Open Network Featured Article

The central office has long been the hub of the action within telco networks – where their switches and other proprietary equipment reside. But things have changed with the rise of the cloud, growth of video traffic, the proliferation of the Internet of Things, and industry disruption by over-the-top players.

These new traffic demands and competition have led telcos to seek out technologies to allow for more affordable, agile, and open networks. And, having seen Amazon, Facebook (News - Alert), and Google employ such technology in their data centers, the telcos want to enjoy the same benefits.

So, awhile back, the telcos and their suppliers came together to create the Central Office Re-architected as a Datacenter concept. And work related to CORD continues to move forward.

For example, Radisys Corp., this week at Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) Americas, is showcasing Multi-Access CORD and Extensible RAN proof of concepts. These POCs are an industry first, according to Radisys, which indeed has been among the industry pioneers on the agile networking scene.

“The CORD reference architecture meets CSP (News - Alert) requirements for next-gen service delivery, while at the same time freeing them from vendor-locked solutions,” said Bryan Sadowski, vice president of FlowEngine and DCEngine  at Radisys. “Radisys, in collaboration with the ONF, is making the CORD architecture accessible to CSPs for deployment with these innovative proof of concepts as the first step toward Central Office transformation.”

These demonstrations both employ Radisys’ DCEngine open hardware. The Multi-Access CORD demonstration shows how communications services providers can leverage the same CORD data center for both wireline and wireless access. And the Radisys xRAN proof of concept illustrates how CSPs can optimize over-the-air resources by using real-time data analytics related to network conditions.

“From the beginning, one of the main goals of the CORD project has always been to create a general-purpose platform capable of delivering a wide range of innovative services for mobile, residential and enterprise subscribers,” said Guru Parulkar, executive director, Open Networking Foundation (ONF). “Radisys’ delivery of a Multi-Access CORD solution furthers our mission by providing CSPs with one solution that will support multiple classes of subscribers. We are pleased to partner with Radisys and feature this innovative solution in our Partner Showcase at MWC Americas.”