The Challenge

The operator was virtualizing its core network functions (IMS, EPC, and value-added services) from dedicated hardware to NFV infrastructure. This transformation needed to maintain carrier-grade reliability (99.999%) while enabling faster service deployment and cost reduction.

Our Solution

We tested the NFV transformation including VNF (Virtual Network Function) performance under carrier-grade loads, service chaining and orchestration validation, high availability and failover testing for each VNF, and migration testing from physical to virtual network functions.

Network Function Virtualization is transforming the telecommunications industry by replacing proprietary hardware appliances with software running on commodity servers. The promise is significant cost savings and unprecedented service agility.

Carrier-grade reliability testing was our primary focus. Each VNF was tested for failure scenarios including hardware failures, software crashes, and overload conditions. Failover times needed to be under 50ms to maintain call continuity.

Service chaining testing validated that complex network services — which require traffic to flow through multiple VNFs in specific sequences — worked correctly under various load conditions and failure scenarios.

The migration strategy was live migration — moving network functions from physical to virtual infrastructure without service interruption. We validated this capability for each network function, ensuring subscriber sessions survived the migration.

Key Results

1

Infrastructure costs reduced by 45%

2

New service deployment time reduced from 6 months to 2 weeks

3

99.999% availability maintained throughout transformation

4

Network throughput increased by 30% with optimized VNF placement

5

15 network functions successfully virtualized within 24 months

Technologies Used

OpenStackVMware vCloud NFVONAPSpirentIxiaAnsible

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