Summary Bullets:
- Transport network elements are likely to remain in existing central offices, even after their control functions have been virtualized to x86 servers.
- In some cases, the x86 servers will be consolidated in data centers that are separate from the physical network, but in others, they will be collocated.
I recently posted a report that describes how traffic demands and the promise of virtualization are leading operators to segregate the functions in the network into two layers – a cloud services layer that consists of the many functions of network that are virtualized into standard high volume x86 servers, and a transport layer that consists of the remaining functions of the network, which are focused on sending traffic across the network.. As report notes, operators are beginning to implement network functions virtualization (NFV), but they are still determining where to locate the NFV servers. The answer, of course, is likely to be in next-generation central offices (COs), headends and/or data centers, but the question remains; just what does a next-generation CO look like? Continue reading “Implications of the Two-Layer Network on Next-Generation Central Offices”