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Connectem Points to Virtualization as a Solution to 4G/LTE Network Signaling Storms
[February 20, 2014]

Connectem Points to Virtualization as a Solution to 4G/LTE Network Signaling Storms


(Marketwire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) SANTA CLARA, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/20/14 -- Results from testing on the VMware platform by network functions virtualization (NFV) startup Connectem have demonstrated the capability of virtualized solutions to manage unpredictable surges in LTE traffic up to ten times more efficiently than physical infrastructure. In tests leveraging Connectem's virtual core for mobile software (VCM) and VMware vSphere® 5.5 Hypervisor, engineers were able to achieve exceptional efficiencies, using a single x86 Xeon™ blade to process traffic levels that would require up to 10 purpose built blades in a custom, non-x86 hardware environment.



New mobile devices and applications are generating far greater levels of signaling traffic than even their 3G counterparts. Such signaling traffic tends to peak and decline without warning, leading to an overload on mobile operators' core equipment. Signaling traffic is consuming a disproportionate amount of network capacity which in turn has a negative impact on operating cost and has led to some high profile network outages over the past 12-18 months. Operators are grappling with the conundrum of how to provision against such peaks without over-investing in resources that will be required only at irregular intervals.

By using a virtualized environment, mobile operators are able to deploy NFV architectures to add and remove capacity dynamically to handle peaks and troughs of signaling capacity. This enables carriers to manage the signaling storm phenomenon in a cost effective and predictable way.


"We are pleased to work with Connectem and to see the efficiencies achieved between their VCM software and vSphere® 5.5," said Sanjay Katyal, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, VMware. "With this collaboration, we're helping mobile operators transform their networks to handle signaling storms and future network loads through the use of our virtualization enablers." Virtualization Technology: 10:1 Performance ImprovementConnectem engineers, in collaboration with VMware, have recently completed development and testing of how to optimize the efficiency of 4G LTE EPC control plane processing.

Connectum demonstrated the ability to process on a single x86 Xeon™ blade with VMware vSphere Hypervisor the same number of attach requests that, using an equivalent traditional offering, would require 10 active processing blades, or 8 - 10% of the processing capacity to achieve the same results.

"The spectacular results we have achieved on the VMware platform underscore the critical value of virtualization to the stability and revenues of mobile network operators' businesses," said Sachin Kapur, vice president of engineering at Connectem. "Breakthroughs such as these have the potential to change the economics of deploying new mobile broadband networks and we are very excited to announce these results." Connectem VCM uses highly distributed, stateless components to implement their VCM solution. Managing multiple components at process level on a single server and allowing them to independently scale is challenging. Complex interactions between these components limit the vertical scalability on a single machine. By virtualizing cohesive sets of these components, Connectem has demonstrated the ability to manage horizontal scalability and elasticity to address performance. Our engineering tests showed optimal server resource utilization on VMware vSphere® with multiple instances of virtual machines running appropriate groups of vEPC components.

About ConnectemConnectem Inc. was founded to bring the advances of virtualization and cloud computing to the Evolved Packet Core. Further information is available at www.connectem.net.

VMware, vSphere and ESXi are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions Add to Digg Bookmark with del.icio.us Add to Newsvine Contact Valerie Chan for Connectem Email Contact +1 (206) 856-7885 Source: Connectem

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