Ericsson Joins OpenStack, Demonstrates Unique Virtual Data Center Manager

SOURCE:  Ericsson

• Ericsson to demonstrate cloud-management solution based on OpenStack’s open-source components
• Virtual data center manager supports multi-tenant distributed clouds and integrates elastic networking over wide area networks
• Automated deployment driven by a service-level agreement drastically reduces costs and time to market

As part of the recently announced Network-enabled Cloud concept, Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) has joined the OpenStack project, an open-source community dedicated to creating cloud software that has achieved strong industrial momentum. Ericsson will contribute to further developing OpenStack to support carrier-grade services and applications. OpenStack provides a flexible alternative cloud management solution that is based on open-source components.

At Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012, Ericsson is demonstrating a unique virtual data center manager solution based on OpenStack. The demonstration will be conducted using a test bed consisting of three data centers, distributed across different continents. Slices of virtual data centers are created at the three physical locations and are bound together through elastic networking. This forms a separate distributed virtual private cloud, with seamless end-to-end operation and multi-tenant support provided by associating one or several distributed virtual private clouds with each tenant.

The physical data centers are divided into virtual data centers, meaning that the physical resources are shared in a secure manner, where the logical resources are securely isolated.

In addition, Ericsson has integrated an automated service-level agreement (SLA) resolution and deployment that allows for differentiation of services and users under classic operator quality of service guarantees, thus providing SLA-enabled cloud services. The tool also saves time and money by automating the deployment of cloud services or applications.

Also at MWC, Ericsson and recently acquired Telcordia are demonstrating an integrated cloud-management stack based on OpenStack. The integration of Ericsson solutions with Telcordia products provides a credible cloud-management solution for provisioning carrier-grade cloud services and applications.

Douglas Gilstrap, Senior Vice President and Head of Group Function Strategy at Ericsson, says: “By joining OpenStack, Ericsson commits to contributing to the development of the OpenStack suite, providing operators with alternative cloud-infrastructure solutions. Our support of OpenStack, together with our work in the Distributed Management Task Force (MTF) on Open Virtualization Format (OVF), will help to bring cloud technologies into the telecom domain, while ensuring support for classic telecom quality of service and the concept of service-level agreements.”