Red Hat Enteprise Linux OpenStack Platform Leveraged by Alcatel-Lucent, CloudBand™ as part of its Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) Platform

SOURCE: Red Hat

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Alcatel-Lucent, a company at the forefront of the move to the cloud for global telecommunications companies, will deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), as the common platform for its Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) solution, CloudBand.

NFV solutions use virtualization technology to consolidate several network equipment types on industry-standard high volume servers, switches, and storage. Red Hat will be part of Alcatel-Lucent’s CloudBand NFV platform, which offers a new way to design, deploy and manage networking services, supporting a flexible network infrastructure needed to move complex applications and services to the cloud.

Alcatel-Lucent specifically chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform for use in managing CloudBand Nodes, the turn-key, all-in-one compute, storage and network node system that interfaces with the CloudBand Management System, along with any other OpenStack-enabled nodes.

Additionally, Red Hat was selected for its ability to enable faster, open innovation through contribution in new upstream OpenStack projects. This collaboration is a product of Alcatel-Lucent’s successful CloudBand Ecosystem Program and Red Hat’s ISV Partner Program in which Alcatel-Lucent holds Premier status.

The Alcatel-Lucent CloudBand node also leverages the previously announced partnership between Red Hat and Alcatel-Lucent’s software-defined networking (SDN) venture, Nuage Networks, to provide a single automatically deployable stack that includes Nuage SDN, Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, virtual storage and management tools.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform builds on Red Hat’s ten year commitment to building an industry-leading partner ecosystem for compute, storage and networking that delivers the highest levels of industry-standard compatibility for an enterprise-ready OpenStack solution. Since introducing its Red Hat OpenStack Cloud Infrastructure Partner Network in Spring 2013, Red Hat has built the industry’s largest ecosystem in support of commercial OpenStack deployments.

Supporting Quotes
Radhesh Balakrishnan, general manager, Virtualization and OpenStack, Red Hat
“Service providers in today’s environment want better control over their products and services delivered to their customers, including not being tied to proprietary equipment, being able to lower CapEx and OpEx, improve time-to-market and deliver innovative and competitive products and services. We’re delighted that Red Hat’s technology has been recognized as best-in-class in the industry for the CloudBand NFV platform and excited that our strength in bringing open source innovation from projects to enterprise-ready products will offer value to all the vendors hosting applications on CloudBand.”

Dor Skuler, vice president and general manager, CloudBand Business Unit, Alcatel-Lucent
“Alcatel-Lucent is dedicated to working with service providers as they begin to move quickly towards the cloud. Working with Red Hat, the major contributor to OpenStack, gives us both the visibility and ability to provide input to OpenStack upstream projects, in order to highlight specific stringent requirements networks demand. The insight that both Alcatel and Red Hat bring – from ETSI NFV to OpenStack – and the CloudBand NFV platform is essential to drive the telecommunications industry forward.”